Category: Travel

Lake Havasu Balloon Festival – Review

This festival was scheduled for January 2020, the festival is celebrating its tenth year, general admission is $15, for a wrist band good for entry for all four days. It brags of having 70 balloons, and runs Thursday thru Sunday. So as far as pricing it would easily fall into the inexpensive category. There were some $45 to $65 VIP pass that is only good for one day, these passes provides you front row seating and parking. To park the coach was $200 for a spot from Tuesday thru Monday it included the RV plus one vehicle it also came with two wrist bands. It is dry camping in a parking lot that is on a first come first pick spot unless you book as a group, then the organizers pick a row in the parking lot and put all your group in one row. The parking lot was not level and because of the angle of rows are not solar harvest friendly so it means no end to the generator noise.

The actually scheduled festival events were to start at noon on Thursday and runs until early afternoon on Sunday, the festival had scheduled a never ending line up of entertainment at the main stage, while an amazing site to see when a mass ascension takes place there is a lot of time between the planned balloon events. This was one of the events we were looking forward to since booking this stop last fall, while Albuquerque is the largest event with up to 500 balloons but being an October event it makes it almost impossible for us being Canadians to get to if our plan is to winter in the States. So this seemed like a great option, and while I understand everything is dependent on weather and wind, it seemed to us that most of the balloon pilots did not want to travel far to land, as when the mass ascension did finally take place most only travelled a couple of miles to the island, where they landed after a short flight time.

So in review…the wrist band is a great value for four days of entry, and if the weather co-operates to inflate the balloons and being that close to the action is amazing. The events that were happening through the parks are almost country fair like…and had it been warmer and had we not been recovering from our colds maybe we would have been spent some time there. There were vendors selling lots of products, we walked through but having spent many weekends at vendor shows it’s was just a lot of the same. The parking lot camping was not a good value, there was to be shuttle busses but they were few and far between, so we walked the mile and a half most times, the noise of generators running all day long was ridiculous, most had quiet units but a few had near construction noise level old Champion generators. So a much better option would be BLM land with a zero cost and drive to the parking lots where there were more shuttles and a wrist band purchase, the benefit of camping there was pavement instead of sand seemed like a good idea, but the noise was unbelievable and a large put off. We were disappointed that the balloon pilots were unable to get in the air except the final morning.

So in closing we would not schedule this event again, we would go get a day pass if we were in the area and the weather was co-operating, could be better if a group was involved to help fill the time between events but the dry camping at $170 was not a good value…just saying

Vegas…Baby

February 10th 2020

We head to Vegas today, it is less than three hours up the road…but I suspect it will take us about five hours…we have been in the desert for two and a half months, and things are a little dusty. So a spa day for Thunder is in order, and most of our route is state highway so most of it is just two lane road. I started to write a blog yesterday but it just never happened…I know most of you find it hard to believe that I had nothing to say…well that isn’t totally true but I was having trouble trying to be politically correct enough to put in print, with what I was reading and thinking. I think the most alarming finding, is that after swiping through Facebook it’s just hard for me to believe that so many people are taking what they read on Facebook book as the truth… People you have to fact check what you read to assure your self it is true, and for heaven sakes don’t share something you haven’t checked.

But back to Las Vegas, Miss Laurie and I love Vegas, we love the excitement of the strip, we love all that happens in and around Vegas, oh there are all kinds of tourist traps, there are also some of the most amazing shows, the grandeur of the casinos, the way Vegas keeps reinventing it self, it is truly a city that never sleeps, but is surrounded by so many amazing land marks, Hoover Dam, Red Rock park, Death Valley, and so many other things to keep you busy doing something.

Well we are settled into our spot in Las Vegas, the sites are tight (we knew they were it’s Vegas) so every place you look at is tight, most people don’t come here for the season, no we are one of the longer term visitors. Well the trip here was not without some drama…we had another fuel filter issue…if you remember back in early November we had a fuel issue after some bad fuel, and had to change the primary fuel filter in Oklahoma and have had no issues since, well that was until today and while climbing into Kingman on I-40 we started to have the same stumbling effect. We were headed to Kingman to refuel and to the Blue Beacon truck wash…now I had to add changing the fuel filter to the list.

At the Pilot Flying J, we topped up tank with fifty gallons of diesel fuel, we then found an open parking lot where I changed the fuel filter, then off to the truck wash to clean up our act…and a couple of hours later we are headed north on US-93 toward the Hoover Dam and Nevada. We had left our spot on Plamosa Road at around 9 am and were settled into Arizona Charlie’s RV park in Las Vegas by 3.30 pm, so a little longer that I had planned, but I hadn’t planned on the fuel issue which had us just creeping up some of the grades near Kingman. All in all it was a good drive, light traffic, good weather, and while we tried a little different route through California which was an easier drive was very flat and straight but not as scenic as the road through Lake Havasu.

We are settled, with full hookups, the plan for the rest of the day, is just relaxing, we have passed through another time zone so we are now in the Pacific time zone which puts three hours behind our home residence. This little park has a round two hundred sites, but has a small foot print, there are obviously a number of units that are here long term, but at $850 a month all inclusive not a bad rent factor for someone moving for work.

Tomorrow we are hooking up with some Vegas newlyweds, there are lots of newlyweds in Vegas but we know these newlyweds from our previous life in the Niagara region…so stay tuned.