Too good to leave.

Saturday  October 9, 2010

We decided that the laid back part-time serenity of the campsite outweighed the noise of the speed boats that came by every 10 minutes.  It seemed that we lucked out according to the campsite manager.  Up until this week, he had not seen a day under 100 degrees since spring time!!  Also, he said that in the summer the boats were so numerous that you could almost walk across the “lake” on boats!  It was a really enjoyable, lay-by-the-lake type day and we took full advantage of it.  I took the surf board out into the lake and paddle around for a while.  (It was the first time the board had been in the water for the last month, what with the cool temperatures we endured on the West coast.)  The day time temperature rose to the high 80’s, and once again in the evening it was clear and 28 degrees—much to our liking.  In the night it cooled down to 24 degrees, what more could you want.

Friday (Oct 8)

Dave, Meg, Jaime, and Finley left in the morning for Pheonix to drop Jai at the airport (on Friday).  Ade and I spent the morning and some of the afternoon at the pool and then decided to leave for Parker. 

However we had to deal with one problem.  On the evening of Wednesday, we left a rug outside on the cement pad to dry and in the morning Ade put the rug back in Rita.  Well immediately after she did this we started to smell this odd odor in Rita.  We did not connect the odor with the rug and left it on the floor all day.  Well finally, with Meg’s help, we figured out what was going on.  A cat had urinated all over the rug and now the smell was in the camper.  Immediately we took the rug out, but the smell still lingered in the camper.  Somehow the odor had now transferred into the carpet!!  On Thursday afternoon before heading to Parker, we decided to go to Walmart and purchase a mini shop vac.  With this little unit, and Pinesol, and a lot of carpet soaking and scrubbing and vacuuming we finally overcame this nauseous odor.

Our next destination was Parker city, Arizona.  The road from Palm Springs was characterized by jagged desert mountains on both sides of the highway.  The erosion on these mountains made them look like the wrinkled, folded skin that you might see on a Sharpei dog that never seems to grow into its skin.

Our 5:00 dinner stop was just on the side of the road, but it was truly beautiful.  The sun was low in the sky providing exquisite lighting on the “wrinkled” mountain peaks.  Beside us was large, flat, well irrigated field land.    The air was full of the sweet smells of freshly plowed, and freshly mowed alfalfa fields.  Ade made a great meal, and both of us spent quite a number of pictures as the setting sun’s glow caused the lighting on the hills to change with every passing minute.

By 7;00 we had reached our destination on the Colorado River—a BLM campsite (named Crossroads) that we stayed in last year.  We had almost the same spot, parked under a shade tree, only a few meters from the river. The temperature was in the mid twenties, and we also had a panoramic view of the easterly desert mountains as the sun, which by now had set provided a sharply contrasting backlight to the rugged hills.  What a great place at a very nice price of only $5 for the night—hard to believe!

At this spot the Colorado river was more like a narrow lake than a river.  The flow has almost been stopped by a series of dams above and below the city of Parker.  The temperature of the water was wonderful.  Even I could jump in without loosing my breath for a moment or two.  The downside of being at this picturesque site was the noise—and it was not traffic noise.  Like Lake Havasu, this area is the playground of anyone who has a low and very powerful “Fonzie” boat.  The river/lake was about 120 meter across, and these speed demonds would be flying by at 50 miles an hour.  Fortunately it was evening and many of the boats were pulling in, so we soon had a very pieceful and mild evening under a glittering sky with no light pollution.

This spot is so nice that we decided to spend the next day.



This is the view behind us.  Sorry about the poor photo--blame blackberry.