Pyros in Paradise (Friday, February 12th and Saturday, February 13th, 2016)

The Western Pyrotechnics Association is in town, and with that comes a great fireworks show. They are here in Lake Havasu every year for Presidents Day Weekend, and attract huge crowds for the three day event. They set up in Sara Park, on the south side of town, in the Havasu 95 Speedway infield. Parking for the event is $5.00 per car, which we heard goes directly to the club to cover their expenses, and gate entrance is $5.00 per person. They sell food and drinks inside, which includes local craft beer from Mudsharks, which is $4.00 a pint.

On Friday night, we headed down to the speedway with Steve’s brother and his wife, to watch the fireworks show. We stopped and picked up Subway sandwiches on the way, and brought a cooler of beer and water to go along with our dinner. When we hit the highway on the south side of town, we couldn’t believe the traffic that was trying to head south on the highway. We thought they must all be trying to get to the fireworks, but it really wasn’t clear. It took us about an extra 15 minutes to reach Sara Park compared to a normal day, and when we arrived, a lot of the traffic didn’t go into Sara Park, they went further south on the highway or up into the desert.

We are arrived at the event at about 5:15, and although we thought we were early, the main parking lot was already full. We were parked about 100 yards beyond the main lot in the overflow parking. But not to worry, there was still a lot of room in overflow beyond where we were. We pulled out our lawn chairs and cooler, and made ourselves comfortable by the roller hockey rink, where we enjoyed our dinner before heading into the stands.

We headed into the stands at about 6:00, and although there were already a lot of people, there was plenty of room for the four of us. It was still about an hour and a half until the show would start, but they were doing some classes behind the raceway so periodically we would get a little teaser of what was to come. There was also a lot happening in the infield to keep us entertained. 

There is a big egg in the infield.  Not sure what that's all about

They shot this canon several times while we were waiting for the sun to go down

A beautiful Sunset through the safety fence at the racetrack

The show finally started at about 7:30, and was fun to watch. There were a lot of smaller fireworks down low in the infield in addition to the larger ones that could be seen for many miles. All of the displays were synched to music, which was really entertaining. And the announcers kept us informed on which group of pyros we were watching at any given time.

Part of the show for the Rocky Mountain Pyrotechnics.  As they played Colorado Rocky Mountain High

The egg in the infield is coming to life

This thing puts off an amazing amount of heat

To get the full effect of the show, you really have to see the video. It is just a short snippet of the entire night, but really shows what a fireworks show can be.  Steve had to change the music to keep from breaking any copyright laws, but you can still see how great the show was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvq643GShA0&feature=youtu.be

We also did a second night of fireworks from a very different perspective. When we were on our cruise in January with our youngest daughter (see our posts from January 9th-16th), we met a couple, Tim and Cheryl, that were also from Lake Havasu. They had invited us to their house for a potluck and fireworks party. So on Saturday, we headed over to their house at about 4 o’clock. They live on the south side of town, and their back yard backs up to the desert BLM land. They had a bunch of their friends over, and we had a wonderful picnic in their back yard. We met so many great people, and had time to get to know some of them pretty well before it started getting dark. 

There was so much great food to enjoy, along with the wonderful company

 When the sun started to set, we packed up our stuff and headed into the hills behind Tim and Cheryl’s house. They had three Razor dune buggies, so they took a few trips to get all of the people, chairs and coolers out into the desert. Steve and I threw our chairs and cooler on one of the razors, and then took the short hike up the hill. It was a steep but easy walk, although very dusty from all of the dune buggies and ATVs that were running around. We lined-up our chairs along one of the ridges, where we would have a great view of the fireworks. 

You can see the lights in the distance at Sara Park, We had great seats!

The Razor Brigade

A very simple sunset from our hill in the desert

It took a while for it to get dark enough for the fireworks to start, and while we were waiting, the trail behind us was very busy with vehicles heading out into the desert. Most of them were very thoughtful, and went slow past our setup, but of course, there were those few that we all know and love!

The fireworks were beautiful from the desert! We couldn’t see some of the lower displays, and of course, we were watching from further off so we couldn’t hear the music, but it was fun to hang out with a great group of people in this beautiful desert environment!

When we thought the fireworks were over, we headed back down to Tim and Cheryl's house, and to our surprise, the fireworks started up again.  So we finished watching them, as we sat by the campfire and enjoyed a beautiful night in paradise.

1,000 Miles and a Super Bowl (Sunday, February 7th, 2016)

Today is Superbowl Sunday, and our beloved Denver Broncos are playing, but instead of going to our usual Super Bowl Party, we will be driving 1,000 miles. This certainly isn’t the perfect scenario, but due to illness, work and weather, we have been in Denver much longer than we had hoped for. Thank you Dave and Nancy for the Super Bowl party invitation, but we must get back to Lake Havasu City! We must!!!!!

We woke to the sound of our alarm at 3:30 this morning. Much earlier than I prefer to be up, but we want to be in Lake Havasu City in time to see the end of Super Bowl 50. The Denver Broncos are playing the Carolina Panthers, and it is going to be a great game. We are hoping to get good enough radio reception across the high desert of Arizona to listen to the game while we drive. But just in case that doesn’t work, we have downloaded the NFL Super Bowl App, so we can listen to it on the IPad. Hopefully something will work for us.

We were on the road by 4:00 am with a very full truck of things we want to take to Lake Havasu City. We are moving some things around because we want to set up an office in Lake Havasu where we can set up our computers and work for a while and not have to tear them back down before we set the table for our next meal. 

We are taking the southern route, which is usually the safest route in the winter. There is cell phone coverage the whole way, and both of the interstates (I-25 and I-40) are truck routes, so the chance of getting stranded is pretty low. Someone will always come along, which isn’t necessarily the case on some of the other routes we take during more favorable weather.

Our entire drive went very smoothly, with dry roads the whole way. We were surprised because of the big snowstorm that came through less than a week ago. Surprised, but very happy! 

As we drove through eastern Arizona, we turned on the radio at 4:00 pm to see if we could find a broadcast of Super Bowl 50. We found two stations that had it, but neither of them had very good reception. We went back and forth between them for a little while, and then decided to try the NFL Super Bowl App that we had downloaded. We tried the app several times, but it wouldn't load. Maybe our cell coverage was too spotty for it out in the middle of nowhere Arizona. Finally Steve started searching for radio stations again, and to our surprise, he picked up one of our Denver radio station 850 KOA, which broadcasts all Broncos games.  We were over 500 miles away as a crow flies.  Clear as can be....amazing! Thank you KOA for having such a strong signal!!! We listened to the Super Bowl on the radio for about an hour until we pulled into Lake Havasu City.

Our plan was to go to the College Street Brewery, a nice brewery very close to the highway on the north side of town. We thought it would be a great atmosphere for watching the Super Bowl, and it would be the first sports bar we would come to as we pulled into town. But as we pulled into the parking lot at College Street, it was empty. The brewery was closed on Super Bowl Sunday…… that’s sure not what we expected!!! So off we went again, heading a little bit further down the highway to another of our favorite breweries, Mudsharks. 

We pulled into the parking lot of Mudsharks, and to our delight, there were cars!!! And they were open!!! We hurried in, and although the bar area was quite full, there was one table that the waiter was clearing off, so we happily grabbed it as we checked the huge TV to see if we had missed anything. Although it is a 14 hour drive, we somehow managed to get to Lake Havasu by the end of the first quarter. We would be able to watch three full quarters of the Super Bowl on this beautiful big screen TV. As the game progressed, the Broncos continued to lead, although the Panthers continued to score as well.

This is much better than listening to the radio in the truck

The half time show was great, featuring Cold Play, Beyonce and Bruno Mars, with the theme of “Believe in Love”. Then, back to the Broncos and Panthers. Once we got to Mudsharks and had a chance to relax and watch the game, we had a good time texting our daughters and Steve’s mom about the game. 

It was a much quieter environment in Lake Havasu City, since they didn’t have a team in the Super Bowl, but it was still a lot of fun. Steve and I were the only ones in the whole bar that were in Broncos apparel, although there were lots of other Broncos supporters. 

The game ended with the Broncos as the Super Bowl 50 Champions!

Payton Manning looking pretty happy

Payton Manning looking really happy

Joe Namath presenting the Lombardi Trophy to the Broncos

And although the scene was a bit quiet in Lake Havasu City, it was definitely a livelier scene in Denver.  Thank you to my friend Kathy for these great pictures from Denver.

Larimer Square in Downtown Denver

The Super Bowl 50 parade in Downtown Denver

We were just happy to be a part of this amazing Super Bowl victory!

A Day in FoCo (Saturday, February 6th, 2016)

Work, weather and illness have been taking a toll on us for the last few weeks, and have kept us at home. But today, we are finally heading up to Fort Collins, Colorado to see our youngest daughter. And the best part is our oldest daughter is coming with us. It is rare for the four of us to have a chance to spend a day together, but today is the day! We are very excited!

Our plan is for a lunch date. Our youngest daughter gets to choose, and she said that it’s between Thai and Afghani food. We have an Afghani restaurant that we eat at a lot in Fort Collins. It is a mix between fast food and sit down, and is a nice healthy alternative to normal fast food. We have never tried the Thai restaurant before, so it will be interesting to see which one she chooses.

We left home at about 10:45 and headed to Fort Collins. The roads were great the whole way, with no snow on the highway at all. We always take the Prospect Street exit because it has a welcome center with nice facilities, which is a bonus when you’ve had a big cup of coffee on the road. As we pulled into Fort Collins we were surprised to see how much snow they still had. Our snow in Denver has melted off a lot, but the Fort Collins roads are still very messy.

We got to our daughter’s apartment at noon, and delivered some food to her. Since she has to eat gluten free, I always try to make at least a few meals for her to help her with her cooking. She can’t just run out and grab fast food if she is having a busy day, so I like to keep a few things in her freezer to help her out in a bind. Today's biggest surprise for her was gluten free bagels from Trader Joe's and strawberry cream cheese.  Yum!

When she jumped in the car, she decided that we were going for our usual Afghani lunch. So off we headed to Maza Kabob. The owner is a very nice man from Afghanistan, who always greets us with a smile and always comes around to make sure we are enjoying the food. We love that he takes so much pride in his restaurant. 

They have a lunch special for $5.95, which we think is a good deal. It has a main, a side, rice and a small helping of Afghani salad. Three of us chose the Chicken Korma which is diced chicken in a korma sauce and one chose the Kafta Korma which is a seasoned meatball in korma sauce.  We ordered at the counter, then chose a table at which to sit.  Within five minutes the owner of the restaurant was delivering our meals to our table and chatting with us as he always does.  We love that we can get a hot healthy meal so quickly and it's all gluten free.

As we got ready to leave the restaurant, I decided to use the restroom, and was very surprised at its layout! It was very clean, but not what I expected. You see so many different things in different countries, but I didn’t expect this in a restroom in the U.S. We all decided that we would just have to go in one at a time even though there was room for two.

We have obviously never used the restrooms here before, because we would have remembered this!

It was too cold to spend much time outside today, so after lunch we decided to go to the Fort Collins mall. It has been an older mall for many years, and many of the shops have closed, but for the last few years, they have been re-doing it, and it is turning out very nicely. There is still quite a bit of empty space in the new mall, but it has definitely filled up since the last time we were here.

We started out at Nordstrom Rack, where everyone seemed to find something, except for me, so I think that would be a pretty successful shopping trip. The most successful part was that we had a chance to walk and talk and just spend some time together in the warmth of the mall. We hit several more stores, but were all shopped out, so we just did lots of looking and talking.

After a nice afternoon together, Steve suggested that we get dessert somewhere before we took our youngest daughter back home. We suggested the Chocolate Café, see our post from August 15th, 2015. But everyone thought that sounded too big and rich (if that's possible), so we ended up doing a build your own yogurt sundae at TCBY. They offer four sizes, but we all chose the tiny, and it turned out to be the perfect sized treat on which to end our day.

Soldier Boxes (Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016)

Last November our oldest daughter came to us with the great idea of sending Christmas boxes to deployed soldiers through a group called 300 Boodle Brigade.  She learned about it through some of her army contacts, and organized a group from our area that wanted to send boxes.  She gathered all of the information we needed, and we went on the hunt for everything we thought deployed soldiers might enjoy for Christmas, in hopes that it would make being away from home a little bit easier for them during the holidays.  Food, games, books, decorations and game books like word search and Sudoku were some of the things on the wish list.  All together, her group sent 18 boxes.

I wish we had taken pictures of our shopping trip because it was so much fun, but of course we didn't think of it at the time.  A nice thing about the Christmas boxes is that you fill a flat rate US Postal Service box, and pay the regular flat rate to ship it to an address in the U.S, and it ends up in the hands of soldiers who have to be away from home for the holidays. It was such a great experience to share with our daughter, and brought smiles many miles away!

Below are some pictures our daughter was able to find from a few of the soldiers that received boxes this year.

 The map below shows how many community organizers there were in each state.  There were over 1,000 packages sent to soldiers in a dozen different locations overseas!

Ground Hogs Day (Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016)

Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow this morning, so that means that spring is on it's way, right?  Well, here in Colorado, we're just not so sure.  We've had pretty nice weather the past few weeks, while we've been trying to recover from the bug we caught on our cruise (see posts from January 9 - 16, 2016), but today, it's snowing again, and there's lots of it.  Most all the schools and many of the local businesses were closed today!

And it's a wet heavy spring snow, so maybe ole Phil is right!

My sweet husband out blowing the snow, it's too heavy to shovel!