Casino Trip

Yesterday we took our good friends Carol and Dan to the casino that is on the other side of Lake Havasu.  It is a nice boat trip and the restaurant there is a nice place to eat.  We made an afternoon of it and had a nice time.  The following pictures are of the boat that takes customers to the casino and also one nice picture of Carol and Dan.  They have big smiles because they had some good luck at the casino.  Pat and I mostly just had a good time.

 

This is the boat on its way back to Lake Havasu City to both return people going home and to pick up the next group wanting to come out to the casino.  Please ignore the blur.

 

 

This is the boat pulling into the dock at the casino  The next picture is just another shot of the same boat pulling in.

 

 

 

This picture is of Carol and Dan with their big winning smiles.

 

 

 

Patrick

Oatman AZ

Today we took a road trip to Oatman Arizona which is around 58 miles from Lake Havasu City.  Its big claim to fame are the wild Burros that roam the main street of the town,  It is an old mining town that the famous route 66 goes through which is the main street.  They also have old western gun fights there on the weekends and today they also were having the annual bed races.  The town was full of people and Burros.  The following pictures cover our day.

 

This is the first picture I took as we came onto Main street from where we parked the truck.  These are some of the Burros that roam the town.

 

 

This is the first picture of the guys preparing to do the gun fight.  The story was that they were going to rob the bank. 

 

 

These are two of the gun fighters, the one on the right is carrying the bag of money they got at the bank and they are on their way to Mexico.

 

 

There was a disagreement with one another member of the gang and this poor fellow was the first one shot as the gun fighting started.

 

 

This is the guy that didn't think the guys should go to Mexico and then shot the guy above and also shot the guy you can see on the ground at the top of the picture.  He is now the only one of the robbers left.

 

 

It was then that the Sheriff showed up and tried to stop the guy above.  You can see the Sheriff just hitting the ground with his feet in the air after being shot.  Prior to the shooting he had asked the bad guy to be sure and hit him square in the chest which the bad guy did,  The end of the story was that the Sheriff had a steel plate under his shirt and he got up and shot the bad guy and the play was all over.  The good guy wins again.

 

 

This is a new friend that Pat made.  The Burros are real friendly.

 

 

Another picture of Pat and her new friend.

 

 

This is the Oatman Post Office and it is a real operating Post Office.

 

 

This is the main street of Oatman looking south from the north end of the street.

 

 

One of the higher class shops in Oatman. 

 

 

A couple of the characters that wander around town.  He had just fired that shotgun he carrying and it was very loud.  She was giving candy to the kids. 

 

 

This is the emcee for the bed races.  He said they got him out of bed early this morning and he only had time to put his hat and boots on.

 

 

This was the first team in the bed race and they were in the process of putting the sheet on the bed and the pillow cases on the pillows.  The rules of the race were for four people to push a bed with one person on it around 50 feet to where a table was with a mattress on it and a pile of sheets and pillow cases.  They had to put the fitted sheet on the bed and pillow cases on the four pillows and then push the bed back the 50 feet to the starting line.  This was all timed and the fastest team wins.

 

 

This was the second team heading for the table with the mattress.

 

 

This was that same team putting the sheet on the mattress and the pillow cases on the pillows.

 

 

 

And this is the same team on the way back to the starting line.  Their time was 34 seconds and they were fastest the last we heard.  We gave up watching at that point because we couldn't see all that much.  I would guess there were at least 200-300 people surrounding the area where they were doing the races. 

 

 

 This is a scenery shot we took as we were leaving Oatman.  The hills were very pretty in the sunshine, but it didn't show up well in the picture. 

 

 

A second scenery shot.

 

 

And that was our trip to Oatman.  Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

 

Patrick

Nice Views

This weekend was the Hot Air Balloon Festival here.  The past 3 mornings, the hot air balloons would take off over the lake.  On our way to breakfast this morning, we were able to get a few pictures.  In addition to the balloons, the background scenery isn't bad either.

 

 

 

Rugged Country

This afternoon we met a high school classmate and his wife at a place that's tucked way back in the Buckskin Mountains near Parker, AZ.  Once we turned off the main highway, we had about 6 miles of rough and hilly roads with top speed of about 15 mph.

 

 This is just one wall - no building behind it.

My classmate, Jim Johnson, is sitting to the right of Patrick; his wife, Sara, is second from left.  The other couple are friends of Jim & Sara (forgot their names).

This is the main attraction - Desert Bar - all outdoor seating and live music.  It's only open from noon to 6:00 pm and on weekends only.

After driving on this rough road for 6 miles, you can understand why they close at 6:00 pm.  It reminded me of climbing Pikes Peak with no rail guards and narrow road.

 

It was a fun afternoon and we would have never known about this if Jim hadn't told us.  It's definitely an experience we'll remember.



Happy New Year from Lake Havasu

We arrived here yesterday around noon.  The house we're renting is nice but we haven't figured out a good route to get back when we go out to eat or shop.  Good thing our GPS knows how to get us home.

 

We saw lots of country driving out here through the mountains.  There is more open space than cities or towns.  We had to be sure to stop for fuel when we did get to a town as there were place where we went almost 200 miles and didn't see anything close to civilization.

 

We saw several of these in the open fields in Wyoming.  Their snow fences look a bit different than what we see in Minnesota.

 

Once we got further south into Utah, we were in the mountains.  These are just a couple of the more scenic views we saw around Provo, Utah.  After the mountains, we went through a gorge, but it was so hilly and winding, I was hanging on too tight to let go and take any pictures.

 

We drove over 1700 miles and the nice scenery made the drive more enjoyable.  We were fortunate not to run into any bad weather along the way to slow us down.  Now, we need to do some exploring to see the sights which we're looking forward to once we get rested up. 

 



Christmas for the Birds

This morning I met girlfriends for breakfast and was greeted with what looked like a sundial but ended up being bird seed.  One of the girlfriends said her daughter received this as a gift but didn't have a desirable place to hang it and remembered all the birds we have and feeders we have out here.  We got rid of a couple feeders earlier so had an available hanger. 

 

It didn't take long for the first customer to arrive.  This special treat will probably be gone by the time we get home from our winter trip.

 

 

Thanks, Kerry!  I'm sure the all the birds we get around here will be enjoying this special treat before too long.

Small Group

This year's Anderson family get-together was smaller than usual mainly due to illnesses.  We had enough food left to send home with everyone that came so nothing went to waste - lots of "care packages" as my Dad would say.

 

 Watching the Vikings winning.

 L-R: Herb May (my niece's husband); my brother, Jerry; niece, Kaylyn; and half of my sister, Joanne. 

 

 

I did a good job of getting the back of my sister, her granddaughter, Brandi, is facing us and her grandson, Brady, in the back.  These are Kaylyn's children.

 

We missed Joanne's husband, Jim, this year too.  He's currently in a rehab facility recovering from a hip replacement.  We fixed him a big plate of food along with some goodies that he can share. 

 

Hopefully, everyone that was sick will be well by Christmas and we're hoping next year to be back to a full house.

Good Friends

Even though we're having some very cold weather here lately, three of us who use to go dancing every Saturday night in temperatures much colder than this got together for lunch today.  We haven't been together for almost ten years so it was nice to get caught up in person rather than e-mails and Facebook.

L-R: Suzanne Johnson, Me, Mary Ellen VonRueden

We all live in different small towns so trying to find a place that was somewhat central was a little hard.  We found a town that none of us had eaten at so good thing there's "Google Searches" to at least get a starting point.  We ended up at a local cafe called K-Bob's in Princeton, MN and it was your typical small-town, local, cafe.  It worked out well - each of us was about 1 hour away. 

Maybe next time we'll try for a warmer day but I'm glad we made this one today.

Snow?

We are having our first measurable snow here today but it doesn't stop these guys from eating.  We've never seen ducks around our place this late in the season.

After they finished eating, they sat under the apple tree.  They've been here before.

It's dark so the bright red doesn't show up the best for this Cardinal - still a pretty bird though.

The Chickadee is on the "grab and go" plan with the sunflower seeds so it's hard to get a clear picture.  This was the best out of 4 tries - doesn't say much for my photography.

Surprise Visitors

This is the latest we've ever seen these visitors around our bird feeders.  This picture was taken this morning.

The river is frozen over now but when it was open - just last week - we had as many as 18 Mallards coming up to clean up under the bird feeders.  They have the Blue Jays to thank for this too.

We don't have any snow on the ground yet so they're still finding good food around here.  Crazy birds - we thought they'd be flying south by now. 

This picture was taken this afternoon.  They seem quite comfortable when they sit down to eat.