We have been stuck in Las Vegas for more days than we wish.  Our minds wonder north where it is cooler and toward spending some time enjoying nature instead of doing business!  Tired of looking at property and realtors.   So we decided to head north for the weekend, 2 hours to St George, Utah, a very nice town of about 78,000, probably 100,000 the same as The Villages except that St George is “normal.”

We are parked at the St George Elks Lodge with several other RVs against a backdrop of this wonder and colorful boulder mountain, wondering each minute if the boulder will roll down on top of us one night.  Elks say it hasn’t happened yet!

Inside the Elks Lodge on the hallway wall, well it really was in the men’s room and I didn’t want to be too risqué here, is a great Indian mystic bull’s head skull with a Bison on top and an Indian Chief, I guess, coming out of his right eye socket.  Weird! but beautiful.

We went for a ride out in the surrounding area and found Sand Hollow State Park just east of town.  It had a very large lake behind a low dam and on its south side were “orange” sand dunes that were open for riding Razors or Off Highway Vehicles (OHV).  There were over 100 scooting around the hills, hard to take a photo of, but took one at the trailer offload area. You can kind of see the OHVs on the hillside.

As we were driving we glanced up the mountain and saw this rock pile and both Lynn and I said at the same time, “Doesn’t that look like a chipmunk with his hand in front of his mouth.  It’s a little hard to see from the distance but check it out.

Turning around from here you can see the lake and the “orange” sandy beach.  Lynn stared at it and asked, “Where else in the world are you going to see an orange beach?”  Families were really enjoying the water that day in the 97 degree heat.

Finally, a photos of the desert scenery that we think is so beautiful.  It seems like every corner we go around is a new eye pleasing surprise.  We are enjoying this part of our trip, not the business part.

 

 

 

We left Lake Havasu and travelled the desert reaches again north toward Las Vegas. Here is Lynn with her new hat with its pull down side shades sitting in the passenger seat whiling away the hours on her phone with the RV curtains down against the morning sun.

We camped fairly close to LV and took some rides around town looking at investment property and doing a little shopping.  This is a photo of the Outlet Mall in LV we visited.  There were bus loads of Chinese roaming around and through the store.  They were flabbergasted with the “low” prices in the US and were taking photos of various shoes and texting them to China to see which pair they should buy and bring back to China!!  Interesting.

From the parking garage we saw this building  that looked like it fell apart but it turned out that this is an artist enclave area and the building was designed that way, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!

Finally, we were driving by OLD LV and found that there is a very vibrant and active covered pedestrian mall on the street that has the old old original hotel-casinos; as opposed to the STRIP where all the really large hotel-casinos, and thousands and thousands of people, by the way.

Enjoy!

We toured Lake Havasu City, 55,000 folks, and found that the town was founded by Mr. McCullock of the chain saw and outboard motor fame.  He originally had a business on the edge of the lake, which is really a wide spot in the Colorado River dammed by the Parker Dam, to test his outboard motors.

He decided to purchase the abandoned London Bridge for $2.5 million and ship over 10,000 individual granite blocks to rebuild the bridge at Lake Havasu.  He reconstructed the bridge on  a canal next to the lake.  Here Lynn stands adjacent to the bridge.   In the second photo we pose under the bridge, where is was COOL in the 95 degree heat, showing the canal behind that has a nice hotel, restaurant and water craft rentals.

It turns out the Lake Havasu City is based on rich LA, Las Vegas and Phoenix folks who want to “play” with there boats, RVs and cross country Razors.  Very interesting place.

We needed to get to the Las Vegas area to check out some real estate opportunities and we thought that on the way we would see what the Lake Havasu City area is like.  We had heard that a lot of older folks retire there. After leaving Garden Grove, CA, we stayed the night at the Hesperia, CA, Elks Lodge.  They were having taco night and I was pumped, love tacos! Dinner started at 5 PM but I thought that I would wait until 6 because the lines are usually long and when I got there THEY HAD RUN OUT OF TACO MEAT!!  What the heck.  What a let down.

Anyway, in the morning we continued on north on I-15 and then east on I-40.

As we passed the little town on Needles on the Colorado River at the Arizona border we had always wondered why they call it “Needles?” and then we figured it out.  Check out the photo.  From a distance they look like needles!

After a 4 hour drive we landed at an RV park on Lake Havasu.

I was so bushed from driving I had me a Margherita and then jumped in.  I took my Village pool “weights” and got a little upper body exercise.  Boy that water felt good. It was 95 degrees!

Will try and let you know what is so hot about retirement in Lake Havasu City, AZ.

As we walked along the biking/walking path near the beach young men and women played volleyball next to the Huntington Beach Pier.  At the end of the pier is a very nice restaurant.  As we ate we watched older gentlemen fish and catch very pretty slim fish and small stingrays.

We went to exercise at 24 hour fitness in the morning and when we finished we decided to have breakfast at the iHop on the main street and it turned out that they were having a hot car show that morning.  Numerous Shelby Cobras, Corvettes and one honking 12 cycling Maserati.  Here is a very short video of that event.

After Huntington Beach we were off to do some dental work for Lynn at Garden Grove, CA, where there are many Korean doctors, dentists and shops ….. shops, if you know what I mean 🙂

 

This is the where we are camping for the next few days while waiting for Lynn’s dental appointment in Garden Grove, CA, about 8 miles east of here.

You can see that this is a beautiful beach and pier in the late afternoon.  On a clear day you can see Santa Catalina Island and a few oil well platforms.  Last time we were here we saw two whales slowly passing by under the pier feeding and breaching.  Awesome.  Don’t know what we will see here this time in our 4 days here.

Sorry you missed or New Orleans, Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tecopa Hot Springs, China Ranch Date Farm experience but it took me a while to get this thing started.  Lynn says she will give me some photos and I can include them I may be out of chronological order at times.

Here is a movie Lynn took of me walking toward the RV parked here and then she swung around to that beautiful beach.  Enjoy.