It's getting hot in here (Lake Havasu City)
Lake Havasu City is interesting. A man built City and island to attract tourists. A bridge bought from England for the purpose of being rebuilt to attract tourist and it worked. It's the second highest ranked tourist attraction in the state of Arizona. Each brick was numbered and outlined and crated to be rebuilt exactly true to its original form. The picture below is the outline of all the numbered bricks.
It's beautiful here. It has amazing sunrises and sunsets. It's the true definition of a painted desert. We have loved every glimpse of those we get. 
The mountains and rocks are something you'd see out of a movie and we are in awe of the beauty the desert holds. Daily we drive over the London Bridge and you feel as if your are looking into a 3d image of the mountainous, desert landscape.
It's also a very conservative area. People are not shy is expressing their views. Saturday mornings are sometimes filled with boat parades in the channel dedicated their candidate of choice.
It's also a very conservative area. People are not shy is expressing their views. Saturday mornings are sometimes filled with boat parades in the channel dedicated their candidate of choice.We have enjoyed swimming almost daily at the pool. The pool has a clubhouse where the boys like to go enjoy their video game time and get a break from the R.V..
Our R.V. has held up great in the heat. We are figuring it out and what works best. Which is let's leave and find something to do in a place with better a.c.. They have a law that a business can't deny someone coming in to get out of the heat. They are allowed to come in and get water, since there aren't any cooling stations in the area. We have fans going to help(4 to be exact), but it still gets toasty in there. However we haven't had major a.c. issues. It has frozen up a few times, but we have caught it early to allow it defrost and get back going.
The heat here is beyond crazy. I get it's hot everywhere and a lot of extreme heat this summer. I do feel like in most places you tend to get some relief at some point in the day even if it's night time. I could be wrong. Here it's sometimes( like today) over 100 before 9 a.m. and still over 100 after 10 or 11 p.m. Everything you touch is scorching hot and you just feel gross all day. At least I do. We put up reflective mesh in the inside of the camper to help keep the heat out. It definitely helped. The dragon is in his element. He loves to wonder around the camper, jump up and climb on things. He may be the only one of us who loves this heat.
While here we checked out Sara Park and with Rosie we all hiked the 2.5 mile hike out to the lake and went through what's called the Crack. Poor Rosie was squeezed and pushed and pulled and carried through it. We cooled off in the lake and the hiked back a different route knowing Rosie wouldn't make it back through the crack. It was a hard upward hike and it pushed all of us. But we came out being so proud of eachother for getting it done. Rosie once again proved how awesome she was. She made sure her people were okay. She never once left our sides no matter how exhausted she was. She floated in the river to cool herself off and once we were safe at home she slept for two days.
Lake Havasu has a ferry that you can ride to a little man made island with a casino. The casino was built during covid, and is only recently just opened. We of course couldn't go into the casino with the boys but just riding the ferry was a fun evening adventure and then finishing the night off with ice cream.
The boys and I took in the monster truck show at the dirt track and left having had lots of fun and a nice dirt bath.
We ventured into the small town of Oatman. We learned it was named after the Oatman family who were massacred while traveling through Yuma, Arizona. Olive and her sister were takin prisoner while the brother was left to die alongside her parents. Later Olive and her brother were reunited while the remaining sister has passed from starvation. Olive Oatman had a tribal tattoo imprinted on her face. The town was a flourishing gold mining town from 1915-1917. People left for WWII and unfortunately never returned, and so the mining ultimately died and people left, but their burros stayed. So today it's a town of about 80 or so and is considered a ghost town. The buildings are now shops or a local restaurant and wild roaming burros that come into town daily to mingle with the tourists. The "mayor" is Walter. The only burro who has a people family and lives on their property. He was adopted by a family after he was left as a runt. Donkeys will stop in the middle of the street as your driving, all trying to get food or a pet. Oh and it's illegal to feed them people food, only donkey food allowed.
We took an adventure into Sedona, while Isaac's dad was in town. It's about 3 -4 hours from Lake Havasu. We were delighted to see how much the temperature had dropped in just two hours we went from over 100 to 80 degrees. Sedona is beautiful. Lush trees and beautiful desert shapes. There are several fun swimming holes in Sedona. Some are packed out as early as 7 a.m. We chose Grasshopper point. It had jumping cliffs and nice cold stream to swim in. We enjoyed a picnic and then took off to venture into the water. Emory immediately decided this was not for him. It was to cold and the rocks were to steep. So he and Papa hung out on the sides and took in the views of the others jumping. Eli who has no fear of anything called adventure, immediately took the first jump and then there was no stopping him. Isaac is more cautious, but eventually found his fearless mode and Sir Isaac quickly joined in on the fun. I even took a jump! From there we found a local trout farm that was a dollar to fish and then whatever you catch ya bought. We ended up with 12 fish and Sir Isaac made a yummy fish dinner before his dad left to return to Atlanta.
The thing about Lake Havasu is everything is about 1 to 4 hours away. It really is a pocket or "armpit" of Arizona. The closest airport is in Las Vegas which is 3 hours. Isaac took his dad and Eli to the airport, and Eli ventured home for 2 weeks to be with family and friends. It was a nice visit with Isaac's dad!
While Eli was back home in Georgia enjoying family, friends, and Chickfila, we went on an adventure to see the meteor crash site. Again 3-4 hours. But it was really neat to see how big the site was. They have a museum there which was neat learning about the family who explored the site, to learn it actually happened over 50,000 years ago. From there we ventured into Williams Arizona and met up with Susan and Jeff. Williams, Arizona is right on route 66 and have a Canyon Coaster. Canyon Coaster A mile coaster that goes down the mountain. You sit in your own seat, control how fast you go, etc. It was actually really fun and it only goes up to 35 mph but feels much faster especially going around the mountain and at a decline. Emory chose to ride with his daddy, which was a surprising move but in the end said "That man is crazy. He went the fastest." We all enjoyed the ride. We found the Poozum in Williams. The boys found this to be a hilarious museum dedicated to fossilized dinosaur poop. Yep, poop. It was definitely an interesting find, and you walked out with questions. Mainly, Why? But to hear the giggles, it was worth it. Poozeum
Susan and Jeff hosted us at a really fun Air Bnb. The house was filled with fun video games, out door games and a pool table. It was really nice catching up with her and meeting Jeff. They are a fun couple and have seemed to make a nice life in Arizona. We stayed up till 3 just talking and I was surprised by the fact that A. I did that, that hasn't happened in forever. and B. it was cold outside! I had a sweater and blanket and was still shivering. Isaac had to work the next day so we took off pretty early and headed back the two hours to Lake Havasu.
One of the best parts of living in Lake Havasu was meeting Natalie and Corey. A sweet travel couple. Corey worked at the hospital with Isaac, different shifts, but often trading off patients. Natalie is a teacher. We met randomly when I had posted on the local page that I would be able to tutor if anyone was interested. She responded that she was also in town for a few months while her husband worked at the hospital. We quickly figured out that maybe our hubby's worked together. We both called them and said hey we are going to he friends. Or something like that. Either way they are a very sweet, beautiful couple and made this journey into Lake Havasu a bit more fun!
Speaking of hospital, Isaac was not a fan. According to him, everything was backwards. He was on night shift and found that most often there were no doctors around to help nor did they want to be bothered while on call. He was ready to be done.
Eli returned home with my family in towe. Mom, Dan, and Rachel came down for the week and we tried to make the most of it considering they had never been to Arizona and it was reaching temperatures of 110 plus. I took them into Oatman to see the donkeys and we also ventured to the Grand Canyon. It is still just as spectacular as ever and no matter if you've seen it once or twice it's still just as breathtaking. Isaac wasn't able to join us due to work, but he did catch the space x rocket. We saw two while we were out in Lake Havasu. One when we were first getting into town and the second as we were gearing up to leave.
For the fourth of July we enjoyed swimming, Isaac made a yummy mexican meal for us and then we watched the fire works from the bridge. We said our goodbyes to Natalie and Corey, since they were headed to their next contract the next day and we still had a week. The next morning we said our goodbyes also to Rachel and Little Isaac. She was kind enough to take him back to Atlanta with her so he could enjoy some time with family and friends and then head to camp. We enjoyed seeing Rachel and were so glad she came out to visit. We also enjoyed having mom and Dan come out and explore with us and were sad to see them go as well, but excited they had a road trip of their own to get to.
We finished our time out in Lake Havasu by driving our RV into Phoenix to catch the Braves vs. the Diamondbacks. Susan joined us and she and Eli were finally able to meet. He asked her his million questions and in between heckled both teams. The Braves lost 1-0 but it was a funtime. At the end of the night we said our goodbyes and made sure to say let's not wait so long next time, and then off we went for one last night in Arizona.
Arizona gave us a beautiful goodbye with seeing the desert and the big cactuses one last time. I have to say, we all kinda agreed the desert was not for us, but it is a great place to visit, just not in the summer.
