Quilting – Page 2 – TooBusyForWork

Thanksgiving in the books

Not much to talk about since this is always a slow period for me. And no pictures either.

We had a really lovely Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. Thursday my daughter was working, so we just slid things by a day. All three of my Iowa kids and their families were here. The one in Wisconsin called, but couldn’t attend. I cooked a glorious Amana smoked ham, home made rolls, cornbread and sage dressing, and two pecan and two pumpkin pies. Kevin smoked a turkey. My daughter in law made a huge apple crisp pie, a quinoa salad, and the cranberries. My daughter and son in law brought green beans and a corn casserole, while my second son and his partner brought sweet potatoes we baked. I wish I had thought to take a picture of the loaded counters before we had 13 people descend on them like locusts. We still had enough to give folks left overs. Today we have just nibbled because I am still full.

As for quilting, I have worked quite a bit on my class quilt. The best thing I have learned is to slow down and be accurate! It is something I had to learn in my piecing too. I just try to go too fast and then make mistakes or it just isn’t precise enough. If it isn’t right, I just get to spend the time taking it out and re-sewing so I don’t save any time at all! One of the problems was I drew the block lines with a chalk liner the instructor recommended, but it got blurred before I sewed it. That led to inaccurate measurements and all kinds of problems. I may not ever finish it, but I will do at least one of all the block designs we learned. I think I will just use it as my own sampler for other rulers I have.

I did get some relief from my steroid injection, but I think the PT will be more effective now that everything isn’t so incredibly painful. I have already gotten farther in 3 visits than I did in 6-7 weeks before. My goals are pretty minor – to be able to walk a mile. Now o can walk only half a block on a bad day, and sometimes even less. Crossing my fingers I can get rid of my handicapped hang tag when it expires in March.

Back from server problems (I hope!)

For the last few weeks the site has been plagued by hosting problems. It would be up for 5 minutes then down for hours then up for 30 minutes down for 5 … You get the message. I contacted Bluehost, did the standard wait for an hour for text support, you all know the drill. Nothing they did seemed to work, but a couple of days later it started working for longer and longer. I finally trust it to stay up long enough to get a post up, even though there isn’t much to say.

Kevin added a 2” lift kit to the UTV, so we took a short trip to the local OHV park to check it out. It is a small area, but it has enough variety to make sure everything was working well. It gave us a total 1 1/2” increase in height. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is gave us 11.5” in the front and 9.5” in the back now. That is a significant change and will be very helpful in the Arizona rocks this winter.

We were the only people around so we had some nice animal sights. While we didn’t see this beaver, we certainly knew it was around!

There were some visible animals though. We saw at least 20 turkeys in two groups, one big and one small, plus a single deer who didn’t see much in us to worry her.

We also had one more group ride from the Volga, IA. There was an awful lot of rain beforehand, so this trip also was re-routed to mostly gravel roads. I felt sorry for the organizers. They had cleared more trails and gained additional landowner permissions for newer locations, and then they had to hit mostly the gravel roads! However even the gravel roads are lovely in Allamakee county.

One of the characteristics of group activities in Iowa before the corn is cut is the guys head into the corn instead of the provided toilets. It makes for shorter lines for the women!

It wasn’t peak color, but it was still nice.

We also took a trip to the largest OHV park in Iowa near Ft. Dodge. I was not a fan. I like to ride to see scenery, not for an adrenaline rush. The majority of the area is a bunch of trails emphasizing mudding and fast corners. Of course there were some lovely spots.

We also went to a local community playhouse to see “Noises Off,” a backstage/front stage comedy of actors in a play. I am sorry to say it was awful! The actors did what they could with the play, but the play itself was pretty bad. Too bad because it is a lovely theater, and we hope to go to other plays there. We also went to a presentation of “Annie” at Gallagher Bluedorn theater at University of Northern Iowa here in town. Nicely done, but I never can figure out why theater seats copy airplane seats in size! My knees bump up against the seat I front of me!

I also got a truly disgusting cold/sinus “thing.” That has lasted for two full weeks now. I dosed myself with a huge amount of meds in order to visit a pain doctor for a steroid injection in my back. It is already a little bit better, and I hope it improves significantly.

No real quilting, but I am prepping for a class on ruler quilting offered virtually by a quilt shop not too far away. The result will be a whole cloth quilt using a Westerlee arc ruler. It will be three hours each night on three more nights. Our first night was a bunch of background and how to set up for the quilting part. I had to do an awful lot of marking to get started, and I still have to get it trimmed and sandwiched by Tuesday! We will see. I have a backup plan of scraps to use for the practice. Maybe my next post will be a picture of the result.

Back in Iowa for a short while

The FMCA rally was great fun as usual. The chapter I am an officer in had three big events that kept me busy. I was also a Governing Board delegate for a chapter that couldn’t attend, so I spent a lot of time at activities but only got to one seminar! The seminar I went to was the meeting of the Quilts for Kids group, am I formal and unofficial group that donates quilts and crochet/knit blankets for kids in the communities the convention is held in. I donated another one of my scrappy tumbler quilts, the one I finished at Lake Havasu in June. I will try to have two done next time.

I also taught a class in sewing Microwave Bowl Cozies. It was so much fun! I only had 5 students, but the 2 hour window let three students complete two cozies, one student get 1 3/4 done, and another one got one done (she was double dipping in another class at the same time!). Since I didn’t ask them if I could post their pictures, I covered their faces here.

I am still trying to decide whether to do a class next convention or not. Hard to think of something interesting but not too hard so they can get it finished or mostly finished in class.

As the convention was winding down, Kevin and I both were looking at getting home, so we decided to by-pass the Black Hills this time and head back to Iowa on Sunday after the convention. We spent the first night at the Kennebec, South Dakota KOA. Monday night we spent at our first Elks Lodge in Sioux City, Iowa. Kevin joined the Elks while we were in Gillette. We have a bunch of friends who belong and stay at their lodges while traveling. It worked out fine, and it was certainly convenient. We left the motorhome at a local campground for the next few days until we get it cleaned out and re-organized. We will only be home for a week and a half until we have to head to Alabama for a bunch of work on the motorhome. Sigh. It will be such a pain to empty everything and then put it all back for that short of time, but we will need the items.

So not much until Alabama!

In Gillette Wyoming at the FMCA Convention

Not much to post because we have been attending a rally of the Diesel RV Club (I am VP of Membership). The rally was fun and informative as usual. It was held at the same campground as the FMCA convention, so we are basically set up with full hookups for over 2 weeks. Very unusual for us. It feels odd to use as much water as I want without any conservation LOL!

I did get a bit of sewing done though. These are 130 4” Drunkard’s Path blocks. I really need only 120, but on a scrappy version it never hurts to have a few extra to get a better color balance. It will eventually be 10 blocks x 12 blocks (40”x48”) before borders, but I haven’t decided on the border size yet. I am going to wait until I get home to lay it out so I can manage the layout better.

Since Kevin is volunteering with the parking crew for the convention, I am now at loose ends! I have made everything I brought with me [note to self:bring more next time!], so I went to a small quilt shop in town, Blue Bike Quilt Studio, to see what I could find. They had this kitted up for a lap sized quilt, 59”x79”, a nice size. I have a strong preference for modern quilts, so I like this one.

Here are the fabrics. It included the background fabric (cream) and the fat quarters shown. It even included binding. I arranged them in the color pairs I intend on using.

Happily for me, the quilt is made with 2.25” strips, and I just happen to have a 2.25” strip cutter with me! I wouldn’t have bought it if I couldn’t cut it with my Accuquilt cutter. It looks like I will only need 4-5 strips of each fabric, so I will have quite a bit left over. Just what I need – more scraps! I will wait until tomorrow to cut the strips, making sure I like the color arrangement.

I also packaged up all the kits for the microwave bowl cozy class I am doing at the convention. I have a max of 12-15 students (I have forgotten which!), but I made 20 kits so people can hopefully find one they like.) I need to make one while taking photographs as I go to finish up the instructions, but I can do that Monday or Tuesday.

Might not be more posts until the convention is over and we are settled in the Black Hills, about a week from now.

Crazy Woman Canyon and moving to Sheridan and civilization

We took one last trip in the RZR on Friday from our camp on Grouse Mountain. We went to a trailhead for Crazy Woman Canyon and drove Rt 33 until just past the Forest Service boundary. The ride is well worth the hype.

The main road is suitable for passenger cars, and there were a number of them along the way

I do apologize for the sun reflections. I didn’t know it was this bad until I processed the pictures. But the bluffs quickly came to overshadow us. We met another couple in a side by side as we were unloading. They had just arrived, so we went over the routes with them and asked if they were interested in joining us. It is much safer with more than one rig, and our driving styles were pretty similar.

When we got to the bottom of the canyon, the walls closed in tightly. Sadly none of those pictures came out at all, so you will just have to go yourself! We climbed up out of the canyon after a while, and the views got much broader.

We found a new flower along the way. I think this is bee balm, and it had just started blooming.

The rocks here are very ancient limestone, and they fracture regularly. It was interesting to see the result of a rockfall in open country. The rocks are big, with the rectangular one closest to the cliff perhaps 20’ tall.

Once we finished the main road we just took off randomly along the trails. They got significantly rougher, but we also left the people in passenger cars behind. We only had one unexpected dead end needing back tracking. That was when a trail crossed a water way that was an unknown depth and moving pretty fast. Discretion being the better part of valor, we turned around there.

There are a number of cabins the Forest Service now rents out. This is the Muddy Guard Cabin just off the trail head. I don’t know what it looks like inside, but the outside was in good shape.

We came back to the motorhome, cleaned up (a UTV ride gets you dirty!), then headed to Peter D’s Campground in Sheridan where we had reservations. It is a small place, family owned, and spotless. It is a bit older though, and our passenger side slide was maybe 4’ from our neighbor’s driver’s side slide! It was pretty inexpensive at $40/night, cash. We started the inevitable laundry, and on Saturday we drove out US 14, the northern route through the Bighorns.

This is a much more abrupt climb into the mountains with 8% grades and tight turns, but it is a spectacular drive. We have done it a number of times. Like Crazy Woman Canyon, the rock here is mostly ancient limestone, and it fractures with water over time. Here it overlies a thin layer of shale. When the shale gets wet, the heavier limestone slips and fantastic landslides result. This is one of the biggest – Fallen City. I hope you can get a feel of the scale – those blocks are HUGE!

We were hoping to see moose in the area, and I was so excited when I saw this!

But a closer examination showed a nice mule instead. Sigh.

We were lucky enough to see two marmots cuddling on a rock. Their faces were adorable, and they didn’t seem to worried about us.

Sunday I got my latest Hunter’s Star quilt top finished. As you can see, tops are called “flimsies” for a reason! It also needs a good pressing, but I won’t get to that until we get home, and I am ready to quilt it. It is 40×52, a nice size for a baby girl quilt. I will put it in my stash for the next one that comes along. I like having a couple of baby quilts ready.

Tomorrow we are riding the RZR to the Owen Creek Campground area. There are lots of trails around there, and we just might find a campsite there. On Saturday we did find a few non-reservation places we could fit, so we will check those out too. If we can find a place, we will claim it and take the motorhome tomorrow. If not, we will come back to Peter D’s and plan on boondocking somewhere beginning Tuesday.

I do love the Bighorns!

We arrived at the Grouse Mountain Dispersed Camping area in the Bighorn National Forest on Thursday, 20 July. The area is just a few miles from Buffalo, WY and just off US 16. This is the view outside our front door. As you can see, we don’t have close neighbors.

On Friday we decided to take a short UTV ride down the road we are camped on, FR 402. Nice ride! Most of the other campers were near the gate into a second grazing area, but there was one guy who really wanted his privacy.

As we reached the end of the road and the NF, we could see De Smet lake. You will have to expand the picture probably, but it is there. Decent dry camping available, and we have stayed there a couple of times.

Looking another direction we could see the town of Buffalo. You can probably see US 16 the most clearly, but the town is there, I promise.

Decent road surface returning to the motorhome

We expected more people to arrive on Friday night, but it is still spacious. You can get a feel for the crowded conditions LOL!

We took it easy on Saturday, driving down US 16 to the town of Tensleep. US 16 takes this big curve around the Cloud Peak Wilderness headed south before it turns back west. The scenery was lovely, and we looked at a few trailheads and side roads along the way. Not many pictures though! We got back to some excitement. A bunch of cowboys/girls were moving cattle just past the gate I mentioned earlier. The last time we were here, we saw a bunch of cattle being brought to summer pastures in big semi trucks. This was just moving the cattle from one pasture to another.

Also on Saturday I finished the last of the 12 Hunter’s Star blocks I need for my next quilt. Now all I have to do is sew the blocks together and put on a couple of borders. I hope to do that before the FMCA convention so I can show off the flimsy.

Sunday we took a RZR ride down towards the Hunter Creek area. There were some nice spots for views and a few very rough rocky roads. We didn’t have a real destination in mind, just a casual “let’s see what’s there” view. The views from Hunter Mesa were stunning any direction you looked.

Amd of course there were flowers. I have actually been quite restrained about posting flower pictures; I probably have taken 100 or more!

This was one of the easier sections of the rocky trail. On the really rough sections, I just held on tight!

Tomorrow we are having my son and his family out for dinner and hanging out. Peach cobbler in the convection oven in the morning, and green chili chicken enchiladas in the Dutch Oven for the main course. Yum! Of course I have to clean up the motorhome before they get here!

Vedauwoo and surroundings followed by Douglas and Casper

We ended up staying at Vedauwoo for 10 days, leaving on Monday, 17 July. Fabulous place. Here are some of the highlights.

There is water in some of the creeks. Plus we saw a moose! Largest mammal we saw. Hundreds of pronghorns though.

I can not express how beautiful the wildflowers were. I actually became numb to them because they were so abundant and beautiful. It had been a wet summer, and the flowers showed it.

One day we took a short trip to the Ames Monument. It marks the highest point on the Union Pacific Rail line. The line was eventually moved a few miles south, but the monument stands pretty much isolated on a hill of land.

The weekend got rather crazy at Vedauwoo. All the designated sites were filled, and there was a small amount of illegal camping. If anyone knows who this particular Iowa asshole is, please let me know. Notice the “No Camping” sign right in front of his pickup.

We didn’t stay at Vedauwoo the entire time. We took a trip into Fort Collins for a Trader Joe run, and we took a trip into Cheyenne when I found this lovely Bernina 930 for sale! Good price, and it is spotless. I have wanted one of these for a while, but I am cheap. I just kept looking for a good deal, and I eventually found one. The machine has a heel tap feature which takes a complete half stitch, either up or down, plus it always stops with a full stitch up. So far so good, as you can see on my sample.

We also ended up in Laramie a few times, once for groceries and once to dump at the Old Territorial Prison. Nice clean dump station with a recommended $10 fee. Kevin also got an oil and air filter change for the RZR. There are a bunch of shops in the area!

On Monday, 17 July, we left Vedauwoo for Douglas, WY. We needed to do laundry and generally clean up after 10 days boondocking before we went to the Bighorns for another 7-10 days. We are staying at the Fairgrounds. Standard parking lot fairgrounds spot, but only $30 FHU.

Anyone who knows me knows we like finding historic places, and while we were in Douglas, we visited Ft. Fetterman. Not much original really there, but the visitor center had been restored with a nice little museum. I really enjoyed the video they had. The views across the Northern Platte River were amazing. Ft. Fetterman was the last of the Indian forts along the North Platte, and it was situated on a high bluff. You can’t see the river from the bluff anymore because the North Platte was known for wandering. The views are still amazing though.

We visited Casper twice. Once was for dinner and to pick up medication refills; the second was to visit Ft. Caspar. The two spellings are not typos, or at least they aren’t for me. The town was named after the fort, but there was a misspelling in the original documents. Caspar Collins, son of the person Ft. Collins, CO was named for, was killed while stationed here. In those days it was “North Platte Station.” This fort was reconstructed by the WPA based on drawings Lt. Collins made. It has a really nice museum plus the reconstructed fort components.

One of the interesting things we discovered by visiting the history museums is the intersection of Wyoming, oil and gas development, and the audio book Kevin and I are listening to while driving the motorhome. The book is “Killers of the Flower Moon” about the horrific murders of numerous Osage Indians in Oklahoma in order to inherit their rich oil lease payments. The companies are the same, and the scandals mesh together quite well. Since both of us are Oklahoma born, we were sadly not surprised this portion of Oklahoma history wasn’t taught in schools. Neither was the Tulsa Race Riot, and even more people died there due to greed, envy, and racism.

Senior officer quarters were quite luxurious.

Even the enlisted quarters weren’t bad, though they slept two to a bed. Might have been warmer that way during those long Wyoming winters on that very exposed bluff!

The sutler was the fort store with food, clothing, and miscellaneous supplies that made life a bit more bearable for the soldiers.

One of the primary purposes of the fort was to protect an important bridge across the North Platte used by settlers and prospectors flooding west. The bridge was over 1000’ long, a real feat for frontier builders. It made them a fortune though! Prices were flexible – higher in high water, lower when there were other crossings possible.

One of the alternatives was a ferry established by Brigham Young when the Mormons were on their way to the Salt Lake valley. They had a reconstructed ferry with a sample wagon too.

We leave Douglas tomorrow for a boondock site outside of Buffalo along Highway 16. We have a few places in mind, but we will look at them before we decide where to settle. My oldest son and his family are going to be tent camping in the area, and I am looking forward to seeing all of them.

Southern Utah for a while

We stayed in St. George, Utah just one night on Saturday 24 June. We always stay at the Temple View RV Park, but it is hard to get around their building with the toad. It just isn’t set up for big rigs. The sites are fine though, so we keep coming back. We needed to run the generator for AC pretty much the entire trip since it was still so hot. I was so glad to leave the heat and move to the mountains!

We are staying at the Water Clover RV Park in Burrville, UT, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The campground is owned by the Koosharem band of Paiutes, and it is on their reservation. Definitely a very basic place that has gravel sites and needs mowing, but it is only $150 for the week with full hookups! Can’t beat that deal. It also is right on a big OHV trail system and near Fish Lake, a big recreation spot. There is one other rig here, but I think they a seasonal since no one has been there since we arrived. Nice view over a small irrigation reservoir.

We took Monday to wander around the area and get information. I had to go to the ER on Sunday when my reaction to the gnat bites I got more than a week before got really concerning. I was afraid I had an infection, but it was just a terrible immune response. I got some super duty cortisone cream that is making me feel much better. We also went to the Richfield Visitor Center. What a nice pair of women staffing it! One was a UTVer herself, and both knew a lot about the trails and history of the area. We picked up some guide books and maps.

We then took off on a ride with the RZR. We are in a sagebrush meadow area at the start, but there were lots of flowers.

These orange ones are probably the most prevalent at the lower elevations (7000’)

Not many cactus, but this pink one was showy

Our trip was on the east side of UT 24. We headed up the mountains and crossed into the valley where Fish Lake is located.

Looking across the sagebrush to the west valley

Some of the trails we took were part of the Paiute Trail, a network of roads and trails widely advertised.

A lot of the trail was decent Forest Service roads

We finally got up to the aspens and lusher meadows. This was over the mountain southeast of our Campgroun.

As we continued higher, we got into the evergreens and skinny trees. They get that way due to the harsh winter conditions. Even this far south, the snow is intense.

We finally encountered a snowball we didn’t want to cross. We are much more cautious when riding by ourselves.

We had some dead ends trying to get back to our campsite, but it was an enjoyable day of about 60 miles.

Today we are getting chores done and relaxing. Our bodies feel that many miles in a RZR! Kevin checked a bunch of things on the RZR. He topped off the oil and radiator fluid and just generally checked things out. We have 49 more operational hours before it needs a major service, so this was just checking and cleaning things. I sewed some more. I cut out a bunch of 4” Drunkard’s Path pieces that I really needed to get to, so I did a bunch of those. Well, “bunch” is probably the wrong phrase. These are picky little devils, and they take a LOT of concentration. I did get about 20 done though. It is a good way to spend a lot of time and not get a lot done! They are awfully cute though.

We took a drive into Koosharem to have dinner. Nice little cafes that totally surprised me in such a tiny place! And there were pretty places along a trail head we checked out. It will be on our list of trips while we are here. And of course there were flowers!

Tomorrow we are taking a ride, so expect more pictures.

Lake Havasu then dispersed camping near Flagstaff then back to Lake Havasu

Odd title I know. We went to DJ’s RV Resort in Lake Havasu to get the RZR set up to carry in the F-150 bed. Kevin had some additions to make to it too like adding a winch, a cargo rack, and some new mirrors. Knowing it might get complicated, a friend in town let him work in his air conditioned garage and use a few big tools he owned that Kevin didn’t bring with us. It took 5-6 days of 3 hours or so a day since they are both retired and worked slowly. He got it all done though! The picture makes the truck seem bigger than it is, but that is just the perspective.

While Kevin and Bill were working on the truck and RZR, I went to the local quilt guild “Staycation,” a 3 day retreat in a local community building, 8-4. I didn’t stay that long, but I did get a lot done. I finished the piecing for the scrappy tumbler the night before, and I got it quilted. Still need the binding though.

I got 6 blocks completed of the 9 needed for my Hunter’s Star top at the retreat. Here is the completed top with borders I finished yesterday. I give the credit to Accuquilt for those almost perfect corners and joins! Aren’t they lovely? I felt I was a walking advertisement for Accuquilt since I had so many people come over to see it.

While we were here, we took a drive to Quartzsite where we always stay some in the winter. Lots of changes, but I won’t detail them here. However I saw this adorable line up of little “people”. They really stood out because there were so very few real people in the huge area. It was almost spooky to see it so empty.

We left LHC on Thursday, 15 June, to find a dispersed site in the Coconino National Forest west of Flagstaff. We wanted to do some riding! We found a great place off Forest Road 171, and enjoyed gorgeous weather and some nice riding. I experimented with my new Go Pro, and I got some great videos. This post was later than I intended because I can’t figure out how to post them to Facebook or YouTube! I keep getting errors. But I decided I wouldn’t wait any longer, so you will get no videos until I can figure out how to get them on YouTube. Loading them here is just too resource intensive, and the uploads over a few seconds long always fail. The forest was lovely. It reminds me a lot of the Black Hills with open forests alternating with prairie meadows. We were at 7200’, so it was in the 30s each morning, warming up to the 70s. We took one long day or 60+ miles, and a couple of days of shorter trips.

We would have stayed longer on the forest, but Kevin had another dental issue from his recent tooth implant. He saw an emergency dentist in Lake Havasu the first time we came through, and it happened again when we were in the forest. He couldn’t find a dentist or oral surgeon within 100 miles that could get him in quickly except back in LHC with the same emergency dental clinic he used the first time. This time the oral surgeon back in Iowa coordinated the care with the dentist here, and we are crossing our fingers it worked. We decided to stay around here for 4 nights and do some more sightseeing plus cleaning and laundry. The dirt from UTV riding is no joke! Plus I need some more fabric!

Salt Lake City to Lake Havasu

We got to Salt Lake City on Saturday, 3 June. Easy drive, so we got in before 2:00. We stayed at the KOA on North Temple as we usually do. We thought about Antelope Island, but the biting gnats were out, and those things love to take bites out of me! We connected with a good friend on Saturday, and I made my first pizza crust in the bread maker. It came out pretty well, but I don’t know how to stretch the dough well enough! It was a bit smaller and thicker than I like. Wish I had taken a picture, because it tasted great. The recipe for my 1 pound bread maker makes 2 crusts, so I froze on for later use.

Sunday we went to a fabulous concert held at my old church, First Presbyterian in SLC. They did the Rutter Requiem, and it was fabulous. It is one of my favorite choral pieces. If I had brought concert black attire I would have sung with them, but my black polo with worn blue jeans just didn’t fit the vibe LOL! Even better than the choral music was the first piece, an incredible organ piece performed by Larry Blackburn, my favorite organist. The church is a big city church with a gothic style, and it takes a big pipe organ to fill the space. Luckily they have one, and Larry makes good use of it. I don’t know if this link to the amateur recording will work, but here it is. You might need to copy it and place it in your browser.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NeT4rr9IgR15XZv_B_asjfbsmQ0MLysY/view?usp=sharing

Monday we had dinner with more old friends, and we repeated the joy with different friends on Tuesday. So nice to see so many of the people I enjoyed in Utah. I am not sad we moved, but I do miss the people. We also took the mandatory trip to Trader Joe’s and stocked up on freezer meals and treats. We also had the meeting with our financial advisor that was the official purpose for the trip.

We left on Wednesday, 7 June, and spent the night at the Eureka Casino parking lot in Mesquite, NV, just over the border from Utah. We have stayed there before in January heading to the southwest, and it always had 7-10 rigs of various types parked overnight. This time there was just 3 of us. It was pretty hot when we arrived, so we ran the generator for AC until about 9:00 pm when it cooled off enough to open the windows and turn on the fans. Kevin hates heat, but even he was comfortable with the temps that night.

We decided to take the slower route from Mesquite to Lake Havasu by driving NV 169, the Northshore Road that is mostly in Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Lovely drive. Here are a few pictures.

Lots of little islands in the lake at this low water level

The bathtub line is >100’ above current lake levels

We arrived in Lake Havasu City to a reserved site at DJ’s Campground on the north side of town. It is a well-kept, older, very quiet place, but handy and priced well. It is HOT here, so boondocking wasn’t an option; we both wanted AC. We picked up the RZR from the Needles storage lot where it had been living since we left the SW, and Kevin is off today with a friend in town doing updates and modifications to it and the truck for transporting it without the trailer. The friend has an air conditioned garage, and all the tools known to mankind. I am sure they will have a blast.

I intend on starting a donation quite out of scraps cuts with my tumbler die. It is nice, mindless seeing, but the result is cute and for a good cause. However I never seem to get the scrap pile lowered!