Golf and Monsoons (Wednesday, July 19th, 2017)

No matter how hard I try, my golf game has really been quite terrible.  I realize that there has to be a learning curve, but we've been at this for 2 plus months now, and although I really love playing, my game leaves a whole lot to be desired.  So I decided to take a couple of golf lessons to see it I could make any sense of this game. 

After two lessons, Steve and I went out today to do some practicing.  We agreed to not keep score and just work on what I learned.  So I wasn't paying any attention to the scores, even through Steve secretly was.  

I teed off on hole one, and had the best drive of my life.  That was such a great feeling!  And then I continued to play the hole, with a nice putt at the end.  As the ball hit the hole, Steve announced to me with a huge smile on his face....that was a par.  You got your first par! I couldn't believe it.  I haven't even had any bogies in quite a while.  My first par ever!

We played hole number two and it felt good, and then hole three, and again, as I putted on hole three, Steve announced that I had another par.  At this point my head was spinning.  I don't understand how I'm doing this, but I'm definitely enjoying it.  

After I got my par on hole three, Steve told me that I had a bogie on hole two, so after three holes, I was up just one over! I wasn't able to keep up my great score of the first three holes, but I was happy with the rest of my game.  It felt so good to finally play well.  I hope I can continue this little streak. 

The monsoons are here, and the humidity is high, but the Hava-dome (as we lovingly call it) keeps all of the bad weather away. We never had any rain today, but as we headed to dinner tonight, there was this beautiful rainbow in the clouds.

It was a really fun day, playing golf and enjoying rainbows here in Lake Havasu City!

Lone Star Concert (Sunday, July 16th, 2017)

We didn't spend as much time enjoying the cool mountain air and the smell of pine trees as we might have on any other day, because we had something special that was pulling us back to Lake Havasu City this afternoon.

The country band, Lone Star was performing a free concert in the parking lot of the Tractor Supply Store in our little town, and we didn't want to miss it!  

Tractor Supply has been their sponsor for their "Life As We Know It" tour, so they are performing free concerts at select Tractor Supply stores along the way.  We just happened to be one of the lucky towns where they made a stop.

They performed in the parking lot, in the shade of their tour bus.



Most of their hits were in the 1980's and 1990's.  They became famous for songs like "Front door looking in", "Amazed" and "I'm Already There".

When we got there, our friends John and Sheila and their little guy were already set up, so we joined them for the concert.

Our Colorado umbrellas seem to be our trademark at any outdoor concert we attend.  They make great shade on a hot day!

We were behind a couple of easy-ups, but we could easily see the band, and we could hear them loud and clear.

Sheila and their little boy. He fell and bumped his head last week, but he's healing up quickly.

Here's a short video of "Front Porch Looking In".

Lone Star put on a great concert, playing all of their hit songs.  It was cooler today than it has been, but still a very hot day for a parking lot concert.  After the concert, they came inside for a meet and greet for everyone that had attended their concert.

John and Sheila had to leave a little early as their little guys was getting hot, so we picked Sheila up an autographed CD.

We were so glad we came back early from the Hualapais so we could enjoy this great concert!  It was a busy, but really fun day. Were so glad we didn't miss any of it!

Exploring the Hualapais (Sunday, July 16th, 2017)

We enjoyed our RZR trip to the Hualapais last weekend so much that we decided to go back up today and do some further exploration.  They have a brunch buffet every Sunday from 9:00 - 1:00 for $9.99 per person, so we skipped breakfast at home this morning and decided to give it a try.  





They have covered outdoor seating in front of the restaurant, a windowed veranda, or a large dining room to choose from.  We chose the veranda, although there was a great view no matter where we would have chosen.

The buffet had a lot of options to choose from including: fresh fruit, waffles, french toast, cheese crepes, scones, orange cinnamon rolls, roasted potatoes, potatoes O'brien, veggie quiche, meat quiche, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, corned beef hash, chicken fried steak and biscuits with gravy.  There was definitely something for everyone available on the buffet.

We weren't shy, we tried a little bit of everything.

Our table on the veranda.

A view out the veranda window.

Steve even went back for seconds.  The corned beef hash was his favorite!

When we were done with breakfast, we walked outside and we were excited to see that it was only about 80 degrees so far. Steve checked and it was 107 in Havasu!  It was going to be a nice cool morning for exploring.

Right near the lodge they have cabins for rent.  They appear to be more like rustic hotel rooms with made service and room amenities.

And of course, beautiful views all around.

Next we visited the general store.  It's small, but has quite a bit of stuff inside.

Food all around the edges, and a large rack of sweat shirts down the middle for anyone who didn't plan their clothing correctly. And outside, it has the obligatory reindeer picture opportunity.

The general store also had humming bird feeders that attracted humming birds by the hundreds.  They were everywhere!

After looking around the town for awhile, we jumped back in the car and headed to the ranger station to pick up the book that Diane had last weekend.  We would really like to have one for planning RZR rides.  And of course, we enjoyed the scenery along the way. It is hard to believe that only and hour and 20 minutes from Lake Havasu, there is this cool, green, mountainous are just waiting for us to come enjoy it.

The ranger station is just a quick drive down Hualapai Mountain Road from "town".

The rangers let us know that if we trailer our RZR up, we can just go inside and show them our Mohave County Parks pass, and they will let us park the trailer in the large parking lot right next to the ranger station while we go on our ride.  Finding trailer parking is always an issue, so we're excited that this is an option.

After we left the ranger station, we took a look through the park to see what types of facilities they have. They have several different types of cabins available, from fairly modern looking to pretty rustic.

And of course, everywhere we looked, there were those incredible views!

They even have tepees you can rent. The tepees came with four cots, and a pad for each cot.  Steve and I thought it might be fun to rent one of these and try it out sometime.

And there were more cabins down in this area as well.

There was a community bathroom for all of the cabins and tepees with toilets and sinks, but we didn't see any showers.

There was another area for RV camping with full hookups.  It looked like this small RV area only had about 8 spots.  The overflow RV park was across the street from the ranger station.  It was called the Elk Ridge RV Park and had a lot more spots, but it wasn't as pretty.  All of the large RV's were staying in that RV Park.

This is a picture of the Elk Ridge RV Park.

This is the 2017 pricing for all of the facilities in the County park.

A map of the area shows where all of the cabins, tepees, etc. are located within the park.

As we started making our way back down the mountain, it quikly became hotter, dryer and browner.

And pretty soon, we could see Kingman, AZ appearing in our front window.

As we approached Lake Havasu, the beautiful rock formations that we love began to appear once again.  We call this one mitten rock.

It was a beautiful morning up in the Hualapai Mountains.  It is so cool and green up there, and the smell of the pine trees brings back fond memories of the Rocky Mountains that we left behind in Colorado.  The Hualapai Mountains have oak trees and prickly pear cactus, which you really don't see in the Colorado Rockies, but other than that, they look quite similar to each other.