And here we are, in Desert Hot Springs, basically having made full circle from where we started, a mere ten (yes, TEN) years ago, it's unbelievable but true!
But what a ride it has been! The things we have seen!
(Jeez, I sound like Dr. Seuss!)
Nine years ago (4/19/01) we were on our way to our second camp-host job in Gold Beach, OR, and camped at Caliente Springs, this campground's 'sister' park, a couple miles down the road. This is how we looked:

And here we are today. Same difference! I think we still look pretty good for such an old rig!



The same mountain is still sitting in the background there .. duhhh

A little less snow than in '11 though, this spring has been very hot so far up here.
Like it's sister, Sky Valley RV Resort is a pretty park, lots of mature palms and colorful landscaping:

Spring is already in full swing over here, like Arizona, these southern states go pretty much straight into summer after a couple of weeks of warming up in March.

That's the RV there at the top left amidst those blazing magenta Bougainvilleas! They're like weeds down here, same as the Lantana and Oleander ..

Both parks are very popular for their mineral hot springs (13 springs on each property!), and we've spent some leisure time soaking in the balmy hot water of the pool (90F) and the hot tubs (104F!).

 

                                       

There's also a few ponds .. always nice to see a little water in the desert ..

And of course it attracts all kinds of birds and water fowl ..

          

The day after we arrived it was Easter. It's not a Holiday we 'do' much about but some eggs are usually involved and I always try to decorate a little with some spring flowers and so on. Being in the desert there wasn't much available this year though, so I had to do with the outside cacti ..

                    

At least the French toast for breakfast got spruced up a little by 'Peeps' ..



The one thing Caliente does have, but this park is lacking, is a little 9 hole executive golf course. We played it 9 years ago, and went for a repeat this time around ..

The rest of the week, in between playing golf at several different courses in the area (Palm Springs has 150 golf courses!), we checked out a whole bunch of RV Parks and Mobile Home parks to see if any could be contenders for future winter destinations.
We've ruled the obvious bad ones out and took down the info on the ones we liked. 

It will be at least two years before James will be licensed, so we won't be back until than, but we at least have a rough idea of where we want to be or, even more important, where not.
We're even debating renting one of the park-models that are popping up in all parks, it might be a cheaper way to go than bringing the RV down or even buying a second RV to park down here. Well see!

Like I mentioned, the weather has been unusually hot for this time of the year (of course, just our luck), but worse than that, it has been very, very windy.
Apparently the months of April and May are notorious for high winds and they aren't kidding!From our arrival on Saturday until now we've had constant winds of 25-30 miles/hr with gusts of 40-50.

 And. It. Just. Doesn't. Stop! All Day, all night!

Aaaarrrgghh!

Can you see the wind moving these palms?

Oh well, two more days to go, I'll survive. We'll be back on the road on Saturday! Next stop: somewhere midway California.

See you on the road! 

 

Lake Havasu at Mesquite Bay

Well, as you can see "We are not in Kansas Florence anymore, Toto!"
Yes, hold the presses, but totally according to plan, we actually did leave on Wednesday!

After picking up the RV on Monday we cleaned it (it was actually surprisingly clean), and moved all our stuff back in.
On Tuesday we cleaned the house, had a little fare-well happy-hour with the neighbors, and spend the night already in the RV (while still in the driveway).

On Wednesday morning we were up bright and early due to the little white monster, aka Merlin, who didn't want to settle, and yelled non-stop through the night! We didn't sleep a wink!
Oh well, it got us out even earlier than we thought, so not all was lost ..

Morning rush hour around Phoenix was done and over with when we drove through, and the rest of the drive to Lake Havasu was smooth and uneventful ..

Our first glimpse of the Colorado River, just past Parker

We arrived at the campground at the north end of town around 2pm and quickly set up.
By that time the temperature had risen to 85F, not too bad but we very happy to be able to turn on the AC!
We had a few small repairs to take care off, the kitchen faucet was plugged and both microwave lights were kaput, but fortunately there was a Home depot not even 10 minutes away (and a Walmart and a whole shopping-mall!) so we got that quickly resolved!

Just in time for happy hour! This sunset was actually the next evening, and by the time I took the shot it was almost over, but you get the picture!

We actually managed to get a good night of sleep that night. Merlin had seemingly come to terms that the RV was home again and only yelled twice. Good boy, Merl!
While it was still cool, we went for a short early-morning walk into the Havasu National Wildlife refuge. There's a trail-head entrance right at the back of the campground. Cool!

After that we spend the rest of the morning checking out the campgrounds in this northern part of town, to see if any of them would qualify for a future snow-bird destination, which was the reason we made this detour to Lake Havasu to begin with.

Funny enough, we since than have come to the conclusion that we like our park the best. Several others were pretty enough but either too expensive, too cramped or too busy, so we would actually pick the one we're at!

While in the neighborhood, we checked out a few of the pretty bays along the Colorado River. These are only about 5 to 10 minutes away from the campground, so very convenient for cooling of or/while swimming on a hot day!

Even closer by is Castle Rock Bay, I could actually walk over there in about 10-15 minutes..

It's pretty and quiet and perfect for fishing or swimming, and if you have a canoe or kayak you can actually make your way through the reeds and reach the river.

While we were there early the next morning it was very quiet and we met some of the local wildlife ..

  That's a Western Grebe there on the right in the picture.

Another thing we're taking into consideration while considering an area for future stays, is of course how many golf courses there are!
And in that aspect Lake Havasu is rather lacking unfortunately. There are only three courses of which one is an executive one, which can be fun, but is not too much of an interest for long-term use.
One of the other two has 2 separate courses, which adds another course to the equation, but it is rather pricey, Actually, both are.
All in all, they will work, but there's not too much to choose from of course .. not like Palm Springs for instance, where you have almost too many to choose from!

So, we'll keep Lake Havasu in mind. Maybe for a month's stay or so in the fall or spring, while going north or south, but maybe not for much longer than that.

James golfed bot courses, and picked up a brochure at one of them that mentions a lot of RV parks and golf in Yuma. We of course know that it is a major hub for snow-birders, but we had not really looked into it that much.
We will now though, since it looks like the RV parks there are cheaper, as well as the golf, with many courses to choose from. Even two interesting looking RV & Golf Resorts!
We'll see. We're still 2 years out from coming south for the winter again, so we have some time to think things over.

For now, we spend some nice and quiet days out here. Just enough to recuperate from all the activity lately of finishing the job, packing and planning and being on the road again after 5 months.

 

Tomorrow we'll be moving on again. 

Palm Springs, here we come!

Happy Spring Y'all! Although ... no hyacinths over here, here it looks more like this:

                                  

Same beautiful! These enormous flowers are from the Argentine Giant Cactus (I think ..), and they emerged from these ginormous buds:

                                            

The Beaver-tails are starting. That pink is so beautifully bright!

The bees have found them too!

And how about these gorgeous Prickly Pears ..

                           

Also, the Agave I've been keeping my eye on here in the neighborhood has reached it's final height and is starting to flower too!

    

For some different excitement, we had a pleasant surprise today when the Shotcrete-people showed up unexpectedly, one week ahead of schedule!
(Well, in fact they're two months late, but who's counting).

At first it looked like they had a different size of pool in mind ...

Just kiddin ..!!

                    

They came with a crew of four, and four hours later we had a (rough) pool! Wow!

It's a beautiful thing!

On one of my walks this week I 'cut through' some side yards, and ended up on a different side of the pond at the 17th hole than normal:

You can just see our house there on the left, that white triangle is the backside of it, and the green of the 17th hole on the right.
Its where I happened to come upon a little group of fairly rare ducks (for here) enjoying the calm waters :



They are Cinnamon Teals, small 'dabbling' ducks, who overwinter here in the south-west.
Look at that gorgeous color!
They had company from this little Pie-billed Grebe, a diving bird who spends almost more time under water than above:

They are one of the smallest species of ducks, making them fast flyers

They are one of the smallest species of ducks, making them fast flyers

For our 'fun' this week we golfed at Palm creek Golf and RV resort in Casa Grande.



We'd golfed here before a couple of weeks ago and I really liked the place. It's a 'full 18-holes' par 3 course (some are more a par 4) and very doable for me, being a somewhat 'shorter' hitter.

It is beautifully landscaped, lots of palms and lots of water of course (Palm Creek), which makes for very lush surroundings here in the middle of the desert!

Huh, what, that's just a coffee break ... oh, yeah, of course we had pie!! I used the last of the blackberries I picked last summer in Idaho and added some blueberries and raspberries for a mixed-berry pie!
Fresh out of the oven, it looked like this:

By the way, I almost forgot, but as usual we had Corned beef for St. Patty's day ..

                                             

                  You can't ever say Hess-es don't eat well!

              

Well, that was all. Five more days to go and we'll be on the road again!
This coming Monday we'll pick up the RV from the storage place, and will park it in the driveway for 2 days for a thorough cleaning after which we'll be moving all our 'stuff' back in. Since most of the work is done by now, James has the truck already mostly loaded.

On Wednesday we'll head out, and our first destination will be Lake Havasu, about 240 miles from us.

I'm beyond excited!