Home for the Holidays

We left Yuma in November and spent Thanksgiving with Wade Christina and Elias and had a great time with beautiful weather and good food and fun.We went in home to Seattle to get ready for Christmas,and enjoy the rest of the family,and a ski trip to Mt Bachelor a week before Christmas. We will celebrate the New Year,and then visit with Wade and family for Elias's 2nd birthday in January,and then we will return to Yuma about the middle of January.

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With our grandson,Anthony at LaCosta

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Beautiful Sierras!

Old Town,Yuma

We are in what is called "Old Town" Yuma,the celebration is to welcome the "Snow Birds back to town,alot of giveaways and a street fair,and we had lunch at Lutez,which used to be a casino.We all had a great time.

Lunch at Lutzes

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Out geo caching

The new sport for us this year is finding cache sites,so armed with hand held GPS and some good walking shoes and alot of enegry some interesting things are found.

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The palm tree is lit on Saturday night for a nice evening of star watching and relaxing ,just like we do at 29Pines.

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There are alot of places to ride and Molly gets to go too!When she is in the basket she is known as Speedy!

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Molly is having a day of beauty,on November 5th,she was dry in about 20 minutes.After a nice brushing she looks as good as if she had been at the groomers.

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It's November 3rd and the sunsets are more beautiful everyday,it's also still really warm,in the high 80's.Chuck and Jerry arrived on the 1st and we are enjoying their friendship.

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Roger's house and pool

Stopped to see Roger and Sue in Lake Havasu on the way to Yuma.

Took a little dip in their pool.

Roger worked in the Test Department with Lee and moved to Lake Havasu a few years ago, when he retired. Sue, still works at the hospital part time.

Home at Yuma, Arizona

We finally arrived home, at Chuck and Jerry's lot in the Foothills of Yuma.

Jerry's sister and brother in law, Darlene and David live all year round here, just a few lots away.

We have visited with them and are awaiting Chuck and Jerry's arrival.

Chuck's aunt, in North Dakota, passed away, so it will be another week or so before they get here.

Emerald Cove, Parker, Arizona

We had seen this RV place many times on our way to Yuma and decided to stay there this year on our way, since Chuck and Jerry will be a little while getting to Yuma.

Elaine's birthday Wow's Laughlin

We've hid this man as your birthday present

in one of the casino's in Laughlin,

find him,

tell him your Elaine

and it's your birthday

and watch what happen's.

Happy Birthday Elaine, enjoy yourself,

you deserve it!!!!

Nighttime at Laughlin

Lake Mohave

We took our truck up to see Lake Mohave, which is made by Davis Dam, this lake goes all the way up to Lake Mead.

Looking at Laughlin out our bedroom window

Our trailer is parked across the river from Laughlin, we have a swimming pool that we have used because it is hot here, very nice. This is right out of our bedroom window.

We are in Bullhead City across the Colorado River from Laughlin,

where we will be until after Elaine's birthday.

Laughlin has about 8,000 people in it and Bullhead City has 4 times that many.

Laughlin is a Port on the Colorado River
but is not incorporated
so it's police force is from Las Vegas,
haven't seen CSI.


They tried to name Laughlin Jackpot, Riverside and Casino but the Post Office wouldn't let them so they named it after the owner of the Riverside Casino,
Don Laughlin.

Bullhead City is an hour earlier than Laughlin, so some people celebrate New Years and then go across the river and celebrate it again in an hour.
We should do that with Elaine's birthday!

Glen Canyon

This is by the Glen Canyon Dam which has generated billions of dollars worth of electricity, in the background, however, you can see three smokestacks, which is the Navaho Power Plant, don't know why they can't use the Glen Canyon Dam electricity.

Glen Canyon Dam

The dam was built in 1960, it's 710 feet tall with 20% of that below the ground. Six years later the turbines were churning out electricity, it's secondary reason, the first reason for the dam was irrigation for farmers.

There are a little over 700 dams in the United States, and out of that, only 52 of them make electricity.

The canyon is higher than the dam. Then they flooded Glen Canyon, it took 17 years to fill up Lake Powell. Ladybird Johnson was the first, first lady, to dedicate the dam.

Glen Canyon Bridge

They built this bridge first, as it was a 250 mile trip without the bridge and they needed to get supplies in, to build the dam. They also created a town, Page, Arizona. This was the largest span bridge until just recently. You can put a raft in here and float down to Lee's Ferry, which is where all the rafts take off on the Colorado River down through the Grand Canyon.

Page Arizona to Antelope Canyon

It has always been hard to get in to Antelope Canyon, but it became more difficult after the deaths of 12 visitors from Switzerland. The Navaho guide told the visitors a storm was coming and it was time to leave the area, they agreed but upon not seeing any rain argued that they were staying because they had come so far to see it. They returned and were swept away in to Lake Powell by the torrential rains. Now the tours are more strictly structured.

We are staying in Page, Arizona at a very nice RV campground, we decided not to stay at the Lake Powell Federal campground as it was $41 to stay there, the RV park at Lee's Ferry was only $12 but it was dry camping.

Antelope Canyon

We were taken by jeep to the start of this 1.4 mile trail into this canyon

Navaho Standstone

You can't see the colors very well in this lighting but the iron oxide mixes in with the sandstone and red earth making a wide range of colors, crimson, orange, salmon, pink, and purple. The Navaho sandstone is known for it's rounded weathered edges, where the colors change with the lighting.

Bionic Woman Elaine

Elaine is using her powers to stop this boulder from falling further, many large boulders fall from the near by cliffs.

Navaho Bridge

Elaine is standing on the "old" Navaho bridge, which you can walk on, the pueblo looking buildings in the background are the visitor's center. To get into the Navaho Reservation you have to book your tour through the Navaho's, which was $20 a piece and $10 for parking whether you used it or not, we didn't, we had them pick us up at the campground. Elaine bought lots of Navaho jewelry here dirt cheap.

Largest Indian Reservation in the United States

12 million acres spread out in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico make up the Navaho Reservation, which is larger than 10 of the states in the USA. Oil was found in 1920's that caused the Navajo's to form a strong government to monitor the companies that wanted to lease the Navajo land. In World War II it was the Navaho language that was used as a code against the Japanese, these Navaho's were known as the Code Walkers.

Molly enjoys Canyonlands Park too

We decided to stay some extra days here and look around at the scenery, we will probably leave on Wednesday and we are not sure just where we will head, but we will be in Laughlin for Elaine's birthday. Taking Molly sightseeing today.

Elaine resting at Canyonlands

Double O Arch

You can see Arches Park in the lower right hand corner of the map at the left, and Canyonland to the left of Arches Park, also look at Deadhorse State park and that is where our tour took us toward on the jet boat and 4 wheel drive. The bottom map shows our hike to Double O Arch

We hiked two hours up and two hours back to get to this arch, Elaine didn't see the sign that said if you have a fear of heights you might not want to go to this arch, some parts of the hike were very high up and a long way down, a hike to remember. The small arch at the lower left hand side is about 25 feet tall, this picture does not show you how actually huge the arches are.

The Start of the Grand Canyon

Canyonlands National Park

Premier off road bicycle country....really

I'm usually up for most anything but I wouldn't off road bicycle here, it was hard enough coming up here in a 4 wheel drive Expedition. But Lance Armstrong has an event here this weekend and lots of off road bicyclest are here all ready. These are people from our tour here. We went back to Dead Horse Point State Park to recuperate after our tour, it took alot out of us.