Lake Mohave

After watching that great Super Bowl game, in which my team* demonstrated their true superiority, we packed up on Monday and moved a couple hours north to Katherine's Landing campground on Lake Mohave, about 10 minutes north of Bullhead City and Laughlin.  This will be our staging area before we make the push north.  Besides being close to last-minute shopping and cheap, it's got a dump station for that final winterization before we become poor ba$tards again.

We toured this area on a previous trip and decided if we were going to spend a few days this campground would be a much quieter area than the casino parking lots.  Cost is $10 for a 7 day pass (although it's dated for 12 days, so maybe there's a winter discount) plus $10 per night in the campground.  A very reasonable price, especially compared to other government-run places I've seen.

*I'll admit, the Seahawks only became my team sometime in the first half.  Hard to believe that Denver could fall apart so utterly and completely.

The sites here are very wide, but not deep.  Probably would have fit better cross-ways.  

Somehow we've only had a handful of these this trip.  

From a little hill beside the campground.  This is southwest, towards the marina and lake.  

Northwest, loop A.  Find our site?  (Hint: look for Sarah.) 

One of the other landings north of the campsite.  

Davis Dam, the creator of Lake Mohave.  

Found an unmarked gravel road on the Nevada side and followed it down to the lake.  This is a view of the campground from across the river and up the hill.  

One of the side trails brings you down to this little beach on a bay.  Mouth of the bay is to the right.  Nice spot for tent camping, or pickup & camper.  Definitely no trailers or motorhomes through the canyon enroute to here!  

The main gravel road leads to this beach/campground.  No charge to stay, 14 day limit.  Pit toilets and a garbage bin provided, otherwise no services.  

To the right of the previous shot.  

And to the right again.  No designated sites; vans and motorhomes parked along the beach, or anywhere.  Nice spot!  

When we got here we realized we'd not had our Mexican meal yet, so Thursday night we went out.  Wendy liked the Saguaro-stemmed glass, but resisted the urge to slip it into her purse.  

The last dutch oven meal of the trip - Cowboy Stew with biscuit dumplings (not added yet)! Can't wait for summer to break it out again!   

Not to be outdone, Wendy made desert:  pudding cake with ice cream.  Yum!  Take that, Cathy!  Extra points again if you can figure out who got each bowl...  

That's it for now.  Sadly, we'll be on the road tomorrow (Sunday) heading north, so probably no more posts til we get home.  Try to make the weather a little warmer for us enroute, and we'll try to bring some sunshine back with us.  Cheers!  

Alamo Lake, hanging around, and food

It's doubtful that I can top the topic of toilet installation, so I won't try.

Thursday was a recouperate day for someone with a sore back and foot, so we mostly hung around camp.  Quick trip up to Parker for groceries.  We picked up a stuffed burger maker at Bass Pro in Phoenix, so we decided to try that out.

I don't know who is left in the state of Oregon to look after things, but there can't be many.  Every third license plate seems to be a variation of this.  I'm imagining that entire towns are deserted while their citizens frolic in the desert.  

Stuffed burgers ready for the grill.  The one on the left is Gab's - don't worry, it's stuffed too.  Cheese and bacon, although she requested it be stuffed with a pork chop.  

On the grill.  The ONLY way to grill is with flames... 

And done!  Still a little rare in the middle, but as you can see one was trying to purge.  And as I reminded Wendy, this is the states where people actually prefer rare hamburger.  We're still alive, so it must not have been laced with e-coli like we're warned all the Canadian hamburger is.  

aaaand a few sunset pics to finish the day.  

Friday we were off to Alamo Lake for a little exploration.  I thought it was farther, so we packed a picnic lunch, but it turned out to be only about an hour and a half from Q.

If you read the bottom right of the plaque, it says it's one of the best bass fishing lakes in Arizona.  I could be wrong, but I suspect there are three lakes in Arizona.  Still, looks like a place to spend a little time in the future.  Power/water sites are $22/night, and dry camping is $15.  You know I'm a little on the cheap side but I think for the extra $7 you know where I'll be.  Especially since it's a little higher elevation so a little cooler at night.  Park entry fee, too - $7/day or $75 annual.

Rather than backtrack on the pavement, we took a "primitive" road east towards Wickenburg.

Started out like this - La Paz county has some pretty high grade 'primitive' roads.  

Changed to this once we crossed over to Maricopa.  I think Phoenix keeps all that county's crews tied up.  

Then we crossed a bit of state trust land.  The state obviously doesn't own ANY road equipment.  Not complaining, mind you: it was nice to finally have some reason to be driving a 4x4.  

Tops of the Saguaros are all white - looks like maybe getting ready to blossom?  Probably a week after we're home.  

The land of the multi-armed cactus.  Maybe there was some nuclear testing around here in the past, I don't know.  

Also rolled through the land of the Joshua tree.  The desert all looks the same to me, but somehow all these species seem to know what parts they prefer.  

We chased this storm into the mountains north of Congress, and managed to get some raindrops on the windshield.  It's surprising what can seem cool when you haven't seen it for a while.  I wonder if snow is the same?  Anyway, had our picnic lunch in the pulloff overlooking Congress - same picture as previous trip, only this is Sarah's first time.  

Made it home in plenty of time for another sunset.  

Somewhere along the way we decided that we'd move up to Lake Mohave on Sun or Mon (probably Monday - have to partake in the Great American Event on Sunday), so Saturday became a "get into Q and pick up all the things we were going to but didn't so far" day.  We did manage to start the day off with another batch of biscuits and gravy, though.  We'd picked up some ground turkey so I gave it a shot with Jackie's spices, and it turned out great!  Thanks Jackie, your gift was and will be much appreciated!  

As you can see, I'm still over-cautious about putting too much milk in - so once again it was more like sausage gumbo than sausage gravy.  Oh well, a good excuse to practice more!  

So right now it's about an hour before game time, when we'll crank up the TV, open a few (more) beers, and enjoy the great american pastime.  That could be watching a football game or watching the commercials, take your pick.  Tomorrow we bid the cactus adieu and start the migration north (sob).