Travel to Porter Spring Recreation Site, Lake Roosevelt, AZ

Friday, November 24th

I slept in ... cannot believe it,, well until 7:15 am anyway. With a minimal pack up required, were on the road by 8:30. Wow.  The first part of the drive you wind down the mountain ... about 2000 feet in no time at all, coming out of the pine forest into the desert. These pictures are of my attempt to take "action shots" with my camera. There is some reflection from the front window ... I cannot hang out my window like Dianne does, my door is in the way! lol

Down, Down, Down!

Some boondockers near the bottom of the valley.

Yup back in the desert ... our first Saguaro of the season.

First glimpse of Roosevelt Lake

There's only an hour's drive today from the Casino to Lake Roosevelt, where we planned to boondock in Bachelor's Cove. Imagine our surprise when we arrived and found the area closed due to high water. Where we camped 2 years ago was flooded! Now what?

This is where we were 2 years ago. Notice how far up the vegetation is from our motorhome. Above, close to where we were camping, the vegetation is in the water!

We unhooked the car and checked out the other water access sites, but they were either closed or packed with limited space for any more campers. Steve and Dianne arrived expecting to fill with water at the sani-dump ... water shut off! Steve parked his rig in the boat launch parking lot to confab with us. Okay .... Steve and Ray took off in the car to investigate campsites in Cholla, picked out two sites and left some chairs and then drove to the Windy Hill area. Finally after an hour or so they picked campsites in Porter Springs Rec Site, which is part of the Windy Hill area they decided were better. Steve dropped Ray off at the coach, picked me up to retrieve the chairs in the Cholla Campground. Unfortunately it took us about 25 minutes to find our chairs ... some nimrod had purposely collapsed them and put them behind the concrete parking strips so they were not visable from the road. Poor Steve thought he had "KRAFT" disease.  Finally we had our chairs and Steve got back into his rig. I drove the car and we all continued back down the highway for 10 miles or so to the Windy Hill area to meet up with Ray. The campsites turned out to be great and both of us have water views. So a short drive ended up being 3 hours before we were all settled. Although Steve did not get his water there are water taps here in this campground he can fill jugs up with.  The campsite have free hot showers so everyone is satisfied.

Our View ... and our score of firewood.

The only drawback of these sites is that the Palo Verde trees have dropped little brown balls of squishy prickles that are getting stuck to everything, especially Freya's fur and I have to spend 10 minutes cleaning her off before she can come into the coach. The little balls drop on the floor everywhere and it hurts if you step on them in bare feet. Had to pick up my inside mats as they were getting stuck to them like velcro!

Campfire under the moon.

After a couple of hours of setup we sat outside enjoying the views.

Ray took Freya a short ways to a trail down to the water so she could have a swim as it was about 80F. She met up with a bunch of kids who enjoyed throwing her stick, she was "in heaven".

For happy hour Dianne served up Buffalo Wings. They sure disappeared quickly, especially with a cold brew!

I decided to make dinner easy after the day we all had. I amped up my homemade marinara sauce with Italian sausage and veggies and served spaghetti. Dianne made her own "zuchini noodles" for herself, gluten-free noodles for Steve and I cooked regular noodles for Ray and I. Yup co-operation! I also maded a roasted yellow beet and feta salad, mostly for Dianne as it is one of her favorites and I wasn't too sure how her "noodles" would work out. :) We ate outside, enjoying the fire Steve made from our "free firewood" find.

Spag Dinner..... yum

A lovely evening or at least it was until Steve and Dianne's neighbour decided to dump their grey water in their site ... what a stink. Both Ray and Steve went over to give them "some grief". (They ended up leaving by 7:30 am the next morning before the park rangers come in!) After this happened we all decided to call it a night.