Bluegrass on the Beach--Lake Havasu

We always try to hit a couple bluegrass festivals every year and it worked out great that there were two within two months of each other in the Colorado River area.  So after we extricated ourselves from the Good Sam thing, we headed west and north to Lake Havasu on the California/Arizona border.  Not knowing what to expect, we were very pleasantly surprised.  Long loved by boaters for water skiing and partying, Lake Havasu was actually beautiful and the State Park we moved into for the festival was very nice and right on the beach.  We volunteered to help out and got free passes for the festival (works out to about minimum wage, I think) and heard some really great bands--Blue Highway and Junior Sisk among others.  I also found some time to shoot some of the highlights--sunsets on the lake and the London Bridge (an actual 1831 bridge over the River Thames that American billionaire Robert McCulloch bought and had reassembled over a canal dug for that purpose on a penninsula).

Lake Havasu has 4 memorial lighthouses. This one is about 20 feet tall and doesn't really protect sailors at sea.

The Bill Johnson National Wildlifve Refuge, just south of Lake Havasu.

My last Saguaro cactus shot for a while :-(

London Bridge.  He thought he was buying the bridge with the towers until this one showed up. Too late to get his money back.

Midnight pickin' and singin' by the beach

Like most things in Lake Havasu City, the beach is fake too--they have to truck in the sand

Other Phoenix fun

While in the Phoenix area, we revisited the Musical Instrument Museum, which is still one of the most outstanding museums we have ever visited.   Check out my old blog post on this one if you are curious: http://www.travelswithtucker.com/2013/12/best-museum-ever.html

We took a boat ride on Canyon Lake, just outside of Apache Junction and the weather did us a miracle.  We first tried to ride the boat on Sunday, but the weather was cloudy and we decided to wati until Tuesday, hoping the unsettled weather would pass by then.  On Tuesday afternoon we arrived at the lake at 3 PM in a total downpour and clouds covering the sky.  It being our last day in the area, we decided to go for it and hope for the best.  By 4 PM when the boat left, the clouds were parting and we had two hours of glorious late afternoon golden light for our boat trip up the canyon!

Our boat, the Dolly

We saw a bald eagle soaring and several bighorn sheep like this one

The lake and canyon were very beautiful!

 At the tail end of our stay in the Phoenix area we attended our first, and last, Good Sam rally.  The Good Sam club is an RV support organization that provides insurance, trip planning, campground review guides and many more services for RVers.  They are affiliated with the huge Camping World store chain.  They have a big annual rally and we decided to check it out.  We enjoyed some of the workshops and seeing new RVs on display, but camping with thousands of other RVs in a huge dirt parking lot (the rally was held at a major NASCAR track in Phoenix ) was just not fun for us.  So we gladly left that scene behind and headed to Lake Havasu for a bluegrass festival, which was very fun with great music, lovely weather and developing friendships with some fellow RVers.

A sea of RVs at the Good Sam rally!

Hiking the Superstition Wilderness

Less than an hour from the sprawl of Phoenix, the Superstition Wilderness is a gem of a mountain range.  Home to numerous legends of lost gold mines, treachery, hidden caches of Jesuit Gold and fortunes won and lost, the Superstitions are a wonderful and brutally rugged wild landscape.

We hiked one of the most popular and scenic routes in the range, headed up Peralta Canyon to a saddle with a view of the Weaver's Needle pinnacle.  This hike was a bit of a challenge for us, but it's steady climbing ascent and gorgeous views made it the highlight of our week in Phoenix. 

Headed to PhoenixCasa Grande

We reluctantly left Tucson, feeling that we had left many things un-done and un-seen.  It seems that the more we see of this country, the bigger it gets and the more beautiful and interesting places we find that we never suspected were there.

Traveling from Tucson to Phoenix we took a blue highway and passed Casa Grande National Monument and decided to stop there, knowing nothing about it.  It turned out to be a terrific site to visit.  The ruins of a old settlement of the Hohokam people, built around 1400 AD are the centerpiece of this site.  We spent a few hours wandering the site, taking pictures and touring the excellent visitors center.

Cas Grande ruin is 700 years old.

When we started this journey in 2013, we passed through Phoenix and stayed at Usery Mountain Regional Park, which we loved.  It was our first experience of the Sonoran desert and a wonderful park and campground.  This year, we decided to try another highly-rated campground, Lost Dutchman State Park.  This park is further from Phoenix (about 40 miles) and was really great as well.  It is near the little town of Apache Junction and has a lot of things to do as well as gorgeous desert scenery.

View from the Lost Dutchman campground

Another view from the campground.  The poppies are just starting to bloom!

A night shot of the Superstitions lit by the moon

Kitt Peak

Just an hour drive from Tucson, the Kitt Peak National Observatory was something I was really looking forward to.  They have great evening observing programs for the public and we signed up well in advance for the night of the new moon.  It turned out to one of our best spots ever!

The road to the top was one great view after another.

A bit chilly at 6,900 feet!

The world's largest solar telescope extends quite far underground.

Established in the 60's during the peak of the space race with the Soviet Union, Kitt Peak has grown to house the largest collection of professional telescopes in the world, including the world's largest solar telescope and the third-largest reflecting telescope.  We arrived in a mad dash to get there before the closed the grounds and had about an hour to wander (more like race) around to see the 40-meter big telescope and the solar telescope before they closed to the public.  We had a lot of time to spend in the visitor center waiting for it to get dark and getting our orientation.  As a group, we all walked up the hill to watch the sunset from thousands of feet above the desert on a VERY clear night.

After that, we split into groups and our group of 16 went with our astronomer to the observatory and more orientation.  In all we spent about three hours under the most amazing sky of stars and took turns at our telescope observing Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, double and triple star systems, star clusters, planetary nebulae and galaxies.  We even saw comet Lovejoy.  When we weren't actually looking through the scope, we couldn't stop looking at the incredible night sky (except when we popped downstairs to warm up and get a hot drink).  This is a must-do experience if you are ever in the Tucson area and can plan ahead.

That little green blur at the top is Comet Lovejoy

More Tucson

Our week in Tucson was a whirlwind of activity.  After doing the mission, the cave, Tombstone and the national park, we dove in again.  First up was a scenic drive that was recommended to me by a friend on Instagram. Just north of Tucson are the Catalina Mountains, which rise up 6,000 feet over the desert floor.  The Mt. Lemmon Scenic Byway winds up to near the top in just about 27 miles. Driving this road is equivalent to driving up to Banff, Alberta in terms of the ecosystems in passes through. The views are fantastic and the rock formations (hoodoos) are beautiful.  We drove to the top, hiked a few miles, then drove down to catch the sunset at Windy Point overlook, one of the most beautiful scenic vistas we've ever seen.

The next day, we visited the Sonoran Desert Museum, which is a combination zoo and botanical garden, similar to the Living Desert in Palm Springs.  This one was much more focused on the animals and plants of southern Arizona and had us engaged all day.  The highlight was the raptor show, which featured amazing owls and hawks flying back and forth right over our heads.  At one point, the trainer sent off a red-tailed hawk which circled and circled overhead, catching updrafts until it was about 1,500 feet up and a couple miles away.  We could barely see this bird as a tiny dot on the clouds.  Then, with a few waves of his arms, the trainer called the bird back to a nearby tree in literally a ten-second dive. It was one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen!  Another great exhibit they had was a walk-in hummingbird aviary.  It was very fun to see these tiny birds up close and buzzing around our ears!

Prairie Dogs are cute

Great Horned Owl

It is a bit early for most cactus blooms, but this one was starting

Garden eels from the gulf of California