The Winter Blast Rally has been over for two days now and we’ve moved on to the La Paz County RV Park in Parker, AZ.  But, I still have to recap our last two days of the Rally for you; which really just includes one more day of fireworks (Sunday) and then the always sad moving day (Monday).  Sorry for the delayed reporting, but us full-time RVers get busy too 🙂

Our Sunday morning started out like all the other fine Alpine SoCal Rally days, with an awesome breakfast spread put out by our now famous Host(s) and Co-Host(s); Dave & Nicole Guhsé and Paul & Katie Lisec.  Thanks once again guys!  They prepared and conducted a flawless Rally as seen through the eyes of the members, although I’m sure there were many behind-the-scenes challenges what with all the moving parts and pieces.  They even had a specific challenge when the wind picked up just before dinner-time to threaten our scheduled Chicken Dinner, but they adapted and overcame as you ‘ll see later in this blog post.

Another nice sunny morning enhanced our breakfast conversation.  The forecast called for a little wind with some gusts later in the day.

One of our members showed off this cool cloth, (I’ll call it a towel), that she embellished with the logo of an Alpine Coach commemorating the Alpine SoCal Winter Blast 2016 Rally.  Teresa Weitz is a very talented lady with a very capable sewing machine.  I wonder if she’s taking orders!?!

We hung out at the Rally site all day on Sunday and caught up on emails and my previous day’s blog while visiting with our fellow Alpine SoCal members.

As usual nowadays, we took our grandson’s dog “Sheba” for one of her long walks through the Rodeo Grounds.  She didn’t take the fireworks too well the evening before.  Stilla spent most of the evening comforting her in the bedroom of the Coach when the fireworks started.

All manner of motorhomes and trailers are here in the park for the fireworks extravaganza.  Here’s a nice vintage trailer (below).

Here’s another picture of our site (below).  The wind is starting to pick up and the flag is whipping around.  You can see Mike Kuper’s “new to him” Can-Am Spyder® which is parked next to the Urban Escape Vehicle.  I helped Mike & Donna get it loaded into his trailer.

This is Mike & Donna Kuper (FlyingtheKoop.com) putting the Can-Am Spyder “to bed” after squeezing it into their trailer.  I helped Mike guide it in while Donna sat on the back because the rear tire kept spinning on the slick ramp.  I think Mike’s committed to buying a bigger trailer in the near future.  Check out his blog to find out 🙂

Even the gusty winds didn’t stop some of our hardy SoCal members from gathering during the day.

By mid-afternoon, the wind gusts got bad enough that our Host(s)/Co-Host(s) decided to take down the tables and chairs at our get-together site before they blew away.  We also had to take down the EZ-Up tents for the same reason.

The wind didn’t stop us from getting our scheduled chicken dinner tho…  the contingency plan was to serve the food from Dave & Nicole’s Coach.  Everyone took their meals, covered with an extra paper plate for protection, back to their respective Coaches to eat out of the dust and wind.

Everyone lined up at the Guhse’s door like homeless people on Thanksgiving Day at the local mission in the inner city 🙂

I had a moment of clarity, (it’s rare, but it happens), and decided to help out by standing in the doorway and handing the covered plates out to folks.  This way, we minimized the in & out traffic in their Coach and prevented anyone from a slip, trip, or fall on the stairs.  Here’s Teresa (below) begging for her meal 🙂

The wind actually cooperated with our Rally and died down in the evening.  Here’s another beautiful Arizona sunset for you:

And then it was time for more fireworks.  Here’s a small sample again:

Of course, our grandson’s dog “Sheba” didn’t enjoy them so much again, but this time she did better and wasn’t shaking as much or as often as on previous nights.  We wouldn’t have brought her along on this trip if we knew how she’d react to the fireworks, but we didn’t have any other options since we’re dog-sitting for our daughter who doesn’t have a place for her yet.

On Monday morning, folks started packing up to move on to their next destination(s).

We spent the morning saying our goodbye’s and see-ya-laters as folks rolled out of the park.

By noon-time there were only a few Coaches left in the parking area.  We initially thought we’d stay put for one more night.  Our fresh water was still around 1/2 and our waste tanks only showed 1/4 full…

… but, we got a message from some friends we met in Colorado who are staying just down the road in Parker, AZ at the La Paz County RV Park.  So we decide to join them.

So here we are now with Jerry & Marilyn Baumgartner who are on an extended RV trip from their home state of Oklahoma:

Our other old friends Bob & Mary McCord from Colorado are also here in the park.  I wrote about them in a previous post.  They spend most of the winter here hiding from the snow in Colorado.

I’ll post again soon.  I think we’ll enjoy a week-long stay here next to the Colorado River and take advantage of the weekly rate of $155.

Stay tuned…

Lots of pictures today… consider viewing on your desktop or laptop computer instead of mobile device for the optimum experience 🙂

Today’s schedule for Saturday includes, but is not limited to; Breakfast, Board Meeting, Cowboy Concert & BBQ:

Good morning from “Alpine Row”:

Breakfast was stupendous once again thanks to our “Wagon Master(s) Dave & Nicole Guhsé along with Co-Hosts Paul & Katie Lisec.

The “now famous” Alpine breakfast spread:

I think it’s safe to give our Host(s) and Co-Host(s) an A+ rating for their rally hosting performance so far 🙂  There’s only one more dinner (Chicken) to be served to our group on Sunday.  Thanks again, Dave/Nicole and Paul/Katie!!!

After breakfast we held our Alpine SoCal Member Meeting.

Here I am trying to act “presidential”…

For you Alpine Coach Owners… don’t forget to go to the Alpine SoCal website under the “Members Only” section to read the minutes from the (very productive) meeting 🙂

Once we completed our meeting, the guys stuck around our designated “get-together” site to decorate Valentines Day cupcakes…

Our awesome co-host Katie Lisec came up with the idea for the guys to decorate the pre-made cupcakes with different colors of icing squeezed from zip-lock baggies which she expertly applied per each persons requested preference.

Then she had lots of different sprinkles and candies on hand for the guys to get even more creative with…

Of course, some were more creative than others:

Won’t Mary be surprised?…

Hope that icing doesn’t stain Katie 🙂

Most of the guys couldn’t have done it without a little artistic talent to help them out.

We all stored our Valentines Cupcakes in Paul & Katies’s basement.  The idea is to bring out the cupcakes after our dinner on Sunday.  Won’t those wives be surprised ?  AWWW 🙂

After our rigorous morning of meetings and cupcake decorating, some of us decided to go on a hike to “The Crack”.  The trailhead starts just outside the entrance to the RV parking area here at the Rodeo Grounds and follows the dry wash through a slot canyon to the Colorado River.

At the beginning of our little (~3 mile) hike we saw signage at the entrance/exit to the Rodeo Grounds RV Park reminding folks to sign up early for next year’s event.

We hit the trailhead with walking sticks and plenty of water.  Follow along on our hiking adventure:

Our hiking entourage consisted of Greg & Marcy Vaughan, John & Lorraine Foster, Donna Kuper, and of course, Stilla and I with grand-dog Sheba.

We took “Sheba” off her leash.  She did great and always stayed with the group.  There were quite a few other hikers on the trail today and many of them also had their dogs off-leash.

I was the first to go down a particularly steep drop in the canyon.  Luckily someone put a rope here to help folks get safely down.  This rope wasn’t here last year when we did this hike.  To read about last year’s blog post on this hike click (HERE).

Stilla handed Sheba down to me.  She wasn’t too sure about this drop, but she was fine in all the other areas and turned out to be quite the mountaineer dog.

Donna took a unique approach to the drop.

After everyone negotiated the steep drop, we navigated our way down into the bowels of the canyon.  However, Greg & Marcy were smarter than us and turned around at the drop.  They were sipping adult beverages long before we finally made it back to the Rodeo Grounds 🙂

I believe we only had one wet shoe casualty getting through the canyon… but I think it’s best they remain unnamed, right Lorraine?

Sheba would often go out ahead and scout out the trail.  If we took too long, she’d come running back to see why we were so slow.

Once we successfully navigated the narrow canyon, and came back out into the sunlight, we decided to not continue in the dry wash to the Colorado River and took the high trail back towards home.

Nice view, eh?

You can see the Colorado River (Lake Havasu) in the distance.

We made pretty good time on the return trip since we were above the dry wash on a rocky trail and out of the soft sand most of the time.  Although, it was definitely cooler inside the canyon and we were reminded of that as the sun beat down on us.  Sheba would often rest in the shade of a bush or rock and wait for us to catch up.  Silly humans, she probably thought to herself 😉

When we got back, not too much worse for wear and tear – we found a couple of our members working on some new flagpoles!  Ed Mathews and Jack Giddens made a flagpole for the Alpine SoCal club while helping Michael Weitz put one together for himself.

Thanks Jack and Ed!  They refused payment for the new flagpole, so I’m probably going to be indebted to them for a while on behalf of the club.  I think they like it that way 🙂  We’ll see each other again at the next rally in Phoenix (Goodyear) for baseball training in March where I’m sure they’ll come collecting, right?

Around 4 PM it was time for all of us to head down to the Rodeo arena and barn for the Cowboy Dance & BBQ:

It was crowded, but everyone got fed after going through the long food line.

The food was excellent and the band played a wide variety of music.  Our Alpiners were well-fed and well-entertained 🙂

Back at our designated “get-together” site we all gathered for the evening fireworks again.

I had a “Chinese Lantern” that we purchased in Quartzsite last year and have been carrying around in the Coach.  It seemed like a good time to set it free.  We saw quite a few of these lifting off from the RV Park so we decided to “join the crowd”.

Greg and John helped pre-heat the air over a campfire while we lit the flammable material.

Up, Up, and Away it went.

And now, how about some fireworks?  That’s why were here, right?

I took a few pictures of our Alpine Owner’s group watching the fireworks through my night-vision device by holding the iPhone up to the lens:

Pretty cool, eh?  Okay, here’s some more fireworks then…

And that’s all for now folks… hope you enjoyed the show!  We all did 🙂

I’ll try to catch you up on our last day (Sunday) here at the Rally as soon as possible.  Stay tuned…

 

It’s too easy to get behind on the blog posts here… with so many friends (old and new) to catch up with, coupled with late night firework displays to watch, and my “presidential” duties; it seems as if there’s just not enough time in the day (or evening) to keep up.  And on top of that, the internet connectivity slowed waaay down once more folks arrived in the park.  Anyway, here’s your Day 2 recap (better late than never, right?), starting with another copy of our Rally Schedule:

As you can see from the schedule (above), each day is pretty much “free time” to do whatever you want with fellow Alpine Coach owner’s and friends.  Many folks go out sightseeing, others hang around the park and do hikes or other activities.

Our Day 2 (Friday) of the Rally kicked off with another awesome breakfast spread courtesy of our Host(s)/Co-Host(s) aka “Wagon Masters” David & Nicole Guhsé and Paul & Katie Lisec.  Dave went all out once again (just like at the Lake Powell Rally) and toasted bagels to order.  We also had hard-boiled eggs along with the usual complement of yogurts, fruits, and assorted pastries.  No one is complaining yet, except maybe about their waist lines 🙂

After breakfast, I held an Alpine SoCal Board Meeting.  My first as the newly elected president.  We only have a small number of Board Members in attendance here at this particular Rally and it was relatively quick and painless 🙂  It was mostly an opportunity for me to prepare for tomorrow’s (Saturday) Membership Meeting.  Now, I just have to find time to write up the “minutes” of the meeting 🙁

Then Stilla and I took our grandson’s dog “Sheba” over to the SARA Dog Park again (like we did yesterday) but found out it was closed.  We are still dog-sitting until our daughter finds a place in Phoenix that allows pets.  Meanwhile, my Mom is dog-sitting our little dog “Coach” back in Casa Grande, AZ at the “dirt farm”.

We went in search of another dog park in Lake Havasu and ended up  stopping by one of the beaches that is accessible to vehicles on the man-made island after crossing over London Bridge.

Sheba had a great time running and playing on the beach and in the water:

Then we stopped at London Bridge Beach…

… and found a nice ‘off-leash’ fenced-in dog park for her to play “catch”.

She played “catch” until she was all tuckered out.

Then we drove down to Parker, AZ to visit with old friends Bob & Mary.  They spend time during the winter here at an RV park in La Paz County next to the Pirate’s Den RV Resort.

Bob & Mary are also good friends with my Dad and stepmom Elaine. They are members of the same camping group (FCRV Rolling Springs) in Colorado Springs, CO.  We are also still members of the same group.  We’ve attended a good number of camp-outs with them over the last few years along with my Dad & Elaine.  It was great to see them again and catch up on things 🙂  We missed the opportunity to visit with them while we were at the Quartzsite “Desert Rat Rally” in January because we just didn’t find the time.  Good to see ya again Bob & Mary!  Until next time… 🙂

We headed back to the SARA Rodeo Grounds for the evening’s fireworks show and got back just as it was getting dark.

I was amazed at how many people were parked alongside the highway as we came back into Lake Havasu and neared the SARA Park Rodeo Grounds.  Folks were setting up at any place they could find to watch the fireworks:

Some people found high vantage points (above) and others just parked alongside the highway (below).

Happy Hour was in full-swing after we got back to our RV Park.  Those Alpiner’s sure know how to party (in moderation of course) 🙂

I won’t bore you with lots of pictures of fireworks today, (especially since the battery died on my camera/iPhone) but here’s a couple that I “borrowed” from fellow Alpine Owner’s John & Lorraine Foster:

Needless to say, the Western Pyrotechnics Association put on a pretty good show and it promises to be even “grander” tomorrow evening on Saturday.  And then, everything that’s left over gets shot off on Sunday we’re told.  The fireworks vendors aren’t allowed to leave with any unspent fireworks.

Unfortunately, “Sheba” didn’t do very well with the fireworks going off.  She trembled and panted quite a bit throughout the evening until the noise stopped at 10 PM or so.  The only way we could find to keep her calm was to have one of us stay with her in the bedroom of the Coach with the doors and windows closed and the radio turned up loud.  Stilla spent a lot of time in the Coach comforting her.

Our little dog “Coach” handled the noise quite well last year when he was here with us, but every dog is different.  They all have their own unique personalities, don’t they?

Well, that’s all for now.  Check back soon for a recap of our Saturday activities.  I’ll try to get caught up quickly.  It’s now Sunday afternoon and I’ve got a lot of other things to get caught up on as well 🙂