Sunday April 15th
We moved on from Quartsite to Blue Water Casino only an hours drive away. They made our reservation for the NEXT Saturday. They found a room for us and upgraded it for their error (or we got lucky and that’s all they had left)!

We got there just in time for a movie $5.00 a piece – you can’t pass that up! We saw Player One. We both liked it but I can’t think of who I’d recommend it to. It’s about gaming, pop culture, and virtual reality.

A little lunch and relaxing in our room and we were ready to go again. This time we saw The Quiet Place – yeow! Talk about scary and suspenseful! Really different!

A little slot play and we called it a day.

Saturday April 14th 2018
We said goodbye to Alamo State Park this morning. Next stop Quartsite a couple of hours west. Quartsite has a population of 3,677. Not a big place but it’s the destination of a million visitors each year and most of them come in RV’s during January and February. The rock hounds and early snow birds flock here for the weather and the 2,000 vendors of rocks, gems, minerals, fossils and whatever! The world’s largest open air flea markets right there in Quartzsite. Evidently its the place to be the first 2 months of the year!

By April though – not much going on here. The Quail Run RV Resort where we stayed for the night only had a handful of guests. The town is at the end of their season and seemed kinda deserted. It was a little eerie. We browsed the rock/gem/jewelry/thrift combination stores to pass the day. We did see the worlds largest belt buckle – so there’s that!

We decided to find dinner in town. So off to Silly Sid’s Pizza. What a surprise! The parking lot was full, the bar and restaurant packed, the DJ way loud and a disco ball over the dance floor to boot. All that and great pizza! We scored.

JP hit it early but I had Wi-Fi and that meant I could catch up the blog. So I was up till the wee hours but glad I had great coverage to do it!

Friday April 13th, 2018 

Apparently the wind situation isn’t going to improve so we spent the day getting things in order to leave a day early. JP has had allergies something fierce here and is ready for some relief! We leave tomorrow 10:00 AM. 

Its been beautiful here in that desert sort of way. I spent a lot of my time planning and writing. I read a lot too. The night skies were amazing here because it’s so far out from town or city lights. All the stars and constellations scattered across the night sky for as far as you can see. It’s often heavenly here – balmy with breeze. You can wrap yourself up in the quiet with a ceiling of stars sparking in the night sky. The sunsets and the starry skies is what I’ll remember most about our stay here (oh and the damn burros)! I’m sure we will come back again somewhere down the line.

April 12, 2018
The weather wasn’t going to make fishing possible today so we decided to give Wickenburg another go. 

The town is pretty proud of their Desert Caballeros Western Museum and for good reason. For a mere $10.00 each we had a chance to learn about Wickenburg’s history by visiting the authentic exhibits with headsets on and friendly volunteers on hand to answer questions. The museum’s bottom floor had great examples of life in the 1800’s. 

There’s even a General Store where the store clerk invites you to have a seat on a crate while he (a really good hologram) shares what he hears from his customers.  Current events like women wanting to vote and the rumor that states themselves might be deciding if they were gonna be “wet or dry” state. Liquor was on its way out in Wickenburg – the women got the right to vote and booze became a bootleg operation.

We took a break and had a great lunch at Anita’s Cocina then went for round 2 at the museum. It was a short walk to a packed place with great food! 

The upstairs of the museum has an art gallery. The current exhibit is called Cowgirl Up! Art from the Other Half of the West.  Amazing western flavored artwork by women artists.

There was an art gallery upstairs as well with current artwork by local artists that was pretty impressive too. Most of the artwork was thousands of dollars and the most expensive was $16,000 for a life size bronze wall sculpture of chaps.The amount of art wearing red stickers to indicate the piece had been SOLD was downright impressive! 

Between the art galleries was the history of the Cabellaros, Dude Ranches, and Rodeo. Did you know Bolo Ties were invented in Wickenburg? Me either!

A gentleman named Steve Getzwiller has added his private collection to the Museum in a separate building. It included a gun collection, original
Hopi art and a combination of other cool stuff he’d accumulated since he was a young guy. My favorite was the piano from the Bird Cage Saloon in Tombstone, sitting there as though no time had passed with its 5 foot pedals instead of three, probably yearning for fingers on it’s lonely keys.

There was still time for a little old town browsing so we wandered some shops and found a few more interesting sights to see. 

By the time we finished up it was ice cream o’clock and we’d been looking forward to Chappell’s for another helping of their handmade ice cream. It was a full day and a nice change of pace. We  got home in time for a much cooler evening in Alamo. Oh but the wind did howl!

Tuesday April 10th and Wednesday April 11th, 2018

With Alamo in the rear view mirror we headed east for the day and drove an hour and a half to Wickenburg AZ. We were on a quest for a small fan to help circulate the air conditioning in Lucky. We hit the Goodwill for some movies and books, scored a fan at Dollar General, had Mexican lunch at Lydia’s La Canasta and then headed to old town Wickenburg. We left at 9:30 this morning so I thought we’d have plenty of time but the shops closed at 5:00. We’re going to have to make another trip to finish the old town and spend some time in the intriguing museum.

There are 16 statues in town all by the same artist but we only scoped out a few. The shops were different, very western-ish and the gals that worked in them were fun and chatty. At the Rusty Rooster the owners decided to do some remodeling and found the original wall under the plaster that once belonged to very small adjoining room that housed a family with 10 kids back in the day. Pretty amazing find!

We learned from shop talk that Wickenburg has several treatment centers. As in recovery centers (think alcohol, drug, eating disorders, sexual addiction etc). We heard Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Tiger Woods are just some of the celebs rumored to traveled here for treatment. The gals who told us about this said celebs are brought here but aren’t allowed to know that Wickenburg AZ is their destination. JP and I thought maybe blackened windows in a chauffeured limo – but hey, who knows maybe a cloth bag over their head for the long drive to point nowhere in an unknown desert miles from an anonymous town would work too. It’s private and remote so a good location to make some life changes. Never easy no matter where the location. No matter what your need – it looks like Wikenburg has it covered.

Next stop Chaparral Homemade Ice Cream & Pastries for a yummy treat on a scorching day. One last stop at Safeway for produce and we headed back home to Alamo Lake. It was fun going out and about today. The weather in Arizona is definitely getting hotter by the day though!

Wednesday AM JP tried to have a go on the lake but the wind was just too much for a human powered pontoon boat. There’s a cold snap coming (temperatures dropping down to the mid 70’s) and lots of wind in the forecast. We’ve been on some evening walks. We took a little mid-day hike but that was just a little to hot for my taste. There are hiking paths here at the Lake, You know them by the “cairns” little stacks of rocks to indicate you’re on course.

Wednesday April 4th – Monday April 9th, 2018

The weather’s been clear, hot and sometimes windy. Most importantly though JP got to do some fishing! It’s been a lot of catch and release. JP can only eat so many fish dinners and we only have a small fridge freezer. So lots of catching but not a lot of keeping. He didn’t usually fish the full day. It’s really hot mid-day (and we have two weeks here, so no pressure) but he makes a trip out to the lake either in the AM or PM and once in awhile both. He’s caught Crappie, Bass, a Blue Gill and some Catfish. The wind was a challenge since he is human powered in his pontoon. He didn’t get much in the way of fish pictures since he was releasing his catch but he seemed pretty happy to be fishing and catching!

We have mad burro here at the Lake. We’ve seen bunches of them on the hill beside us. They’re really loud even at a distance. At night when we get settled in to watch a movie we can hear burro beside the trailer door. We’d wake up to their breathing right outside the open window above our bed. Really late at night they’d get rowdy and sound off with ugly monster noises. 

Maybe they’re lonely – but more likely it’s the mating season. Maybe there are burro games, or scavenger hunts? Harmless I’m sure – but really kinda creepy! One night JP handed the lantern off to me so I could shower in the Ladies Room while he waited under the stars in the near dark. I heard a huge ruckus and when I came out he said he had just watched a burro fight (from his perch standing on top of the picnic table)! We waited and watched them huff and holler and strut around the stretch in front of us – it was crazy!

Some evenings we drove out 15 minutes or to a turnout where we could get cell coverage. There we could make some contact and watch the sunset over the Lake. It was my favorite part of the trip – gorgeous!

Campers and ATV folk came and went but the regular residents were always out and about. For the donkeys, bats, birds, rabbits, and lizards that live here, life went on as usual. We met a couple that warned us about rattlesnakes since they found one at their campsite but luckily we never saw one. This is a photo that hangs in the store at the lake. Nothing to worry about here!

Sent from my iPhone

Tuesday April 3rd, 2018
We headed out early to not quite beat the traffic. Lake Alamo State Park is really pretty remote so we made a supply stop, then picked up Lucky and headed back to Arizona. Crappie and Bass are  JP’s target zone. It looks like the weather should be good. The only drawback is that there is little cell service and no wifi so I will be writing the blog posts in notes on my phone, then emailing them to myself and copying them into the blog- eventually. That means a whole lot of catching up and posting when I get to a wifi spot again. I’ll be on it!

Monday April 2nd, 2018
It was a workday for Ben so Amanda, JP and I spent the day running around shopping. We were on it! We crossed everything off our shopping list and still had time for a short rest before Ben got home. Then off to C&O Trattoria to celebrate my BD (I celebrate my BD as a month long event)! It’s an Italian Restaurant with great food, always packed, under the sky (nope no roof) and magic garlic knots. All you need to do is make eye contact with the server and your knot basket is full again. If you know me – you know how this thrills me! Amanda calls it mom being “bread drunk” and that nails it!

It was a short but sweet trip and I was already planning our next family get together when I hit the hay tonight.

Sunday April 1st, 2018
Amanda made us a huge Easter breakfast at Ben’s this morning. She had an afternoon class so we hung out with Ben for the day. JP and Ben took a drive across town to get the deal of the day – the exercise bike Ben had been eyeing for awhile. Brand new, but put together wrong so he got it for a song! The guys took it apart, made some corrections and viola!
The kids made a hand off and we had dinner with Amanda at Marie Calendars before we settled in for the night.

Saturday March 31st, 2018
I stayed over at Amanda’s in Pasadena. It was time to add more decor to her new apartment so we were on a quest. We brunched at BJ’s then loaded up and headed home with nightstands, lamps and a plethora of earrings that weren’t on her shopping list. The guys came over later and got everything situated for her and she was a happy gal! Next up was dinner and a movie. We ate at The Counter, a custom burger place. It always feels like vacation here because the weather is warm and you can eat out on the patios. Then off to see Justin Bateman and Rachel McAdams in Game On at the show. It wasn’t 4 stars but we laughed – that makes it a winner in my book!