Indio Elks Lodge camping club, the Desert Drifters. There were 10 rigs at the Riverside Resort RV Park, and three other couples staying in local hotels because they didn't want to take their rigs up due to the high fuel costs. On Friday night we had a cocktail hour with heavy snacks. On Friday, Jackie and I, Dave and Maryanne, and Bill and Lynette took the jet boat ride from Laughlin South to Lake Havasu and the London Bridge. It was about 70 miles down the Colorado River, much of it through areas not accessible by land vehicle. Although the ride was a little rough in places, it was still great fun. We had lunch in Lake Havasu, did a little quick shopping, then back in the boat for the ride North.On Friday night we had a pot luck with the group that was a lot of fun and too much good food. On Saturday a bunch of us got together and took a ride up to Oatman, Arizona, an old
mining town in the mountains East of Bullhead City. We had lunch and shopped for a few hours, then headed back to Laughlin. Saturday evening the group went out on the little riverboat from the casino for a dinner cruise. It was OK, although the food was only fair and the service not so good. At least the company was good and we talked most of the dinner with the others in our party. Jackie and I went over to several casinos during the evenings of our stay, but didn't do really well until the last night when Jackie hit a Royal on a poker machine and cashed out enough to make us even for the weekend. YEA!On Sunday, while our friends headed South back to the desert, we packed up and headed North through Vegas towards Hurricane, Utah. Hurricane is a few miles North of St. George, Utah. One
of the highlights of the trip is going through the Virgin River Gorge in the Arizona Strip. There is a 35 mile part of I-15 that goes through Arizona between Mesquite, Nevada and St. George, Utah. We had a good trip and checked into the Western Horizon resort in Hurricane for a week's stay. On Monday we did some geocaching in the area and found 11 caches. On Tuesday we took a drive to Zion National Park. It has been many years since I was in Zion and Jackie had never been there. The park is simply breathtaking - a huge red rock canyon with two thousand foot cliffs on both sides. We spent the whole day there taking in the sights. We did a couple of short hikes to scenery sites and took a lot of photos. It is nice because they don't allow cars in the main part of the park, but have a free shuttle that takes you all over the park. We really had a great time.Wednesday we drove back down to Mesquite, Nevada for a little more gaming. Didn't do very well. We did stop at the Mesquite Elks Lodge for a cocktail and visit. On Thursday we took a drive North to Kolob Canyons, which is another part of Zion National Park. This is a very small area with beautiful canyon vistas. While we were up that way we drove around Cedar City, Utah and stopped at the Elks Lodge there. Friday we did some more geocaching and then went to the St. George Elks Lodge for dinner and drinks. They had karaoke that night, so we ended up staying until about 10 o'clock singing. Saturday we stayed around the coach and Sunday morning we packed up and headed for Salina, Utah, a little town on I-70 about 30 miles East of the I-15 junction.
The original plan was to spend a couple nights in Salina, then head East on I-70 to Grand Junction, Colorado for another couple nights stay. However, we were checking the weather forecasts and learned that there was a winter storm moving into the Rockies starting on
Thursday. Since we knew we had to go over the Continental Divide on I-70 (11,100 Ft.) in order to get to Denver, we decided to cut our stays in both Salina and Grand Junction to one-nighters. This put us going over the Rockies on Tuesday in beautiful weather. The climb up the Divide was a little slow in places, but the scenery was spectacular. The weather was clear, but cool, so there was no threat of overheating, even with the long, steep climbs. We stopped at the rest area at the Divide and the snow on the sides of the road were as tall as the motor home. After we went through the Eisenhower Tunnel over the Divide, then I had to work to keep the coach from running away from me on the down side of the mountains. At one point there is a ten mile long, seven percent grade. The speed limit for vehicles over 10,000 pounds was 35 MPH and it was a really good idea!We finally pulled into the Denver area in the early afternoon and went to the Westminster Elks Lodge. This lodge is about 10 miles from downtown Denver and has a great RV park. They have 40 spaces, many with full hookups. We got one of the full hookup spots and settled in for a five day stay. Wednesday we drove into Downtown Denver for some sightseeing. It was 81 degrees and I was running around in shorts and a tee shirt. We also did some Elks visitations, stopping in at the Denver and Arvada Lodges. The Denver Lodge (#17) was in a huge building, although they only have about 500 members. The bartender showed us around the building. The Arvada Lodge was in a building that had been an old Safeway store, but you couldn't tell after the way the remodeled it. The people we met there were very friendly and gave us a tour.
On Thursday morning we woke up to a gray sky and 40 degrees. At about 9 a.m. it started to snow and by noon we had about two inches on the ground. First time the coach had ever seen
snow. We were sure glad that we had modified our plans to get into Denver early because we heard that they closed I-70 over the Divide Thursday afternoon and it didn't reopen until late Friday! By Thursday evening the snow turned to rain and by dark all the snow on the ground was gone. Since we were parked and cozy, it was a fun adventure to see the snow. That evening we went down to the Lodge for cocktails and their taco night. Great food, ate too much!Friday we drove around some more, picked up our mail at the UPS center, and did some shopping at one of the local malls. Saturday we engaged in one of our famous (and fun) Elks Pub Crawls. The first lodge we went to was Aurora, however, we found the building closed and vacant. We later found out that they had been forced out of the building by the city and were in the process of trying to find another home. After that we went by the Littleton Lodge, the Englewood Lodge and the Lakewood Lodge. The Littleton Lodge was very friendly and had a very pretty lodge building. The Englewood Lodge was OK, small and not very friendly. In fact, we didn't even stay for our free second drink! The Lakewood Lodge has about 1,400 members and is the largest Lodge in Colorado. They had a great building and were also very friendly. We got tours of both the Littleton and Lakewood Lodges.
This morning we left Westminster and the Denver area and again headed East on I-70, starting to work our way across the prairie. We are now headed across the part of the country known as Tornado Alley and it is the height of the severe storm season. We will be sure to keep the weather radio tuned to the right channel and watching the skies. I told Jackie that it was like playing weather roulette - you just hope that your number doesn't come up! This afternoon we stopped in the little town of Seibert, Colorado, population 190. We stopped here because the mileage was right and there is a Passport America RV park. We got a full hookup, 50 amp pull-through site for $15. Hard to beat that when you are on a budget. Very small-town America here too - the guy running the park was very friendly and helpful. We didn't want to unhook the car, so we walked two blocks to the town's only store and when we walked in the lady behind the register said, "hi, you must be the new arrivals in space 2." I guess we had a stunned look on our face because she then told us that she and her husband ran the park and also owned the food store. For a minute we thought they had spies in the trees watching our every move and reporting on us.
We are only here for one night, then on to points in Kansas. Unless something spectacular happens, I will post again in a couple weeks. Until then, I hope we don't meet Toto or Dorothy!
