Buckskin State Park 10miles north of Parker.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 This is a nice State Park and we have decided to stay here for another couple of days.

Looking across the highway south to the park entrance.

That’s us in the Cyclone parked fourth down.

A look at the park from up on the hill. 

A shot down the river.

A picture from up on the hill.

We plan to leave here on Friday and head up to Laughlin, Nevada. We are stalling here where it's warm and will probably make a rush for Kelowna when the weather permits. Right now it has been really, really, really warm. Up over 30C and is just cooling down slightly at 9:30p.m. It is windy as the weather is in a changing pattern. I had a little look at the small cactus garden here in the park and here are a few pictures.

Hedgehog cactus in bloom.

A look at the walkway in the garden.  Small but nice.

More blooming hedgehogs.  Very prickly!

Beavertail cactus in bloom.

There is also a small antique mining machinery display.

It is interesting to see all the different types of people that frequent these types of parks. Some are snowbirds that have spent the winter in Yuma and are just passing through. Some are just people who have decided to come here for a few days from California etc. It is still spring break here so there are children as well as teenagers with their parents and of course it will be Easter this weekend. Nice to see kids and not just old people!

We did a little hike (the buckskin trail) this morning and is was a nice little walk. It went up and down and as it was quite warm  I found I was a bit out of breath at first. I did a lot of walking this winter but it was all on the flat, except for a couple of hikes up El Faro (the lighthouse hike) so it took a bit to get used to the hike up. Not a problem once we got going. Good views of the river and lots of good pictures.

Up over the hill from the park looking down to the walkway over the highway.

 

Eric in the walkway.

A pretty view.

Brittlebush in bloom. 

Desert lavender in bloom.  Eric thought it stunk!

Teddy Bear Cholla in bloom.

I think this is a fish hook barrel cactus.

Beautiful hills!

This is the blogger and photographer!

I think this might be a stork!

When we got back to the rig we had lunch and then headed out for a ride on Blue. We decided to head up to Lake Havasu and it was a windy ride. Busy on the highway and the wind was a bit much to make it enjoyable. There are a lot of traffic lights through the main part of town in Havasu and that is difficult on a Harley. It is an air-cooled engine so stopping at lights in heat can become a problem. We left the main highway on London Bridge road and thought we'd find the bridge, but it was behind us and by the time we figured that out we just decided to head back. Too hot and too busy. We had another windy, trafficy (aggressive Arizona drivers) ride back to the Parker Dam.

Parker Dam.

If this ever gave way there would be a lot of drowned snowbirds!

We decided to take the highway over the dam and on the north side of the river back to Parker and then back to Buckskin Park. A nice easy ride without much traffic. We stopped in the Safeway parking lot just out of Parker so I could make a call to Erika to let her know where we are. As I mentioned the AT&T phone has no service in the park and there isn't any internet here either. When we arrived back at the rig the temperature was way over 30C. Hot but breezy, so still nice and we still didn't run the AC. No complaints. 

As we are hooked up and didn’t need the water in the tanks Eric decided to drain it out slowly.  There are tons of birds here and these ducks decided to  have a drink.  As if there wasn’t enough water in the Colorado River! 

I shot this from under the rig on the opposite side so I wouldn’t scare them off.  The Drake was giving me the evil eye!

All done.

There are a large amount of doves here, tiny ones and pigeon sized ones (big enough to eat!)  This big one was in the tree right behind us. 

Beautiful but noisy and to make it worse Eric likes to imitate them.  

It is now 20 minutes to 10 and it is hot and dead quiet outside. Sweet!

P.S.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that on the ride back today I got an enormous pain in my left boob.  Hurt like hell for about 10 minutes and then went away.  When I got back and jumped into the shower there was the tail end and stinger of a bee stuck to my boob!  A big bruise, and itchy, itchy and sore.  No wonder it hurt so much!  I had my jacket open on the ride since it was so hot.  Good thing my pain tolerance is fairly high.