Day 134: London bridge is falling down (to Arizona)

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Ben

It was a beautiful morning in Craggy Wash near Lake Havasu City, AZ. When on a downward slope, the easiest way to level the RV is to drive the back of the SUV up onto some blocks:

I went for a morning ride with my son to explore the wash:

Craggy wash is quite popular. I climbed the mountain shown in the first photograph and looked to the west:

And back down to our RV. Our neighbors had a daughter the same age as ours. They played together a bit. It sounds like they are on the road permanently, as she has always been home schooled:

The view to the east:

We drove into Lake Havasu City. In 1968, Robert McCulloch bought the London Bridge and had it reassembled in Lake Havasu City as a tourist attraction. A block of “English” shops have been built at the foot of the bridge:

Behold, the bridge (yawn):

After lunch we headed south to dispersed camping outside of Quartzsite, AZ, also known as the RVing capital of the world. More on that tomorrow. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 133: Classic cars and labyrinths

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Ben

It’s an overcast morning here at the Pioneer Casino. The views aren’t great, but the price is right:

We went to Don Laughlin’s casino to view the two classic car collections on display:

The docent let the kids sit in the Delorean:

They had a collection of antique slot machines as well. The top row includes a machine that dispensed golf balls as the prize as opposed to coins:

I love the rumble seat:

Poor Edsel, I don’t know much about cars, but its history is interesting:

TripAdvisor showed a set of five labyrinths just out of town, so we poked around until we found them:

I find them tedious and don’t see the point, but the kids had fun doing timed runs through them:

We stopped at a Target on the way out of town and the sunset just happened to be amazing:

We headed south to overnight in Craggy Wash, a swath of BLM land just north of Lake Havasu City, AZ. I’m very excited to have sunset be an hour later now that we’re in the Mountain time zone! See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 132: Bike ride to Hoover Dam

Posted on December 17, 2013 by Ben

This morning, before we left the Hacienda Casino, I photographed a failed weld on one of our GCI Outdoor director’s chairs. I e-mailed it to GCI and they will be mailing a replacement to Grandpa Glenn’s house. Thanks GCI!

There’s a gravel trail from the Lake Mead visitor center to Hoover Dam that follows the old railroad used to build the dam. I was interested in riding the trail because it has five tunnels. My parents drove up from Henderson to ride with us:

I rode with our son on from the midpoint down to Hoover Dam:

It was quite a climb back up to the trail where we caught up with the rest of the group. The white line on the islands is the “bathtub ring” that shows where the water level used to be before withdrawals started to exceed deposits:

After the ride, we drove South and arrived in Laughlin, NV. We did our laundry in neighboring Boulder City, AZ, then came back to Laughlin. We’re overnighting at the Pioneer Casino. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 131: Lake Mead NRA, Day 6

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Ben

Another amazing sunrise at the end of 8 Mile Road here in Lake Mead NRA:

We had a productive morning in homeschool:

I worked with our son on a button and LED project for Arduino that illustrates the use of for loops and arrays:

Meanwhile, our daughter continued her work in Scratch:

After lunch we went for a farewell kayak trip. It took a bit of work to get out of our local bay and be able to look south into the vastness that is Lake Mead, North America’s largest manmade lake. The far shore is about 10 miles away, and that’s across the narrow axis of the lake:

In this photo of our return paddle, our RV is visible just to the left of the leftmost kayak:

The kids wanted to have a “campfire” using tumbleweed. The stuff burns really fast:

A moment of truth came when we had to leave our campsite and tow our RV back to the main road. There’s a 500 foot long climb with an average grade of 10%, max grade 13.5%, and that’s rutted gravel. I put the Sorento into “4×4 low” mode, and in 2nd gear at 10 mph and 3000 rpm, we climbed out without any slipping or skidding. Very impressive! I’m glad I bought off-road tires for the SUV a few months back. Here’s a view down the hill towards our site, but it doesn’t really convey the steepness very well:

Here’s an elevation profile of the hill:

Leaving at sunset, we headed back to Boulder Beach to dump/fill/shower/fill/dump, then drove another couple miles to the Hacienda Casino where we’re overnighting in the parking lot. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

We will miss Lake Mead NRA, and will definitely come back again!

Day 130: Lake Mead NRA, Day 5

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Ben

Today we did a day trip to Valley of Fire State Park. I left early to ride my bike there, and Trish and the kids left later to arrive by car.

I hit the road 30 minutes after sunrise:

We all arrived at Valley of Fire at about the same time. I changed and stowed the bike in the trunk, and we checked out the visitor center:

We did a hike in the White Domes area of the park:

Our daughter checks her work:

We got into a slot canyon:

Amazing patterns in the sandstone:

After our hike, we had lunch and then drove to Atlatl Rock, where ancient petroglyphs, estimated to be 4,000 years old, are carved into the stone. The Atlatl can be seen at the top of the scene: