Phoenix to Lake Havasu

Near the end of our stay in Phoenix we visited a steakhouse called Pinnacle Peak Patio in North Scottsdale.  They have a tradition as a very casual establishment.  Reportedly, many years ago they told a well-dressed customer to remove his tie.  When the customer didn’t the owner took out a butcher knife and cut off his tie and mounted it to the ceiling of the restaurant.  Since then, they claim to have cut off a million ties with many of them also mounted to the ceiling.  We think the claim of a million ties is more than a bit of an exaggeration but they sure do have a lot of ties mounted to the ceiling.

We also caught a glimpse of the University of Phoenix Stadium where the Arizona Cardinals play football.  It will be the home of the Super Bowl next January. 

We only planned to spend a week in Phoenix then we got a call from the glass shop where we had two side windows repaired in December.  The new inner seals were doing fine,but the outer seals seemed to be shrinking and we wanted them looked at.  They found a time for us the day we were otherwise leaving Phoenix.  They thought the old outer seals looked fine when they worked on the windows and hadn’t replaced them.  But after they had torn the windows apart and put them back together the outer seals then deteriorated.  To replace them, they had to pull the two windows from the motor home a second time and take the windows apart again.  But they did all that work free of charge.  Since we had been there in December, another window had developed creeping seals so we had that window repaired as well.  By the time they finished all this work, it was too late to head out of town so we just camped in their lot with their 50amp hookup.

As we watched a little TV, we saw the local weather forecast.  For Saturday, the prediction was for winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 45 with blowing dust.  No way were we going to head out in those conditions so we stayed another night of “free camping” in the lot of the glass shop.

The guy who sealed up our windows noticed a few other areas on the motor home that were in need of some more sealant so we had him come over on Saturday and do that work.

On Thursday, we had washed the motor home.  We noticed that the water left all kinds of water spots.  I took a towel and wiped it down and in that light it looked ok.  But when we saw it in different light at the glass shop, it seemed that my toweling had just spread the hard water spots around as a smeary film.  As we had an extra day, we took care of the smear problem by wetting clean microfiber cloths with the distilled water we carry for the batteries.  We wiped down fiberglass and voila, no more hard water spots.  But a wash, a wipe, and a wipe is a lot of work to have a clean looking motor home.

Sunday, the winds were low so we made the 200 mile trek to Lake Havasu.  At a rest stop we saw this creative bus conversion. 

We traveled through the town of Quartzsite again.  There were still desert campers but not nearly the number that there had been at the time of the “Big Tent”.  Gary asked me if I wanted to stop at the book store with the naked owner/operator?  I passed on that opportunity.  When we passed the RV dealer lot where we went for the free pancake breakfasts we were very surprised – there were no RVs.  Even though there are buildings, a paved lot, and a permanent sign, the dealership is apparently just a temporary one for the peak of the desert camping season.

The final leg of the trip paralleling the Colorado River and then Lake Havasu through the rugged terrain of the river’s basin was stunning.  By about 2pm we were set up in our campsite in its 85 degree blue sky and its distant vista of Lake Havasu.