Winter Blast and the Fly Yuma, Yuma Aeromodelers Airshow

It's been a couple of weeks since the last update. We were hanging out near Lake Havasu City with good friends while waiting for the start of Winter Blast which I wrote a bit about in the last installment.
During the 2 weeks we were here waiting for Winter Blast to start we did some touring around and checked out a bit more of the town.
One day, we parked down near the bridge and just took a stroll along the canal. Lake Havasu has a number of functional navigational lighthouses. One thing that is interesting is what they have done with them. There are somewhere around 30 lighthouses on the lake and quite a few right around the city proper. There is a club in town, the Lake Havasu City Lighthouse Club, who have converted most of the navigational lights into full functional 1/3 scale replicas of actual lighthouses around the US.

Another day, we took a short ferry ride across the lake to the new Havasu Landing Casino. We went more for the boat ride than the casino, but did drop in to lose a few bucks. Most US casinos still allow smoking in the facilities and frankly the smoke drove us out in fairly short order.

The fireworks shows started on Thursday and for the first night, we elected to watch from camp. I did take the time to check out a ridge close to camp that I thought would be a better vantage point for watching the fireworks.

This is the view from the ridge looking back toward the camping area. Our rig is at the far right edge of the photo.
Around dusk they started shooting off some of the earlier effects. Being that it was still quite light out, not too much was visible. Later on, there were some nice effects but we were in a spot where we could only see the higher level bursts. There wasn't an official show on Thursday so we really weren't expecting a lot.
Friday was the start of the official shows and they kicked off just after sunset. Again we elected to watch from camp. There were sporadic shots until 7:30 when the official shows started. The first one was about 15 minutes long and was mostly low level so we didn't see too much. The second show however was mostly high level and was very impressive. There were several effects I hadn't seen previously. The main shows ran until 8:30 but there were shots going off right up until about 10PM.
We were worried about how Maya would react as she does not like any kind of loud bangs or booms. While definitely uneasy, she didn't do too bad. She stayed in the trailer most of the time and curled up in her safe place in the bedroom beside the bed or under the kitchen table. There were a couple of real loud effects, called salutes, that rattled the trailer even as far away as we were which she really didn't like though.
Saturday, Steve, Tammie and I, drove up onto the low ridge where we had a clear view of the firing lines. Tammie and I set up our cameras and attempted to photograph the show. I had played around with photographing fireworks a bit in the past but this was something all new to Tammy.
Long story short, we had a great time. I think we both got some good shots and both learned quite a bit. I do know one thing though; my camera is ancient! After playing with Tammie's for a bit, I am very envious.

Both of the shows on Saturday were fantastic. Lots of variation in effects, colour and patterns.
Sunday evening, we again watched the show from the ridge but Saturday was the main show. There were some good sequences on Sunday, but it wasn't nearly the show that Saturday was. There were also a couple of bright lights that were affecting our photography as well.
Monday was a sad day as it was the day that Steve and Tammie, and Chris and I parted company. We had traveled together for over 6 weeks and got to know each other quite well. They were planning to hang around Havasu for a while longer while we needed to get to Yuma as we had an appointment to get some more warranty work done on the trailer. We also wanted to be in Yuma for the Yuma Aeromodelers 'Fly Yuma' model airshow. I have taken part in this show for the past 2 years and am always amazed at the spectacle they put on.
We were able to get most of the planned warranty items taken care of (but not all) then over to Fortuna de Oro RV park where we had a coupon for 3 free nights. This gave us a chance to get caught up on a few things in town before the airshow weekend.
Thursday, while still at the RV park, I loaded the jet up and took it out to the field. I hadn't flown it since September in Princeton and wanted to burn the dust off both it and me before the show. Made a couple of flights and by the end of the session, was feeling quite comfortable again.
Friday, we took the trailer back out to the airfield and got it set up. We were able to get the same spot we have had for the last couple of years just off the parking lot.

I put in another flight and felt ready for the show on Saturday.
It would be nice to say that airshow day dawned sunny and warm but alas, that wasn't the case. I should of known because we had a stunning sunset the night before which indicated clouds moving in.

I was up about 6 on Saturday and noticed it had rained somewhat over night and was still quite cloudy and overcast. I started getting my gear set up and about 9AM the skies opened up! It was the hardest rain we have had since leaving in October. It rained quite hard for almost an hour but then started to clear about 10AM. The show was supposed to start at 10 but it was looking promising so was delayed to 10:30 by which time most of the clouds had moved off and the sun was back out.
The show went off without any more delays and was very successful. I think the attendance was down a bit due to the weather though but there was still a very impressive turnout.

Just a part of the crowd line. People were lined up 2 deep along the entire length of the runway.

After the formal flying portion of the show, everyone moved their aircraft out onto the runway and the public was allowed onto the field to look and ask questions.

Sunday was a model swap meet at the field and once that was done, we packed up and moved on to our next stop which is still in Yuma. Another couple who we have become good friends with have purchased a lot in the foothills area of Yuma. They plan to park their trailer here for most of the winter season. The nice thing is their lot has enough room for two rigs. It was a bit tight but I managed to squeeze our Big Ass Trailer (the B.A.T.) into the space alongside their Arizona room.

The plan is to hang out here for a week or so or until a new set of lenses Chris needs for her glasses arrives. After that, we will head east towards New Mexico before turning north.

Lake Havasu City

We are now back in Lake Havasu City for a couple of weeks. We have been here a couple of times in the past but each time just passing through. We did stop to see the London Bridge a couple of years ago.
The plan this year is to stick around for a couple of weeks and take in more of the local sights and an annual event called Winter Blast. This event is billed as the largest fireworks extravaganza in the western USA. Fireworks companies come here to test out new products and displays. The shows start on Thursday the 13th around 5 and go to 11 on each of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and 10 on Sunday.
The Escapees Boomers are here as well but camped closer to the show down by the rodeo grounds. We elected to camp a bit further away in a BLM area called the Gravel Pit. This was primarily for Maya's benefit as she doesn't like loud noises. Time will tell if we are far enough away.
We originally arrived here last Thursday but they have a camp host at the gravel pit and are enforcing the BLM 14 day stay limits now. As a result, in order to be able to stay at the gravel pit through the show, we had to move to a different site for a few days. We stayed there until Monday and then came back here.

Saturday, the 4 of us made a day trip up to Oatman, an old mining town, come ghost town, come tourist town. I wrote about Oatman last year so won't repeat that again but you can read about that visit here. After Oatman, we carried on up Route 66 a ways to Kingman before turning back south and returning to the rigs. We did stop at one spot near the summit of the pass between Oatman and Kingman which was a weird kind of shrine/memorial of some sort. There must have been 30 or 40 memorials and markers located here.

Up until Monday, the weather had been stunning! Sunny and warm during the day and not too cool at night and almost no wind. That changed on Monday and things got downright chilly. We went from daytime temps in the mid 20's and overnight temps around 10, to daytime highs around 13, overnight lows barely above freezing and howling winds.  That lasted 3 days. For the most part we just hunkered down and stayed close to camp. The 4 of us did go out for a wonderful dinner on Wednesday though to a place just across the London Bridge; the Barley Brothers Brewery. They have a rib special that was very good.
Thursday, things got back to more seasonal weather. Steve had been talking about a hike he wanted to do called SARA's Crack. SARA stands for Special Activities Recreation Area. The "Crack In The Wall" is a 5 mile round trip hike with a narrow slot canyon in the middle. As the weather was now more conducive to outdoor activities, we decided to tackle this. We set out around 10:30 and parked at the trail head then set off. About 45 mins later after hiking down a wash, we entered the slot canyon.

The first serious obstacle was a drop of about 15 feet down a slick rock slide. Someone had thoughtfully placed a knotted rope to assist ascents and descents.

 

After another 45 minutes we reached the end of the trail at Balance Cove which is named for a balancing rock on the shoreline.

While some have climbed the rock, we elected to just enjoy the site and rest up for the return hike.

After a short rest we started back up and essentially retraced our route back to the jeep.

The Quartzsite RV show and Boomerville 2020

This year is our third year in Quartzsite for the January zoo or, more properly, the Quartzsite Sports, Vacation and RV show. It is a totally crazy time where the the population of this sleepy desert town swells from approx. 3500 year round residents to over half a million! Almost all of them boondocking out in the desert in a dozen or so main areas around town. The main draw in January is the 'big tent' where a hundred plus vendors show and try and sell their products and services.
In past years, most of these vendors were selling primarily RV related products. The last few years though, things have changed and the tent now seems more like a large home show. Yes, there are still lots of RV related products and vendors, but more and more non RV related stuff is showing up. Things like hot tubs and cell phone accessories, leather belts and wallets to name a few. Also the hucksters selling the latest 'must have' miracle kitchen gadgets!
There is also another area across the road called Tyson Wells with longer term vendors who usually stick around for a good chunk of the winter. Here again you can find almost anything you like from RV accessories to hats to Trump wear to yard art.
Quartzsite also hosts a couple of large RV dealers during this time and they display and sell a large assortment of RV's. This makes for a great place to explore different floor plans and 'kick the tires' so to speak.
All of this, plus Quartzsite is also known far and wide among the rock and gem hounds. There are quite a few vendors who sell every kind of gem or mineral you could want.

After my last update, Boomerville filled up quite quickly. The total this year hit 239 rigs! It was actually quite crowded toward the end.

On Saturday the 18th, a bunch of us saddled up and headed off to a spot north of Parker which, while only about 5 miles off the highway but feels more like 20, called the Nellie E. Saloon or just the Desert Bar. This is a spot where someone converted an old mine camp into a completely off the grid bar and restaurant.

The road out was pretty rough in Steve and Tammie's jeep but once we got there it turned out to be a pretty interesting place. They have a very impressive solar array to keep it all powered. As far as the restaurant goes, the best way to describe it was fairly average but over priced. I get the price bit though as I don't imagine it would be cheap to transport all their supplies out there and that solar plant is pretty extensive.
The drive back was the best part though. Instead of taking the road back, we decided to take a back trail more suited for jeeps, ATV's and off road vehicles.  There were a few challenging sections but Steve did a masterful job. We also got to see some new terrain as well.

One thing Steve picked up from one of the vendors at the big tent was a new set of batteries for their coach. Their old ones were getting pretty tired and as they full time, they needed a new set that would provide for all their needs. This was our project for one of the days. It wound up taking part of one day and most of the next as they were a tight fit and we had to get a set of cables custom made. We also installed a new inverter and battery monitor for their coach.

Before installing the inverter though, was the Boomerville pot luck. As last year, there was a ton of food and we all ate way too much!

It was after we stuffed ourselves that Steve and I decided to finish up their install by mounting their new inverter. I should add that this thing weighs about 60 pounds and is mounted to the ceiling in one of their cargo bays. That was a lot of fun but we did manage. Their refrigerator and other appliances are much happier now with clean pure sine wave power.

Thursday was the annual CARE auction. I wrote about this last year but Chris and I, along with Steve and Tammie got a bit more involved this year. Somehow we got nominated to be on the teams that canvased the vendors in the big tent for donations to the auction. I think we did pretty good collecting quite a bit of merchandise.
The auction this year started around 11:30 and went til after 3. Chris, again this year, put some of her famous cinnamon buns and some pineapple upside down cakes in. I didn't keep track but I believe they garnered over $400 this year.  All in all, with the proceeds of the auction and other fund raising efforts over the last couple of weeks, the Boomers brought in about $18,000 dollars for CARE!

Last Sunday a bunch of us headed out to the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge to do some crystal hunting. There is a small area where they allow people to hunt for crystals; mostly quartz. After 3 hours or so we all had had some success in that we found some small ones. This area is pretty well picked over so not too much left to be found. We all had a good time though.

That is Ed, he is a retired geologist, in the light green shirt explaining what to look for and the best places to look.

This was taken up on the hill where I was hunting.

After the end of Boomerville, on Monday, Steve and I along with Ed and his wife Jan, headed back out to the area northwest of Parker to try and find the rest of the route we started out on earlier.
There is a route (676) that Ed had found both ends of but wanted to connect together. We did the eastern half earlier but lost the track and had to return. This time we started from the west end and worked our way east.

After 3 hours or so crawling across the desert on what would generously be called a goat track, we finally found our way to the spot where we lost the route earlier. It turns out we had missed it the first time by only about 10 yards! So close!
We did also get to go back to the old mine we had found earlier as well. We explored around a bit and got to check out the old mine tunnel, powder bunker and some of the old works. Very interesting place.

This is the entrance to one of the mine shafts. You could go in about 20 feet before the entrance was blocked by a heavy steel barrier.

You could see quite a ways down the shaft and I have no idea how deep into the hill it actually goes.

This is the one surviving powder bunker where they would have kept their explosives.

One of 2 vertical shafts that had been covered up.

I'm not sure who this fellow was but he apparently passed away on June 17, 1994. I wonder if he owned the mine or just worked there.

As I write this tonight, we have left Quartzsite and headed north to Lake Havasu City. We had originally planned to go back to Peoria and the Pleasant Valley Airport but when we called to see about a spot they told us they were no longer doing dry camping there. There really isn't a whole lot of boondocking areas in the Phoenix area so we regretfully had to come up with another plan.
Steve and Tammie had told us about "Winter Blast" in Lake Havasu City, so we though we would give that a try.

Grand Design Rally and back to Boomerville

As planned, a week ago Tuesday, we pulled up stakes and headed about 15 miles south to another boondocking area for the Grand Design Owners Rally. When we arrived, there were already about 40 or 50 other GD rigs set up. We found a good spot in the Solar section and were set up in short order.
Over the next couple of days, Grand Design rigs started streaming in. By the official start of the rally on Thursday, the count was up to 181 rigs. Everything from the smaller Transcend and Imagines right up to the largest Solitudes and Momentums.
Over the next few days they had quite a few very interesting sessions scheduled, most of which I attended. Everything from solar to suspension upgrades to maintenance. It was all very informative. Grand Design had a crew of factory techs on site for the duration who were kept quite busy attending to critical problems and recalls. We had them look at one problem we have with one of our slides but unfortunately they didn't have the required parts to fix it on site but were able to authorize the repair for a later date.
One interesting sidebar was the number of attendees who almost never boondock, always being hooked up to power in a park somewhere. The first couple of nights a lot of them ran their batteries dead overnight and woke up cold and had to run generators to recharge, only to do it all over again the next night. There was quite a bit of grumbling over that. We, of course, were just fine.
The one downside we ran into was that Chris came down with another cold a few days before we headed over there. Unlike her usual colds, this one turned into bronchitis and left her sounding like a seal with deep, deep coughs. She had it the whole time we were there and is just getting over it now, 2 weeks later. That somewhat curtailed our socializing with the others unfortunately.

Here are a couple of photos shot from a drone. You can see our rig in the second shot just right of centre with the satellite dish on the roof. In this first shot, we are just out of the frame to the left.

And another stunning sunset. We had several, as well as a couple of really nice sunrises as well.

Also while we were there, was the full (wolf) moon. I caught this one just as it was setting Saturday morning. My iPhone camera doesn't really do it justice.

Sunday morning after one final presentation, many people started packing up, and as we wanted to get back to Boomerville, we did the same. Even with Chris's bronchitis curtailing things for us somewhat, it was a good event and if we are back here next winter, I think we would consider doing it again.

So back to Boomerville... Quite a few more folks had arrived when we got back but we had marked off our spot and it was still unoccupied. We got set up just in time for the welcome happy hour on Sunday. We had a good time reconnecting with a number of people we hadn't seen since last year.

There are lots of activities going on all the time so always something to do. Yesterday my friend Steve and a couple others had organized another Jeep excursion. I tagged along and we wound up a few miles northwest of Parker. They had a plan to try and find a route around a mountain that promised to provide some opportunity for some challenging terrain.

Here is the gang planning out our route.

Heading into the wash

This was the first challenging section. A narrow gorge with a few challenging obstacles.

Steve spotting and guiding one of the other drivers

Steve and I were bring up the rear so I got to spot for him

Our lunch stop

An old mine site we came across. There was quite a bit more here but we didn't stop other than to figure out where we were heading to next. Both Steve and I wanted to stop and spend some time exploring. Besides this water tower, we could see what looked like the remnants of an old powder magazine and an open shaft along with some other structures.

All in all, we were gone for most of the day. While we were off doing this, Steve's wife Tammie and Chris were doing manicures and foot massages back at camp with proceeds going to the Escapees charity, C.A.R.E. I think I heard they brought in about $160.
Today, Chris did up a batch of her cinnamon buns and put them out for a donation to C.A.R.E. 4 pans brought in $240! Well done!

Just for comparison purposes, here are a couple of shots of before and during Boomerville.

   

This is only about 20% of the rigs here!
Good news too. The last few days Chris has been feeling much better. Still a bit hoarse and coughing a bit but past the worst of things. So far, I am still OK (fingers crossed!)