Winter Blast Day 3

Lake Havasau City, Arizona
Rodeo Grounds Q 5

I forgot to mention that we had a visitor yesterday.  Ray Warner is staying at a membership park on the north of town and drove down to visit.  They wouldn't let him drive into the rodeo grounds so he walked in.  Lucky for him since we got one of the last sites he didn't have far to walk. 

Last night we all talked about touring Oatman.  This morning plans changed.  It didn't matter to us as we've been there a few times before.  

No problem we thought we wanted to go on the guided hiking tour of Sara Park.  We walked up at 9 am for the scheduled 10 am hike and the guide told us it was a 5 mile hike.  We decided we weren't in that kind of condition so walked over to the park to do our own thing.  There appeared to be a flat path but Bill said we'd take the higher ground.  This trail led up to the mountain and down the other side.  I was getting in a panic about being able to climb back.  We came down the mountain and met up with the guide we had talked to earlier in the morning and the group that were headed to Sara's Crack.  He said to tag along and then we could head back when we had enough.  

One fellow in the group said he was the oldest.  He said he was 77.  Bill asked him when was his birthday and he said Oct.  Bill said "well you're not quite the oldest my birthday is in July".

Even though I was ready to turn back, I thought if Bill can do it, I can.  The hike to the crack was fantastic.  It was a much larger scale than slot canyon in Page.  You had to virtually slide down some rocks.  

We left the group and climbed a big hill to another trail that took us up a steep incline.  
We followed these big "cats" tracks for a ways.  The temperatures were climbing fast.  

We were on the trails for 4 hours.  Did I mention that my water bottle fell out of my pocket and rolled over the mountain trail.  I was really starting to worry if we could make it back.  At this point we were out of water.  We finally found a trail that said 1.2 miles.  That was a long way from the trail entrance.  We finally got back to the entrance and found somewhere to sit down and catch our breath.  Even though we could see our trailer, it seemed like a long way to cross the road and enter the grounds.  When we finally got back to the trailer we collapsed on the chairs too tired to climb the steps to go inside.  When we added the distance on the trails we think we hiked and climbed 8 miles in temperatures near 90 degrees.  

Linda Hatcher supplied a whole table full or food for happy hour.  She had little cakes for Dennis Ward and John Kohl.  Dennis' birthday was yesterday and John's is the 16th.  

The fireworks display gets better every night.  We're really enjoying the great people here as well as the entertainment.

Turtle Safely........