Hittin' the Road and Hopin' the Road Don't Hit Back

OK, all of the titles aren't prize winners.

Hi again. We awoke to some clouds in the sky. It stayed warm last night. We went to bed at 11:30 and it was still over 100 degrees as it was this morning when we woke. We need to pick up our mail this morning so we decided to make a morning out of it. We will pick up the mail, go out to breakfast and fill one of Cheryl’s prescriptions because we don’t know when we will be able to pick up the package at another post office. Of course, nothing is easy. We have changed our route to get the camper fixed and will hit the Grand Canyon several weeks later and that is where we had the prescription sent.

We hit the post office first. It was closed! The sign said “not open on Saturdays”. Arrgh. All I could think of was the rumours that our Post Office wanted to start closing on Saturdays. That would be about the end. Then if you worked regular hours and had to go to the PO for any reason, you would have to take time off from work. We headed up to the Walmart to get a prescription filled as we had screwed up our ability to get the mail order stuff which as we speak was headed to a place we weren’t going to get for 3 more weeks.

The woman in the pharmacy told us there was another post office that was open on Saturdays. We jumped back in the car and hurried right over there. There was a line of about 9 people and two people working the counter. We worked our way up the line and finally it was our turn. I asked for our General Delivery mail and was told that all general delivery mail went to the other post office….”You mean the one that is closed on Saturday?” The man behind the counter looked at me with evil intent thinking me as a wise ass. Serves him right. Then I asked him how to get general delivery mail transferred from one place to another since our plans had changed. He told us there was a form to fill out and went looking for one. There wasn’t one there????? Hmmm. He had to call some other location and have them bring one over. It took about 10 minutes but soon we had our form and were headed back to camp.

We lounged around camp (inside under the ac) for a couple of hours and then headed for the pool. We spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening in the pool and the hot tub (why is beyond me) but met some great people (and a few that were not so friendly) and have now returned to our rolling home. We bought one of those aluminum things you put in the windshield to reflect the sunlight (yea, the kind of thing I have always made fun of). It is amazing how much cooler the car is using one of those.

I think we will eat our bear claw (from the black bear diner, we couldn’t eat it this morning and just had to have one) and head over to the casinos to see if we can find some place to dance or see a movie. Just something to get us out of the house (now where have you heard that one before). We’ll let you know what happens.

Its Monday morning…Moving Day. We only have a couple of hours to travel so we don’t need to get an early start. Cheryl filled up one of the cameras so we need to dump our chips and we need to get our mail (can’t forget that, its too far to come back for it and we are already trying to get some mail transferred to another place). It is just coming up on 8 so we will head out to take care of some things and then we will move. Hopefully, in between repairs to the truck, repairs to the camper and just enjoying the glits of the strip in Vegas, I will find time to catch you all up on our last couple of days here in Bullhead City. I do have to run no so See ya.

We decided that we were running out of time here so we headed off to see Davis Dam. I had never heard of Davis Dam so this would be informative. I knew about Hoover dam but I thought you visited that from Vegas so Here we go. There were some educational panels around Davis Dam telling various pieces of information. There are 4 major dams along the Colorado River. Davis Dam creates Lake Mohave. Above Lake Mohave is Lake Mead which is created by Hoover Dam. The Glenn Canyon Dam creates Lake Powell, above the Grand Canyon and the Parker Dam creates Lake Havasu. Got that? There will be a test.

Davis Dam is different from the rest because it spans a wide valley. It is an earthen dam with cement in the control areas. All of the dams generate electricity. The other 3 are in narrow steep gourges and are cement dams. Travel across the dam (there is a road) was stopped after 9/11 and is not expected to start up again. No tours are given.

We will visit the Hoover Dam while we are in Las Vegas (maybe). From there we headed for Lake Meade/Lake Mohave National Waterway (or Recreation area or something). We drove down this long road to a marina and boat launch area. There were a lot of houseboats there. These lakes are all huge and generate a tremendous amount of boating recreation. We though we would see Lake Meade but we weren’t anywhere near it. Lake Mohave runs for many miles after it left the marina.

It is really interesting to drive through the desert and see car after car towing boats along the road. The Colorado is one source of boating but the big lakes formed by the dams (Havasu, Powell, Mohave and Meade) provide vast liquid surfaces on which to recreate. House boating is big on the latter 3 but I didn’t see any when I visited Havasu.

We then visited the Colorado Belle. A river boat casino (sort of). I think if you look under the belle, you will find a foundation like any other building. It does look neat, you have to give them that. We wandered around and watched people play cards and craps but we didn’t partake. It can be fun but gas is just too expensive to gamble with. We do want to get home.

We visited a local pizza parlor. The owner was kind of a cool guy and very Italian. His crust was thin and crispy and hand thrown but our old favorite (La Festa ) does not have to fear our changing allegiance. They are still tops.

After eating, the sun was starting to go down so we headed for the pool and watched it go down from there. It was not spectacular, hardly worth watching but the pool was nice. As darkness settled, we said goodbye to the pool that has been our friend all week and headed for home.

A good night’s sleep and it was moving day again. First we had to make another attempt to get our mail….remember our mail. We headed off to the post office branch that does not open on Saturday (whilst holding all of the general delivery mail). We headed over there around 9 (figuring that our post office opens at 8:30). Wrong again. This post office is open from 10 to 4. There was also a sign that said you could only pick up general delivery mail from 1 to 3. This is not looking good, even after all that effort.

We headed up to Walmart to dump our camera chips. We had breakfast at the Mickey D’s in Walmart. They listed the sausage biscuit (a simple crappy biscuit with a single piece of sausage) at $4 but you could get a sausage and egg mcmuffin (on a toasted English muffin) for a buck. Go figure. We usually get the sausage biscuit for a buck or a little more.

We headed back to the post office hoping we could beg, plead and cry to get our mail so we wouldn’t have to sit around for another 2 or 3 hours (we already had only 15 minutes to get out of our campsite. I asked for a priority mail and held my breath. The clerk walked into the back, stuck his head out and said: “Is that a general delivery?”. “Yes”, I said not knowing how I would skirt that issue. He got the envelope and gave it to me. Crisis averted! And we were off to the campground to get ready to move.

We loaded up the camp, hooked up the trailer and loaded the car. We are getting pretty good at all of this and soon we were down (or up) the road. More desert! It was about 2 ½ hours to vegas but we added some extra as we got lost with their directions. We found and checked into the campground.

What Happens in Vegas
Stays in Vegas!!

It was definitely fun!

See ya

Clayton & Cheryl