FROM HOUSE BOAT TO APACHE LAKE ARIZONA

We left California with a mini-caravan of our rig towing our car and Toni following us with her truck towing the powerboat. It was a smooth trip plowing straight through. We wanted to avoid the mess of traffic near Los Angeles so we turned east at Bakersfield to Barstow and Needles and then south to I-10 to Phoenix. We were pleased with the good RV parks on the way with long pull-throughs and even a nice privacy wall of oleanders in Needles. The park managers always found an out-of-the way place to put the truck and boat at no charge.

We towed the boat to Apache Lake. That is quite an experience. Apache Lake is about 50 miles from our park over a twisty road through the mountains with the last 12 miles over a narrow dirt road that skirts mile deep canyons and no guardrails. Toni did a great job of it and we never even so much as did anxious gasps.

Apache Lake is part of a series of lakes created by the damming of the Salt River. It starts with Roosevelt Dam (creating Roosevelt Lake) and then Apache Lake, then Canyon Lake and ending with Saguaro Lake. The Salt River continues on to Phoenix. Apache Lake is 17 miles long and has no other buildings on it except for the marina. The cliffs reminded us of Bryce Canyon.You’re really away from it all when there. Zoe was ecstatic to have campfires on shore each evening. We bar b qued our meals on the beach. We slept on the boat.

We are settled into our park and doing checkups with doctors and dentists. We are also busy getting ready for our two upcoming cruises. We leave on Nov 18 for Auckland and our cruise around New Zealand to Tasmania and ending in Sydney , Australia on Dec. 5. We have eight days in Sydney (a city we love) and then leave on a cruise to the islands of New Caledonia where we are hoping to do lots of snorkeling. We end back at Sydney on Dec. 23 and fly out on Christmas eve. A long time but we decided to combine the cruises as it is so far to fly to that part of the world.