It’s Getting Crowded — It Must Be Balloon Fest

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The 4th Annual Lake Havasu City Balloon Festival kinda creeped up on us.

Jan returned last Thursday from visiting her relatives in Florida and then Balloon Fest arrived on Friday. It’s interesting because there is far more traffic and congestion than balloons in Lake Havasu.

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta (their words, not mine) has over 700 balloons while Lake Havasu’s is under 100, but it doesn’t take much to congest this city. Even the mail was late today.

Balloons Over Havasu

Anyway, a lot of folks rolled into our campground this weekend — especially from nearby California — causing a brownout (low voltage) Saturday morning which forced our RV electrical system to disconnect from campground power and to start up our coach’s generator.

But that’s the worst of it. The balloons were fun to watch and the couple who camped next to us turned out to be a teacher and elementary school principal who were just starting to RV.

Both Ellie and Flirt went swimming today. Flirt chases stones and Ellie just wades. They loved it.

Here are some photos of a Jeepin’ trip to nearby Parker Dam I took last week . . .

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Jeepin’ in the Desert

On Monday our friend Jim took Jan and I in his yellow Jeep for some off road exploring in the desert north of Lake Havasu City. We were joined by his Canadian friend in a white Jeep — it’s smart to travel with others when going off road.

We spent about 4 hours in the desert, most of which was spent exploring on foot a wash that had formed a long gorge. After walking into the gorge a mile or so, we had to turn back because a large rock fall blocked our path.

Here are some photos from the trip . . .

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Merry Christmas from Lake Havasu!

I had hoped that this night time video of the 31st Lake Havasu Boat Parade would have turned out better, but . . . it’s kind of Christmassy and it is shot from the London Bridge:

Here’s the “official” boat parade video.

Merry Christmas from Tom & Jan!

Gambling at the Indian Casino Across the Lake

So every hour on the hour (from 6:45 am until Midnite) the Tecopa ferry boat departs from the London Bridge dock and takes its load of gamblers across Lake Havasu to the Havasu Landing Resort & Casino.

From our campsite we can see the ferry come and go, and exactly 20 seconds after it passes our campsite, the waves from the Tecopa’s wake roll onto the shore. Now that’s regular.

Jan & I plus our friends Jim and Marianne took the ferry to do some gambling. The boat ride was fun.

However, entering the casino was like walking into an ashtray which made it difficult to concentrate on losing (as I did — but just $20). I was able to take a photo inside the casino of Jan playing a slot machine, but a guard told me not to take anymore. He had a gun. I put the camera away.

The photo is shaky and blurry which pretty much summarizes our gambling spree.

Jan @ the Slots

Jim and Marianne made the trip fun, but I think we’ll stick with Megabucks and Powerball.

The Great Parker Dam Pontoon Boat Expedition

Buzzard Cove panorama

On December 2nd we rented a pontoon boat with a 150 HP engine !!! and headed down the Colorado River towards Parker Dam with our two friends Jim and Marianne.

We were hoping for 7o-degree temps, but got low 60s instead. Brrrrrr. Lots of wind chill.

The trip was a couple of hours long from the Crazy Horse Campground Marina to Parker Dam and then back and under London Bridge . . . cold, but we loved it . . . here’s the movie . . .