t's March 20. Hey! It’s
Spring Break next week! How did I miss it? I’m not
keeping up with the
schedule of vacations and this is really messing up my travel plans. I can’t
waste a perfectly good vacation time, but… whom shall I invite to go with
me? Oh yes, Lindsay is the only person who's willing to travel with me at a
short notice. I can't believe I forgot to put it in my calendar.
It's Tuesday March 25. It took me this long to plan a trip. We've decided
to spend Spring Break at the Colorado River in Arizona. Warm weather is
definitely called for this year, and is about time too. Winter in
California this year was way too long. Should be no problem packing up my
car with summer gear and heading to the river. I may even find a few
adventure stories to write about.
After finding out my new car is not all I thought it would be (read:
Mishaps) we head for Arizona on highway 10 at about 11 am. No bikes
this time but everything else was in the back of my new SUV. Our
computerized list of things to take from last summer proved helpful once
again. Nothing is missing; we had the boat, paddles, roller-blades,
my extensive collection of camping equipment and even our very own comfy
pillows and blankets. We are really looking forward spending some time in
the outdoors and enjoying nature. We just didn't know where we would end
up, but for now, all we're were sure is... Arizona, here we come!.
At 4:30 in the afternoon we see a sign: "Come visit THE LAKE" we immediately
decide we want to go to Lake Havasu and get some sun and water. We turned
off from highway 10 at Blythe, then north on highway 95 toward Parker Dam.
The winding road skirted the Colorado River. Sometimes we would see portions
of it on our left but most of the time it was beautiful mountains splashed
with red, blue, violet and green. Cactus abounded as far as the eye could
see and some even boasted of beautiful white, pink and yellow flowers. Half
a house lay on the side of the road lost from a house-moving truck. I
wondered how those people explained the losing of an entire house. Fifty
miles later we are at Parker Dam. We took a small break to take pictures
and orient ourselves.
Spring break was very evident as we drove to a campground ready to tuck in
for the night. No room at the Inn, all spaces are taken. Wait, it’s a
Tuesday, how can that be? I remembered all the students in the world would
be doing the exact same thing we were.
Cattail, Crazyhorse and numerous
other campgrounds in the area were full. The rest would not allow tent
camping, only RV's. It was time to find
a hotel. I was not looking forward to sleeping in the car.
Near London Bridge in
Lake Havasu City --the same one that used to be in London, England-- we found
Sandman hotel. We are so tired we settle for the first lodging we see. It is
on a busy street so it must be Ok... NOT!! The first night is turning out
to be a bad experience already. I kept hearing critters running on the
floors. I woke up in the middle of the night with nightmares. We were glad
to be out first thing in the morning.
The first order of the day is to find a campground to spend the night.
Arizona state parks would be busy so we needed to get reservations early.
Hey! That always worked for me in the past. Of course, all spaces were
reserved at Lake Havasu State Park, and the few left on a first come first serve basis had a waiting
list of 10 people already. My name was number 11. The ranger said to come
back after noon t
o find out how many spaces could be sold for the night. It
was 9 am and we're already not having fun.
We decide to spend the day by the beach and pay for day use only. If we had
to get another hotel room, well… we were ready. For sure the next day we
would have to leave. This was an outdoors vacation and hotel rooms just
wouldn't do. When we returned later, only seven sites were left, there was
no room for us at the camp. To make matters worse, my car got stuck in the
sand, while going for the shortcut to make reservations at Travel Lodge. We had left our picnic basket, food and
water at the beach under the care of a nice couple. We told them we would
be right back. Still we’re not having fun. Students on the parking lot
helped get the car out.
Finally we made it to the
beach. The caretakers of our gear looked at us with a strange look.
I could hear them thinking: Who are these people anyway? We're not
babysitters of food and gear! After my profound apologies and a long story
made very, very short, we got to swim, waddle in the water but most of the time we ended up
yelling at each other when we wanted to talk. The myriad of boats, personal
watercraft, skiers and drunken students didn't make it for a quiet day.
As the day wore on the beach park emptied and boats docked to continue their
partying on land. Lindsay and I cooked macaroni and cheese over the fire
and watched the most stunning sunset I've seen in my life. The moon on the
east and the sun setting on the west made for a very unusual view of the
sky. The warm fire and smell of the lake made up for all the heartaches of
the day. While Lindsay spent a good portion of the afternoon on the phone
with her friends, I got to chat with Art. He was there alone and just
enjoying the afternoon. He lives in Las Vegas and works in real estate. It
was nice chatting with an adult for a change.
That night, Travelodge Hotel treated us to water running until 3 am. When
I called the front desk to complain they told me it would be checked out.
As it turned out, I saved them from worse trouble. A tub next to our hotel
room was spilling water to the floor below while students in that same room
slept. Somehow, the $75.00 deposit required by management for damages would
not cover this disaster. We decided to move on to another city. Grand
Canyon called us.
