London Bridge and Drum Tracks…

On Wednesday we decided to book a couple more days at La Paz County Park because the weather’s great and there’s enough to do to keep us occupied around here.

We actually spent a fairly quiet day Wednesday. First we checked out the town of Parker a little closer, which didn’t take long. After quick stops at Safeway and Wal-Mart, we spent the rest of the day walking, riding our bikes and hanging out reading.

I was invited to a bluegrass jam that night but didn’t go on account of it was blue grass. Janice asked why and I said, “Let’s go by, but listen as we approach and you’ll here the bass going, doonk, doonk, doonk, doonk, doonk, doonk doonk, doonk, in a steady rhythm.” Sure enough, that’s exactly what we heard - boring for a drummer, and not much there to improvise with.

On Thursday we got up early and headed for Buckskin Mountain State Park where we hiked pretty well all the trails.

Pictured is the Colorado River from Buckskin Mountain. Also pictured, yes Rhelda, you were right, this is a Beavertail cactus. A Prickly Pear Cactus blooms yellow.










We returned home for a shower and then went to Indian Island State Park, just up the road, where we had a picnic lunch before driving on to Lake Havasu.

Lake Havasu is famous for a couple of reasons.
One: It’s where the London Bridge was relocated back in 1971. Yes, the real London Bridge was dismantled, piece by piece, and shipped to the desert, immediately making lake Havasu a viable community.

Pictured is the London Bridge, spanning a channel of Lake Havasu.








Two: It’s a favourite Spring Break destination for thousands of college students from around the country.

Pictured are a couple of shots of some spring breakers enjoying the sunshine. I know that both Sam and Bill have been waiting the entire eleven months for some titillating pictures such as these. There you go boys…


















I went again to Buckskin at dusk to take another picture of the red rocks there, pictured below.









Thursday was sunny and bright again. We discovered there’s a car show and Blues Fest right here at our park on Saturday and Sunday so we booked ourselves in until Monday.

On Friday we drove an hour to Quartzite, a favourite site for RV’rs and especially for those who want to dry camp in the desert, usually rock hounding. We had really good pizza at Silly Bill's Saloon. Quartzite is also known for being like one big flea market, partially pictured below.









Russ, one of the musicians in our park flagged me down, saying, “I hear you’re a drummer.” I replied in the affirmative and he said come and look at this. He has an entire mobile recording set-up in his motor home. He’d recorded some tunes with some of the other players in the park and asked me if I’d be interested in laying down a drum track on the boogie tune. I agreed and, after we got back from quartzite I played around with his drum machine a little and then suggested we just record live with the Cajon instead. He agreed and after a couple of takes we had it. It sounded good but I suggested we add an open Hi-hat from the drum machine. It turned out sounding really good.

We tried adding brushes, played on the Cajon, to a slower song but weren’t getting the result we wanted so, tomorrow, we’re going to try it with the brushes on his banjo case instead, which has more of a textured surface and should pick up the swishing sound better.

When I got back from Russ’ Janice decided to take a dip in the river, which is about 50 degrees. Yikes!










Pictured are a couple of dusk-time shots from our park, just after Janice’s swim.










In the evening we lit a fire and then went to join Russ and his friends at their campfire. It turns out they don’t just play bluegrass and had some great vocals going. We only caught a couple of tunes but I may jam with them tonight. We’ll see how we all feel after the all-day Blues Fest.

I hear music. Off to the Blues Fest...