Hanging around @ Bullhead City

A stay at Bullhead/Laughlin's just not complete without a visit to Lake Mohave... especially when you don't even have to pay the Lake Mead entry fee because you have an annual pass.  Yay!

With the temperatures rising into the 90s we started to get the impression it was time to begin the northward trek.  This seemed to be confirmed by the abundance of spring flowers in the garden centres... 

... and the migration of the giant turtles up from the Colorado River to lay their eggs on the gravelly shore.

So adieu Arizona... until we meet again... 

Bullhead City holiday

They were passing out discount coupons for the Silver View RV Resort at the show in Quartzsite : $98/week for up to two weeks, full hookup, pool, hot tub... so we figured we'd stop in there for a little resort holiday on the way north.  Late February the temps around Q were getting into the 90s so we figured it might be time to start the migration.  Feb 26 to March 12 were the dates we picked for our mid-winter break.

While we were there we took the shortcut over to Oatman, and followed Route 66 through Kingman to Seligman, returning back via I40 and Hiway 68.

My kinda people!

Alamo Lake, 8-Ball memorial, Patton musiem

Yup, we do a fair bit of driving down here... had you figured that out already?  We decided to take a drive out to Alamo Lake to check out the BLM 14-day camping areas there, and then head back to Bouse via the shortcut Power Line Road which goes right past Camp Bouse.  That gave us a chance to stop and visit the 8-Ball memorial east of the camp.  Read 8-Ball's story by clicking the link.  Have a Kleenex handy though.

Herd of wild burros near Alamo Lake.  

Found the memorial!  

Wildlife along the road.  Note the cunning-looking eyes and the coiled-spring-like stance.  

No wonder there are signs everywhere warning to watch out for these critters! 

Then for the heck of it, just because we had not yet had our fill of WWII and tank memorabilia, we headed west into California to the Patton Museum.  We've driven by it a couple times and each time promised ourselves to stop in "sometime when we have time".  Now we have time.  

This map must have been made to confuse and misdirect the enemy, because it sure had that effect on me until I figured out the error... 

I think the propaganda passed around is as interesting as the hardware a lot of the time.  

Here are just a couple from the display.  

Hear!  Hear!  

We also took another spin around Plomosa mountains via the quad trails, just to see if there was anything interesting along the way.

Here's your chance to make your fortune, if you like digging in the rocks.  

There's even water!  Well, for a while, after a rain, anyway.  

Nice view though.  

If you buy the claim. pave the road to this spot for me and I'll camp here!  

Green!

Ocotillo blooms on this side of the mountains too! 

Almost home... down the wash, right on La Posa, right on Plomosa (note the economical re-use of letters around these parts), then home! 

Haven't posted one of these before.  

NO, IT'S NOT ANOTHER SUNSET PICTURE.  

This one's a rare sunrise shot.  

It's not sunrises that are rare, 

just me getting out of bed early enough to capture one.  

Toodle-oo

Camp Bouse revisited

Now that we'd been on the guided tour and had the lay of the land we decided to go back out to Camp Bouse on our own and look around a bit.  I decided that we'd take a bit different route though.  Unfortunately it turned out one of the road sections shown on the map was closed so we wound up doing a little cross country on a quad trail.  Was still interesting, but it did eat quite a bit into the time we were going to spend at the camp.

Just out of Utting, we followed an old irrigation ditch from a hayfield/feedlot.  

And past an emergency spillway for the Central Arizona Canal.  

I think this old man was trying to point us the right direction... but the message eluded me.  

We had a little cross country trip.  

Kinda reminds me of a jack-o-lantern a couple days after Oct. 31st.  

Finally we made it to the camp.  

We did a quick tour of the shooting range, 

found the mine shaft behind the range, 

and the camp's potable water cistern (now known as Butler Well - the steel tank is the reservoir for a cattle water on the far right).  

That was all for this trip. though.  

Camp Bouse

Just as we were planning a trip out to the top secret WWII Camp Bouse we learned that the annual dedication ceremony was coming up.  What a great coincidence!  So rather than head out on our own we signed up for the guided tour on Sunday and went down to the ceremony in Bouse on Saturday.

A couple airborne decided to drop in as well.  

Sunday morning we formed up and about 35 units headed out on the backroads to Camp Bouse. 

The cost of the tour was a $10 donation, and we also signed up for two provided lunches at $5 apiece.  I dunno why we did that, because we'd been packing a lunch ourselves for every outing.  

The tickets for the lunch were also put into a bucket for a prize draw, and both were drawn!  

Pretty decent, I'd say we broke even PLUS got fed.  

Or, maybe we should have gone to the casino instead...