T'dubing around the off-road areas near Lake Havasu City, and London Bridge!

 Tuesday, January 27

I did a little bit of riding around the area, checking out some trails that led further into the OHV areas.  Pretty rocky terrain here with trails that are sandy but not too bad.

As you can see I. The following pics, it's a wash...some small hills, some ravines, and lots of rocks and some trails.  Not the most exciting scenery but this area doesn't have as many campers as the two further to the north along US Highway 95.

Next to the BLM area, there's some kind of excavation operation, digging up the land for what looks like sand and dirt to me 

Wednesday, January 28

I rode the 10 miles or so to check out the London Bridge tourist attraction.  Originally built and situated in London, England.  It was purchased, taking apart, and reassembled in Lake Havasu City.

An interesting project and tourist draw apparently.  I rode Yagi over the actual bridge a couple of times to get these shots.  McCollough Road traverses the bridge, and there is a park area with a water canal running under it that you can stroll about in.

I did not tarry long at the bridge, and said I continueed north to around the area near mile marker 192. I had seen some interesting rock formations from the highway as I drove south on Monday and had wanted to check them out.

I would find myself close to the above formation 

I call it the Catchers Mitt

There are several nice camping spots, in this BLM area. The access road is right at mile marker 192, and while the road is rough in spots it's better than in the Standard Wash BLM area where I am camping.

You can ride up almost to the top of the hill where the state provides land for an antenna complex.

The view from near the top of the hill

The mountain where the telecom antennas were located.

About 55 miles of riding today under mostly cloudy skies.  The high temperature was 66 degrees with a s wind.  

I woke to 41 degrees Fahrenheit so it was a bit chilly riding into town, even though I had waited till it was 50 degrees.  Not too bad though.  Riding home in the low 60s was just fine.

Sunset was OK:

Heading South after a Visit with Blazeourway's Lori and Chris Z.

 Martha and I spent almost a whole week visiting with Lori and Chris Z. in Meadview Arizona where they have a base of operations. 

Here's a picture of a mockingbird that spent some time on a bush near my last campsite at the McDowell Regional Park campground: 

During our time visiting with Chris and Lori, we meant the new addition to their home, a rescue puppy terrier called Pinky. 

The weather wasn't really conducive to ridng as it was just cool enough to be a nuisance even in the full sunlight.  So we did some chores, basically hung out with Chris and Lori, and just caught up with each other's lives. 

The main chore was helping to almost finish the installation of baseboard in several rooms of their home.

Lori cutting baseboard to fit....

Lori, Chris and Pinky beside their new truck

Which will eventually replace Stewie, their overlander vehicle.

Today, I left them to start driving south in the VRRV while Lori took Martha to Las Vegas to meet up with a neighborhood friend for a few days before she flies home to Colorado. 

I drove perhaps three and a half hours or so to a BLM dispersed camping location south of Lake Havasu City, Arizona. There's still a fair amount of RVs and Camping rigs in the three dispersed camping areas near this city but I found a nice spot nonetheless. 

Tonight sunset was pretty good, I'm glad to be on the road again. 

Mid-60s for temperature today, a little warmer tomorrow.

Altitude: 1194 ft.

Near-Glamping in the Fort McDowell Regional Park

Yep, actually in a campground for once!

It's a convenient location for us to visit Martha's cousin at her home in nearby Fountain Hills.  Since we're not towing the CRV this trip, we're being picked up at the campground and conveyed hence to Martha's cousin's location.

The campground here is nicely laid out from what I've seen so far.  The sites are spaced nicely apart from each other and there's power and water at our site.  No sewer hookup, hence the use of the term Near-Glamping.

$40//night is the cost, not bad.  Since I was on shore power, ran the AC unit for a bit just to exercise it.

Altitude:  2011 ft.

Martha's "auntie" Carol, a close friend of the family, picked us up along with her friend Loretta to take us to Martha's cousin's home in Fountain Hills.

Drinks, then dinner at a very nice Chinese restaurant, rounded out a very nice evening.

Last day near Solomon, AZ

 A peaceful Sunday, even with two truck/tent campers (who set up farther than our existing neighbor) and a small travel trailer who set up barely within line of sight, a mile away.

Not as warm due to a strong breeze but warm enough in the mid to late afternoon to enjoy the outdoors.

A shot of the dam from its other side:

Sunset was ok:

Sunrise on Monday, January 19 was pretty good one to wake up to:

The plan is to leave here this Monday morning and drive to the McDowell Regional State Park near Fountain Hills, AZ.  We're visiting a cousin of Martha's for a couple of days.

Dispersed Camping near Solomon, AZ

Martha and I left Hot Well Dunes this morning at 9:15.  

By 10:30 AM we were at a dispersed camping area managed by the BLM.  Located off of Haekel Road and just south of US Highway 70, to the east of the small town of Solomon.

Only a pickup truck pulling a small utility trailer in the area.  We picked a spot at least a quarter mile away from him.

We'd left because we thought the schweinehunde from the previous post would be increasing in numbers and sought to avoid their annoying company back at Hot Well Dunes.  

The new campsite is wide open terrains with a pretty good view:

Mount Graham

After lunch, I rode out on Yagi to explore the area.  I went to the end of Hackel Road, along which all the obvious camp spots are located.  

Found a cool looking dam.  It's the San Simon Barrier Structure Dam.  It shows on Google as Sam Simon but I think that's an error.  After all, it's the San Simon River that's dammed by it.

Just past the dam is the Southern Pacific Rail Line which transits the San Simon Valley.  I ran out of road at this point so I returned to the dam which I found quite interesting.

I think it looked pretty cool:

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing in the gazebo under bright sunshine and temperatures in the mid-60s with a slight breeze.

So far, I'm liking this place.  No OHV a-holes, no schweinehunde, and great weather 

Altitude: 3104 ft

T-Dub'ing at Hot Well Dunes

In spite of the schweinehunde (two rigs basically crowded a rig from NY, who left today), today was a pretty good day.

The mentality of the asswipes who crowd out others by parking right next to them baffles me in its inconsiderate stupidity.  Oh well, IIWII and given a chance most people disappoint.

Regardless, Martha and I got in a mid-morning dip in one of the hot tubs without anyone else around.  The afternoon is when the crowds gather to hog the tubs it seems.

After lunch, I left Martha to her book and stitching and went for a ride to get away from the schweinehunde.

I motored out to Dripping Spring, about six miles from camp.  The trail was ok but very rocky towards the end!  No wonder the bracket broke on Scarlett's windshield the last time I was here!

Yagi handled the conditions with her usual aplomb.

Here's a view of the valley from near the base of Javeline Peak where Dripping Spring is located.

Javelina Peak

Another windmill driven pump slowly decaying, replaced by solar powered pump.

Returning towards camp, I detoured to get some pics in the main dunes area with its cliff sides.

One can see the campsites from the top of the dunes above.

Another angle on the campsite:

We've new neighbors in campsite 12, a bit noisy with their dirt bikes and in the habit of letting their dog run loose.  Martha used "the voice" to get them to call back the dog as it wandered into our campsite; I'm hoping they'll take it as a sign we don't want to socialize.

On a different and bothersome note:  

We were woken by loud bass-driven techno "music" blasting from 2 OHVs that raced in and out of the area near campsite 14.   The OHVs were of course driving with high beam light bars on and multi-colored LED lights whips waving in the air.

This was shortly before midnight, after two runs a few minutes apart they stopped and went to sleep.  So at least the annoyance was short-lived.

We're figuring the 5th wheel rig that showed up Thursday, was the placeholder, staking out the large open area near site 14.  They parked their rig almost nose to nose to the class C from NY to drive them away successfully.  Now more of their gang have shown up and I expect more to come by Saturday night.

We'll be leaving Saturday morning.  I foresee nothing but trouble and the BLM won't or can't do a thing.