It was a good week, it was a bad week…..but that’s
life right? There is a little good and bad in just about everything. That
really sums up our week at Government Wash in the Lake Mead National Park in a nutshell.
Let’s start with the good…..
The Good….
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We stayed for a 5 days at the Government Wash
for free!
The short drive from Lake Havasu City to Lake Mead was uneventful. We
pulled into The Boulder Beach Campground and drove around looking for the
perfect site. Boulder Beach is a nice quiet campground just inside the park
with no water, sewer or electric. Basically boondocking but paying for it. They
do have nice bathrooms as well as water and dump stations. After picking our spot, Barb went and got a
payment envelope and we were about to put the $100 in it for our 5 night stay
and we just couldn’t do it! Just up the road within the park is a free
boondocking area we had explored last time we were here, let’s go there!
We arrived at the Government Wash camping area and set up in the
beautiful spot at the end of a point.
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| Our home for the week. Dino & Lisa on the left, us on the right |
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| Daisy is not spoiled at all! |
·
Barb had a birthday!
Thursday dawned bright and sunny as well it should….it was Barb’s
birthday!!!!! What did we have planned on this special day? First up was to get
Barb her birthday donut! Last time we were here Steve and Joan had told us
about a great little donut shop in Henderson. Barb loves their buttermilk
donuts so off we went. We pulled in with great anticipation, walked in the door
and the donut case was almost empty! Barb walked up to the counter….no more
buttermilks left! What a disappointment!
·
We got to see Dino and Lisa!
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| I stole this picture from Bill & Kelly's blog.... |
Dino and Lisa were reported to be staying at Sam’s Town RV Park in Las
Vegas so we thought we would surprise them by dropping by….. after all we had
not seen them in 3 long days! We found their rig and were chatting outside when
I looked next door and thought I saw a jeep I recognized…. I walked over to get
a closer look and sure enough it belonged to our former boss’ Chuck and Claudia
from our road mapping job last spring! What are the odds? They came out and the
6 of us visited for a few while before saying goodbye.
The next day they moved out to Government Wash and parked next to us!
(Wait….maybe I should have saved this for the “Bad”!)
·
We got to see my sister Judy!
My sister Judy, her husband Mike and a few friends were coming to Las
Vegas for the Nascar race. We met them at Margaritaville and had a great dinner. They had traveled from Florida getting up at
3:00am (ET) so by the time we got done with dinner about 6:00pm (PT), they were
beat. After saying goodbye to them we walked the strip to take in some of the
sights.
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| Marvin, Judy, Mike, Barb and I |
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| The Birthday Girl! |
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| Bellagio Water Show |
·
Barb got a donut!
Friday morning I woke up at 5:20am, got up and was getting dressed when
Barb woke up and said, “What are you doing?” I replied, “Going to get you a
buttermilk donut!”. So off I went into Henderson and scored on two buttermilk
donuts!
·
We got to go kayaking again!
After our initial kayaking adventure at Lake Havasu we had the itch to
get back on the water again. We put the kayak in just below our camping area
and spent about an hour on the water. Of course Daisy fell in again, 6 times! I
am beginning to wonder if she is doing it on purpose. We tried to go with Dino and Lisa later in the week but it was too windy.
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| Daisy....all wet! |
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| Cool rock formation |
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| Cinnamon Teal |
·
Barb got her hair done!
Before we hit the road Barb worried about how she was going to get her
hair cut and colored. She had been going to the same stylist for years. Her
stylist prepared her for life on the road by giving her all the makings to
color her hair on the road, in fact she offered to teach me how to color it.
Barb wanted nothing to do with me touching her hair so she would get it done
the infrequent times we were back in Minnesota.
Fast forward to now, the coloring has been sitting in the box for two
years until this week. Both Dino and Lisa are former stylists and were nice
enough to color Barb’s hair for her!
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| Theres my beauty! |
·
We fed the fish and ducks at the Marina!
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| Hen Redhead |
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| Drake Redhead |
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| Drake Ringbill |
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| Drake Common Merganser |
·
We got to hang with Steve and Joan!
Over the course
of the 5 days we saw Steve and Joan several times......Bowling, jeeping, hiking, eating out and game night!……
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| Nice form! |
We had not been bowling for years; Barb did pretty well, while I on the
other hand….not so much.
At $40/person, the seafood buffet at M casino was very good and well
worth the money. Afterwards we walked the casino gambling a bit; Joan played
Pai Gow while Barb and I walked around playing some slots. We walked out $9
ahead ………
Along with Dino and Lisa, the 6 of us went on a jeeping/hiking combo
adventure. Leaving the park to the south, we crossed the dam and turned off
onto a two track dirt road that led to a wash. It was a really cool trail
leading in and out of the wash through some very scenic areas.
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| Steve and Joan led the way |
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| Dino and Lisa rounding the corner |
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| There we go! |
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| Very rugged terrain |
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| We even saw a few sheep! |
After a few
miles the jeep trail ended and the hiking started. The hiking trail led down
the wash to the Colorado River where an old River Gauger's Station. In the 1920's this location was used to measure the impact of the dams on the Colorado River; depth, flow, silt..... really an interesting piece of history.
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| The trail head where we parked |
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| Dino squeezing through a tight spot |
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| Headed down the wash.... |
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| Joan and Lisa headed up to the station |
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| View up river |
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| The whole gang! |
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| A couple more great views while jeeping |
Game night! We played several card games......
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| Golf! |
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| Fruit Salad.....Barb was the big loser! |
The Bad….
·
The wind, partying and litter is out of hand in
Government Wash.
Wind is expected when you park at the end of a high point next to the
lake but when it came up at 1:45am blowing over tables, chairs, our grill and
rocking the trailer that really disrupted our sleep. The next day it was so windy we had to pull in our slides!
There seems to be quite a bit of partying out here on the weekends.
During the week it was fairly quiet at night with an occasional car driving by
after dark but on the weekend about a dozen cars pulled in on the adjacent
point, built a huge fire and started partying until the wee hours of the
morning. The noise isn’t too bad as it is temporary but the subsequent litter
is everywhere. The shoreline is littered with bottles, cans, fishing line,
diapers and other debris.
·
Barb is black and blue all over!
Over the course of the past week Barb bruised the arch of her foot after
stepping down on a rock wrong. She scraped her elbow and both palms of her
hands when trying to ease down a smooth rock. As she explained it to me… “The
coefficient of friction was overcome by mass which turned into velocity when
combined with gravity”. And she was bonked on the head at 2:00am when I reached
for the phone on our overhead shelf to see what time it was.
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| Ouch! |
· Trying to park a crew cab dually truck in Las
Vegas sucks! We eventually found a spot but we had a frustrating and intense 20
minutes.
The good’s far outweighed the bad in both
quantity and severity providing us a great week. Time to continue our journey
north, we said our goodbyes to Dino and Lisa as well as Steve and Joan. We won’t see either of them for months if not
a year or more L.
