Lake Havasu

 It's now late October, 2017 and after returning from Northern Minnesota, Canada, and the Lake Superior side of  Wisconsin, we made a semi local (250 miles) jaunt over to the West side of Arizona, on the California border, to a place everyone's heard of, but nobody seems to know where it is, Lake Havasu. We thought we'd better get over there before the annual snowbird invasion happens. When we pulled in to the area, it was pretty quiet, and we had no trouble getting a good spot in a nice RV park. Let the exploration begin. Here are some first impressions. This is not a place where you stop on the way to somewhere else. It's not really close to anything. The landscape's very interesting...desert, mountains, and lots of water. The lake was formed when The Colorado river was dammed in the 1930's. Yes, it is the place where a fellow named Robert McCulloch, in the 1960's, spent millions to have The London Bridge moved there. It's the centerpiece of his planned communi-

McCulloch & Wood

ty, Havasu City. He, along with the city planner, a fellow named C.V. Wood Jr., are immortalized on a statue near the bridge, in a town now with a population of about 80,000. It's actually bizarre and out of place to just see it there in the desert, crossing The Colorado River instead of The Thames.
 After looking around at the shops and eating places near the bridge, we headed towards the older part of town that could be called the closest thing to a downtown. It's filled with more shops, services, and restaurants, and we really didn't feel the need to try too many of them since they mostly seemed touristy. We did try one place that, at least, looked kind of interesting, called The Red Onion. But it also turned out to confirm our suspicions and was just ok at best (the poor service ruined an otherwise average meal). The only place that turned out to be a winner was called Cha Bones. It's a very nice looking venue with better than average food. We finally ventured out for a happy hour there and ordered a couple of items that were really good.

Inside Cha Bones

Oh well, sometimes it's great to have a good galley in the coach and practice our RV cooking skills.
 Another interesting point to the area is the mix of homes. There's anything from little track houses to pretty upscale RV homes (this place is seriously an RV centrist area), to multi million dollar estate type realty with mountain and lake views. We took one side trip down to Parker, where the dam is. It's a pretty ride along The Colorado, but there's not much in the town except for a nice casino and some cool houses right on the water. To sum up Lake Havasu, would be that it's understandable why the area has grown. It has a lot of physical beauty, it's not really on the map so therefore a good place to insulate oneself from much of the outside world, and there is enough infrastructure around to keep you from getting bored. All in all, some good reasons for why McCulluch must have had the foresight to say, "If I build it, they'll come."

Another bridge view with walking paths

Fall 2017 Lake Superior Loop

Lake Superior sunset/Herbster Wi.

It's the beginning of September, and we're both ready to hit the road after spending most of the summer in Tucson. In July, we did take a run up to Show Low, east of Flagstaff, in the very pretty White Mountains. Until you start to dig in, the famous travel destinations in Arizona, like Sedona or The Grand Canyon, are just the tip of the iceberg. The state is filled with more hidden gems than one could imagine. Show Low, after trekking less than two hundred miles north from Tucson, through the amazing Salt River Canyon and Apache Indian territory, is a more off the map, year round outdoor venue for those who know.
In summer it's a cool place to beat the heat of Southern Arizona, and in winter it's a fun ski destination. There are plenty of good local eating places and lots to see and do. One surprise is the number of upper-end and gated neighborhoods of second homes belonging to people from Phoenix and Tucson.

Salt River Canyon, north of Globe, Az.

  Anyway, after that summer break, in September we headed to Santa Fe for a week of checking out what's new. Our home away from home had a couple of surprise changes. The best one is that Clafoutis, the bakery restaurant, moved to a larger, much cooler location.

Clafoutis

The very French baked goods and the food are still the same great quality, but the new place is much nicer with great indoor/outdoor seating spaces. We were happy that nothing much changed at our favorite kitchen away from home in Santa Fe, Counter Culture. In a weeks time, we must have gone back three or four times! Boring!...but the food's sooo good!

Counter Culture's homemade cakes

  From Santa Fe, we traveled a familiar route up to far Northern Iowa to the Winnebago mother ship in Forest City, for a little routine maintenance. After that short stop, we rolled up to Northern Minnesota, to Duluth, for the beginning of Fall color. Duluth's an interesting place. Located at the far western end of Lake Superior, it has a long history as the hub for ships transporting ore from the nearby mines through The Great Lakes. One of those nearby mining towns is Hibbing, Mn., where Bob Dylan grew up. He was born and spent his first few years in Duluth though, and there are lots of references to him around town.

A local hotel's Dylan display

Because of the very short warm season around here, decent RV parks are pretty scarce, so as we've done lots of times before in these climes, we parked the coach on the edge of town at a pretty nice casino and spent almost a week in the area. One day we headed farther up The North Shore (as the locals call it) all the way through The Canadian border and spent the night in Thunder Bay, Ontario, also on the big lake.

Downtown Duluth

Historic retractable bridge for long ore ships, Duluth

From Duluth we headed east along the south shore of Superior into Wisconsin. A couple of nights in a tiny village area called Herbster gave us an overview of this part of Far Northern Wisconsin. The highlight was the apple growing region, centered in Bayfield. This little port town is all things...Apple. We drove around through the orchards nearby and sampled everything from apple donuts to pies and ciders. I've been working on a jar of apple butter from there that is very applishious!

South shore of  turbulent Lake Superior/ Herbster Wi.

Our return leg took us down to Omaha for a little extended stop since the heavy rain that hit us on the way in to Nebraska didn't want to quit. We hunkered down at Cabelas and made the best of it by exploring some parts of town we weren't as familiar with. We have been to The Old Town part of downtown several times, but this time we headed for a new place we'd heard about. The Jun Kaneko Studio (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-giant-fanciful-art-of-jun-kaneko/) is his base of operations, and this world renowned artist lives and works in Omaha of all places. Unfortunately, the studio was closed for a private exhibition the day we went, but we did manage to see some of his art  around town.

Kaneko's 80' glass sculpture, Buffett Cancer Center

The rains finally moved off after three days, and we resumed on the road back through Wichita and down to Amarillo for the final leg through New Mexico to Base Camp Tucson. In all, about a 3800 mile loop to parts of the U.S. we hadn't yet explored. Our next trip is to another Arizona place we'd heard of but knew little about...