2018 January | rvSeniorMoments

Jan 22

Balloon Bust 2018

Well, it happened again . . . high winds put a kibosh on another balloon fest.

Havasu Balloon Fest 2018 (Friday, January 19th through Sunday, January 21st) fizzled from high winds and rumored bad balloon sites.

From what I saw the only hot air balloons that went aloft did so on Thursday morning, January 18th. Plus, I don’t think these balloons took off from the newly designated “Pilot Field” sites in the Lake Havasu State Park. Maybe it was all the food and entertainment vendors hemming in the Pilot Fields:

The New Balloon Lift Off Site

Rumor has it that the ballooners didn’t like the new Pilot Fields because they were too small and/or too close to the city.

Anyway, the only things I saw happening at the new Pilot Fields were eight balloons inflating and then deflating on Friday and Sunday mornings (Saturday was too windy). The balloons, however, never took off.

On Friday morning, a lot of people — on the ground, on the lake, and in the air — were watching those eight balloons inflate/deflate.

On Sunday morning, I didn’t see a single boat watching the balloons.

Hats off to the nightly cover bands who had to perform in less than great weather conditions.

Jan 12

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We “armored” our Jeep

UnderCloak System

Our 2008 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is our daily driver so we’ve been skittish to do much off roading. In fact after the Wisconsin Jeep Jamboree last July, we swore off off roading until we figured out how to protect our daily driver.

There’s basically two methods or a combination of the two: (1) “lift” the Jeep or (2) armor it. Lifting allows you to put on larger tires which raises the Jeep up. This allows you to miss objects in the road that you would normally hit if not lifted up. Armor is just protection, usually metal, that you can add to the front, back, sides, and underneath your Jeep.

Our first Jeep, a 1993 Jeep Wrangler, was lifted about 4 inches. It could travel over most trail obstacles, but the ride was awful. It really wasn’t a daily driver.

Since we were worried that “lifting” our 2008 Jeep might ruin its rather smooth ride, armor it was!

This Wednesday we had the UnderCloak Integrated Armor System installed. Our Jeep is now a couple hundred pounds heavier as the metal armor is 3/16-inch steel . . .