Readers' Oasis Books

I’m looking for James Michener’s book on Mexico so stopped in at Reader’s Oasis Books which boasts over 180,000 books plus videos etc.
This bookstore was started 15 years ago by Paul and Joane Reader. They started with a tarp, some poles and a thong. Yup - he loves the sunshine. This has gained national notoriety as the 'naked man's bookstore'. Didn’t have the book.

Quartzsite, AR

Quartzsite, AZ

This ‘Desert Phenomenon’ was established in 1897 on the site the of Old Fort Tyson, a privately built structure for protection against marauding Indians (who were here first), because there was a well providing water for travelers.
This quiet community of 3,500 people year round, swells to a million winter visitors, becoming the 4^th largest city in Arizona in the winter. It is advertised as the worlds largest Rock and Gem Show in the world and it certainly is vast with swap meets, craft fairs, RVsales, hobbies, vendors, gem and mineral shows. Many RVers boondock all over the desert for free. Here is Hadji Ali's (called Hi Jolly ) cairn. He came here from Syria, in the 1850s along with camels for carrying freight, ordered by the Army. The camels were great in the desert with little water, carried heavy loads of freight but alas, their feet were too soft for the rocky soil and the plan didn't work out.

Ehrenberg, AR

This tiny town is in a very old mining area, started back in the 1800's. We're located by the river in the Colorado River RV Park. Outside the park is an old graveyard with old graves just covered with stones and a building is painted to depict the old fashioned jail.

Off Road Racing

Boy, this town fills up on the weekends. A special draw this weekend is the SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge, the start of the off road racing season which ends with the Tecate Baja 1000 in November, a 1000 mile race the length of Mexico. It started with the ‘Laughlin Leap’ Friday, where Trophy Trucks raced 110 mph over a ramp jump to fly the farthest. 150 feet is the record so far. There are 17 different classes of cars, souped up buggys and trucks here, racing on the desert sand. In October, they do a “Race for the Cure’ and the women drive, some in pink cars, with their husbands and brothers as pit crews and raise lots of money for Cancer causes.
We finished our week of gambling, eating out and movies and head down to Ehrenberg tomorrow.

Bullhead City, AR

We’re at Ridgeview RV Resort in Bullhead City, in Arizona which is across the Colorado River from Laughlin There is an hour difference so you have to watch the times for shows. We’re at the 3 corner area where AR, NEV and Calif meet. You can see the many casinos across the river. This area is well known for its colorful mining history. Here's and old ore cart and miner's cabin.

London Bridge

We went off to Lake Havasu City today. Robert McCulloch purchased 26 square miles for $73.47 per acre in 1963 and started selling lots surrounding the lake. The Colorado River runs right through it and is created by the Parker Dam. The lake can store 211 billion gallons of water and is most important for irrigation right down to Mexico. There are so many boats in the summer you could almost walk across the lake.
The London Bridge was built in London In 1831, from granite quarried in Dartmoor, Devon. It was bought by Robert McCulloch, dismantled into 10,276 pieces, each stone marked with a number and shipped 7000 miles to it's new home, bringing a unique tourist attraction and a large piece of history with it. You can see marks on the stone from German shells fired during the Battle of Britain in world War II. The cast iron lamposts were molded from French cannons captured during the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. It was reconstructed on dry land on a peninsula, with the sand supporting the 5 arches, 930' length and 49' width - all 22 million pounds. A one mile channel was dredged under it and the peninsula became an Island.

Laughlin Lights

This City was really prodded forward by Don Laughlin, the owner of the Riverside Casino and Hotel here in the city named after him. It has everything from the Watch Man, rings, Antique Car Museum, bowling, pool tables, 6 movie theaters, etc. We've seen 3 movies so far. It is a 24/7 experience of entertainment, shows, casinos and nightlife 7 days a week. All the Casino's are lined up along the Colorado river and you can get around by the Riverwalk or little boats scooting up and down the river. Here's the night view of all the neon signs from where we are.

Off to Laughlin, NV

Got away on a beautiful sunny day. Hooked up the car to be towed and the lights didn’t go off. Seems we pulled out the wrong fuse, so got the manual out and then did it right. This RVing isn’t for the faint hearted , there’re always a new challenge every day, sometimes because of something you’ve forgotten because you haven’t done it for a while.

As we got farther along I 10 the ocotillo cactus were there. They look like a bunch of dead brown sticks but later in the year, they will be bright green with red flowers at the tips. We saw cholla, buckhorn, ocotillo and a few yucca cacti.

We drove through straight roads and flat land, with rims of mountains, small hills surrounding us. The desert seems greener this year. Today, we saw a first, hundreds of garbage bags along the roadside for miles. They must have had the penal crew out to pick it up. The way the winds blow here, this stuff comes from miles away.

Arrived in Bullhead City after a 4.5 hour drive and settled it. Went off to the casino for a late lunch and a little gambling. Home by 6 p.m. with no money and watched the hockey game.

the Angel of the Desert

We've been having a great time here at Catalina. Carol and I got together for pool games here, then over at Desert Pools where they are. I played Bunko Tue night with the women and came in 2nd - time to get some money back. Barb and Dave and Carol and Robert joined us at the VFW for their first time. Ted and Elaine came for corned beef and cabbage dinner Thur. and of course 5 hard fought games of Pegs and Jokers were played. I'm playing ladies pool at Desert Hot Springs today and tomorrow we head for Laughlin.
If you look carefully you'll see the Angel that is formed by the shadows of the canyons on the mountains. You can make out her head with hands forward in a praying gesture. It is said that she looks over the valley to protect everyone.

Sirloin BBQ

Well we are certainly enjoying being back at our home park. Friday, Ron played crib and Sat, we played in the pool tournament. We had 14 people there, the most this year and I did well and came third. We had happy hour with Ian and Wendy from Langley. We'd met then before Christmas and heard about their trip home for the holidays with horrendous snow storms through the mountains. They even had a picture where they could barely see the car in front of them. Of course the road was closed after that.
We invited the neighbours, Dave and Wendy who are from Nelson and he used to work with Elizabeth Wallach, my brother-in-law's mother. Small world.
Sunday, we went for the 1/4 sirloin beef hamburger at the clubhouse. We've won about 16 of these as prizes for bocci, crib and pool tournaments, plus 6 soft ice cream cones. Here's Ron showing his skill at bocci.

Back to Catalina

We've had a great week here in Indio.
I met Carol when we were playing pool and she asked me to play some pool with her. So we played Monday, took a lesson with Al on Tuesday and we'll get together when they come to Desert Pools.
We had happy hour with Van and Edie and Clint and Nadine Monday because the latter are heading out and we wont see then again this year.
We went to the FMCA Rally at the fairgrounds today and enjoyed that. We bought an outdoor firepit which I'm delighted about. It's so nice to visit outside as our interiors only hold 8 well and it's gets cool when the sun goes behind Mt. Jacinta by 5 p.m.
This is the clubhouse and pool area with shuffleboard courts and horseshoe pits in the middle. there are 22 rose bushes lining the patio area and they are beautiful and smell wonderfully.

Indio Dates

We did catch up shopping today for worn out quick connect hose connections, milk and passing Shields Date farm and store, I had to stop for a date shake - simply delicious. Here are the date palm trees with the fruit covered so birds don't eat it. Look closely and you'll see the ladders attached up on the trees that are used to climb up to harvest the fruit. This area, the Coachella Valley has more than 70,000 acres of land irrigated by the Colorado River through an extensive irrigation system, so 95% of the nation's dates are produced here, along with crops of grapes, citrus fruits, artichokes, corn, carrots and peppers.

Joan's Birthday

Today was Joan and Pat's birthdays, so we met at the Elephant Bar Restaurant for dinner, 12 of us. The decor has elephant coffee tables, bamboo, palm leafed overhead fans, 'zebra' striped seatcovers, 'giraffe skin' wallcoverings and many jungle touches.

Ron's New Truck

Not really, but this is a serious big truck!!
Here you see the the gondola lying down while the fans inflate the envelope (balloon) before the burners are turned on to heat the air and make the balloon rise, up and away. There were 17 specialty, shaped balloons including Tony the Tiger, Humpty Dumpty, Noah's Ark, a Pirate Ship, to name a few with about 70 in total.
There was a soup dinner at the Clubhouse tonight so 6 of us went for 3 different kinds of soup and then played pegs and jokers afterwards.
Happy birthday to son Paul.

Hot Air Balloons

A most interesting afternoon. We went to the Ford Trucks Red, White and Blue Polo and Balloon Festival. We'd never seen hot air balloons before and the whole process was amazing. The crew vehicle, drove over the field with the folded balloon ( envelope ) being laid out behind them a foot at a time or it was dragged along in the basket by 2 people laying it out. The tether ropes stretched out in front making this even longer. They needed at least 6 crew and were short so asked for help to pull the cloth out the sides to lay out the shaped figure. I helped pull out the Energizer Bunny which weighs 1200 lbs and is 166 ft. tall, as big as a 16 story building, when inflated. His shoes are size 98 EEEEE. The gondola, a wicker/rattan basket, holding pilot, passengers and propane tanks is laid on it's side as large inflation fans inflate the balloon on the ground and the burners then heat the air inside to make the balloon rise. Most balloon, basket etc weigh 350 - 450 lbs. The Lead balloon was launched first with an American flag to honor the Marines from 29 Palms serving in the war. When the crew gets the balloon up, it follows the air current and the rest of the crew jumps in the chase vehicle, driving down the roads to follow the balloon and pack up the balloon with the crew when they set down wherever they can and bring them home.

New Neighbours

We moved down to Indio today for our week out and when we got parked we found our new neighbours were old friends, Ken and Joan from Surrey and Ted and Elaine were just down the way. We met them through the Barbers back about 1994. So of course we got together to visit.

New Years Day 2008

Can't believe it - 2008. I can remember hoping all our computer and data wouldn't crash when we went into the new millennium 2000 and here we are 8 years later.
We spent our morning enjoying the Tournament of Roses Parade. This is an amazing parade which has been going on for the last 119 years. Every single item on the decorated floats must be original plant material, nothing artificial. They use rice, grasses, tree bark, sesame and poppie seeds as well as every flower you can imagine. We wonder how they think up all these new things every year. There were over 20 million blossoms used, 90 different types of roses alone and the creators had to take in mind the weight of the glue to attach these so the float chassis and drive capabilities could still function properly. There was about 12 different horse entries, 20 bands, incredible decorated floats with everything from a seascape to animated Honda that turned into a rocket ship and thousands of the most beautiful flowers. Great parade.
I got a tripod for my camera for Christmas and am loving it, so you'll see more of me in the blog now. We took our decorations down today.