And the beat goes on..........

The mighty Colorado River

January 28, 2014

Sean and I are having a very warm and pleasant winter here at the Riviera Resort. The photo above is one I took on a bike ride the other day. There are many roads and canal path ways to walk, jog and ride on.  We do one of the above every day.....

Our job here is very laid back. We have to pick up trash and water palm trees about 8 hours a week and then we cook a pancake and sausage breakfast for all the park guests on Saturday morning.  This Saturday was our biggest breakfast and we fed around 75 people. I make the pancakes and sausages and Sean cooks the pancakes on an outside grill. It is kind of fun. It is free so there are no complaints and everyone is very pleasant and grateful for the free breakfast.  We are free to do our hours at any time but the pancake breakfast is always Saturday mornings. So other then that, we are free to do what we want and live here for free. The trash picking is a little gross and I have come to hate smokers who through their butts on the ground and ALL litterbugs, but other then that, it couldn't be any easier.  Our campground fees are our second largest expense besides eating, so it is a big money saver for us.  I should add that it is the second largest expense unless we are moving, then gas is the biggest expense.

As I am sure you all know, the big draw to this part of the country is the incredibly warm and sunny weather.  Quartzite is only about 15 minutes away and thousands of snow birds gather in this desert area every year to park for free or very little money on the BLM land.  Also in Quartzite for the last two weeks is the annual RV show.  I read that Quartzite becomes the third largest city in Arizona during these warm wintery months and I believe it!  Sean and I went into Quartzite many times to partake in the shopping, people watching and general craziness of this extravaganza.  Once we also met up with our friends that we made at the Escapade, Michael and Donna.  We also visited with another couple (also from the Escapade) we met from the UK, Richard and Hazel.  They are rv'ing full time all over the U.S. and are very interesting people.  If I go to half of the places they have been in the world, I will be amazed!  We wandered through the many vendors and chatted but it was so busy that it was hard to visit so we headed to the "Adult DayCare Center".  Or rather the outside bar that has food and music! We chatted and listened to the tunes and had a few beers and a sandwich then parted company.  At least for now as I am sure we will all meet up again! It was so nice to spend times with like minded adults and discuss our love of travel.  Also Lou and Ken came to visit us too and partake in the craziness of Quartzite.  Lou is always such a wealth of information about this lifestyle.  I love picking her mind about her years on the road with Gil. All of our trips to the big "town" were fun.

We bought a few things on our visit but this sign is our favorite!

Another great adventure we had was the Lake Havasu Balloon festival.  We went very early in the morning so we could see the balloons lift off and then we perused the festivities and of course visited the London Bridge. It turns out that Lake Havasu City was started or rather "planned" by Robert McCulloch.  He also "planned" Pueblo West where we lived for a few years in Colorado.  I read a little about him and he preferred to plan his developments where he could get cheap land but it was near water. Both Lake Havasu City and Pueblo West fit the bill! It was a great but tiring day since it started around 3 a.m.

One of the many things I love about our life is how we take advantage of seeing and doing things we would never have thought of before. I am always surprised how excited I become to see things that would normally have just been a blur in my window as we drove by.  And usually they are free other then the gas it takes to get there.  Once such adventure was our day to the Blythe Intaglios and the ghost town, Midland.  I was absolutely blown away by the intaglios. I kept referring to them as petroglyphs in my head but that would not be the scientific term. The Blythe Intaglios or Blythe Geoglyphs are a group of gigantic figures found on the ground near here.  They are huge gravel drawings that can only be seen from a distance.  Here is a quote from wikipedia....

The geoglyphs or intaglios (anthropomorphic geoglyphs) were created by scraping away layers of darker rocks or pebbles to reveal a stratum of lighter-valued soil. While these "gravel pictographs" are found through the deserts of southeastern California, human figures are found only near the Colorado River. The figures are so immense that they were not observed by non-Indians until the 1930s.^[1] The set of geoglyphs includes several dozen figures and a labyrinth, thought to be ceremonial in nature.^[2]They are believed to date from 1000 CE^[3] but could range from 450 to 10,000 years old, and were most likely created by Mojave and Quechan Indians.^[4]

To me, they were just cool! How have they withstood all of this time still intact? I know it is arid here but it does rain sometimes and the winds can be strong! But here they are still around and were not discovered by modern man until a pilot viewed them from the air in 1932.  Amazing!!

The desert surrounding the intaglios

After seeing the intaglios, we headed over to the ghost town of Midland, California.  Once it had many residents who mined the surrounding mountains.  Today all that is left is warning signs not to trespass because of the abandoned mine shafts, rusted out vehicles and a hat tree.  Why a hat tree? Weird.

Our quiet winter is allowing us or I should say, Sean, to train our new dog, Remi.  He is doing really well and learning commands and walking on the leash.  We take him most places but we have been leaving him at the rv for a extended periods of time to see how he does. So far we are up to 4.5 hours of him being on his own in the rv and no accidents! I believe he could hold it for as long as 9 hours because he does so every night but we don't want to push our luck yet.  He is really settling in and does not seem to be as nervous as he was in the beginning. By that, I mean he doesn't always follow me around all the time now and seems to be more relaxed and normal in general.  He is a great dog!

Snuggling!

I will leave this entry with a little intrigue.....Sean and I have been selected from thousands of applicants to be a part of a start up company that will allow us to travel all over the country as sale reps for this internet based endeavor. We have been asked to not go into much detail on the internet as it is not yet live on the net yet and will probably not be until March 1.  We are headed to Las Vegas for a 3 day training in February.  We are excited and wary as we have never been in sales though we have been assured that the company is not interested in sales people but rather in full time rv'ers. And I think our age and awareness of social media and computers/internet in general is our big sell for this company. We are young for this lifestyle but our counterparts are not far behind and the trend is growing rapidly for the first time since before the recession.  The boomers are booming and we are leading the way!  I will have all the information and hopefully be able to disclose more when I write again.  The beauty of all this is, if we don't like it, we quit! The freedom of this life is wonderful!!  We will stay here until end of February or early March depending on when the site goes live.  We think our next stop will be Yuma. Stay tuned!!