We left the Elks Lodge in Lake Havasu on 5 October and headed south on 95 to Parker, AZ where we drove across the Colorado River to the California side.  A whopping 50 mile travel day.

After crossing the river we immediately turned north on Parker Dam Road until we reached the Emerald Cove Resort (←link).  Click HERE for a virtual tour.

We knew about this place because a good friend from the Alpine Coach Association is a member of the resort and we visited him briefly earlier this year (February) when we stayed across the river at La Paz County Park.  Link HERE for a link to that post where I also wrote about Chris leading us on an off-road trip to the Desert Bar on our ATV’s.

Our “true” pull-thru and full hook-up site at Emerald Cove Resort (below).

We downloaded the scooter but never disconnected the Silverado during our 5 day, 4 night stay.  And since we were “guests” of an existing member, we only paid $10 per night.  Can’t beat that, eh?

Our “host” and fellow Alpine Coach Owner, Chris Cratch was parked in the next row directly behind our site (below).  So we naturally spent a lot of time hanging out together and socializing.  Chris’s wife Sonja was off visiting family so we didn’t get to see her this time.

It’s clearly still early in the season as evidenced by all the empty sites (below).  Many of the “snowbirds” are yet to arrive.

Some of the full-time residents (aka mules) have the run of the resort as you can see from the pics below:

Stilla posed for a photo op located near the Tiki Bar and swimming pool here at Emerald Cove (below).

Here’s some views of the Colorado River here at the Emerald Cove Resort:

One day, we rode the scooter up to the Parker Dam.  After crossing the Dam, we rode south along 95 back into the town of Parker and then crossed again to the California side, effectively completing a big loop.  Fun!

Chris got his pontoon boat back from being serviced, so we naturally had to help him get it into the water and he took us on a “shake-down” cruise:

Lunch on the river at the Blue Water Casino after docking at their riverside bar & grill (below).

Here’s some more pics we took from the couple times that Chris took us up and down the Colorado River on his pontoon boat while we stayed at the Emerald Cove Resort:

Notice the camel and zebra in someone’s riverfront yard (below).

Back at the RV Resort, I flagged down the ShadePro® awning service guy and arranged to finally have some sun screens made and installed for the front windows.  We decided we needed the external shades after two+ months facing the sun while parked at dear daughter’s house in Bowling Green, KY.  We already have a couple internal sun shade screens that we put up on the inside of the windshield with suction cups along with some (cut-to-size) silver insulation material, but it still gets hot (greenhouse effect) when the sun shines most of the day on the front windows.  The external sun shades are the way to go, but are certainly not cheap.  We paid $450 to cover the windshield, drivers side window, door, and passenger side window.

Chris also had his Polaris Razor® side-by-side here with him at the resort and invited us to go off-roading.  Stilla wasn’t interested this time and didn’t want to go through the effort of downloading our ATV from the back of the Silverado, so I jumped in with Chris and off we went for the day.  He even let me drive for part of the trip.

Here’s some pics (below) from our day trip on the trails in the California desert west of the Colorado River:

Lots of really cool rock formations and trails to explore…

We checked out an old abandoned mine site.  Lots of old core samples still sit in the broken down buildings (below).

More awesome views…

and another old abandoned mining building.

We even came across what was left of an old car…

I tried to identify the make and model, but couldn’t quite make it out.  What do you think?  An old Ford Falcon maybe?

A couple more abandoned mines:

The following pic shows a trail leading up to a memorial…

It seems that a young kid lost his life here and the family has made and continue to maintain a pathway to a memorial of sorts…

View from the mountain top memorial site for “Jeremy”.

A couple more scenic California desert views:

On October 8th we attended an Octoberfest party that the Emerald Cove Resort put together in an open area next to the river:

Naturally, with Stilla being German, and with myself having spent many years stationed in Germany, we are pretty critical of Octoberfest type events… so we’d rate this one rather low.  But, it was still fun once we got past the undercooked bratwurst and sauerkraut from a can.  The live band was good 🙂

On the 9th of October we said our ‘see-ya-laters’ to Chris and thanked him for allowing us to join him as his guest at this fine member-only resort.  We headed straight back to my Mom’s house at the “Dirt Farm” in Casa Grande, AZ.  We got word that my Mom was admitted to the hospital to have her gall bladder removed.  Thankfully, she’s doing fine and was released from the hospital but we wanted to get back and help out as we could.

Check back for an update on our time at the “Dirt Farm” in my next travel blog post coming soon…