Tag Archives: travel

Planning the Long Flight Home

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I begin flight planning for the trip from Phoenix, AZ to Malaga, WA with my new helicopter.

I haven’t been blogging much about flying lately, but that’s because I haven’t been doing any lately. It took me about a month to find a good replacement for my old helicopter and, truth be told, I haven’t even gone to see it in person so I don’t have any good stories or photos to share. I’m thinking of discussing the purchase in a separate blog post and if life doesn’t stop hurling distractions at me, I might just get that done. But it’ll be a complete piece — from the start of the search to the pickup of the replacement helicopter — and since that process isn’t complete yet, I can’t very well write about it.

So instead I’ll give you an idea of what’s going through my mind this weekend and week as I plan to fly the replacement helicopter home from the Phoenix area.

Planning a Flight in the American West

The one thing that city folks — and people from areas areas that are normally or densely populated — don’t get is that out west there can be very long distances between points. And since there aren’t as many people here outside the big cities, there can be a whole lot of nothing on a long cross-country flight. Or even on a relatively short one. Heck, when I was first building time in my R22, I once flew solo in a straight line 85 miles east to west just north of the Grand Canyon’s airspace and didn’t cross over a single paved road for the entire distance. Can you do that in New York?

I used to fly between Arizona and Central Washington twice a year. From 2008 to 2013, I lived in Wickenburg, Arizona and spent 7 to 16 weeks every summer in the Wenatchee area of Washington for cherry drying. In May, I’d pack up the helicopter and fly north and in July or August, I’d pack it up again and fly south. I often had a pilot interested in building time in an R44 at the stick to help cover flying costs; once (I think) it was my future wasband, who got the flight time for free on a flight that included a good part of the Oregon coast.

There are basically four good routes — five if you count the California/Oregon coastal route — to get from the Phoenix area of Arizona to Central Washington State. Those routes are determined primarily by terrain, fuel availability, and airspace restrictions.

The Shortest Route

By far, the shortest route is through the middle of Nevada. Going north from Wickenburg (E25), it’s Mesquite, NV (67L), Elko, NV (EKO), Burns, OR (BNO), to Wenatchee, WA (EAT). Note that those legs are pretty long — 2-1/2 or more hours each. But it’s only 891 miles total and I’ve done the whole flight in a single day twice with another pilot on board.

The Shortest Route
Here’s Foreflight with the shortest route plotted in. I added a waypoint to route me around the Grand Canyon’s airspace, which I can’t fly through. There’s a whole lot of nothing on this route.

Pros:

  • Short route; it can be done in less than 10 hours without headwinds.
  • The shortest route is also the cheapest route.
  • Only three fuel stops also speeds up the trip; stopping for fuel takes at least 30 minutes.
  • Between Elko and Burns, there are many herds of wild horses.

Cons:

  • Not many options for fuel if headwinds slow you down. Rerouting along the way could make the trip a lot longer.
  • Flight crosses miles of empty desert with absolutely no sign of civilization. For example, there’s a stretch between Elko and Burns where there are no roads, buildings, or even fence lines for more than 90 minutes of flight time. So if you need to land because of a problem, you’re pretty much screwed.

The Salt Lake City Route

Salt Lake
My GoPro nosecam captured this amazing image of Salt Lake on my last flight southbound through the area in October 2016.

When I flew the late, great Zero-Mike-Lima south to get its overhaul back in 2016, I took what I call the Salt Lake City route. This route follows roads pretty much all the way. Zero-Mike-Lima’s engine was nearly 12 years old and an oil change had uncovered more than the normal amount of metal fragments in the filter. If the engine was going to give me trouble, I wanted to be able to land somewhere close to where I could get help and that meant near a road. An example of this route goes from Wickenburg (E25) to Page, AZ (PGA), Salt Lake City (Skypark), UT (BTF), Burley, ID (BUR), Pendleton, OR (PDT), and Wenatchee (EAT). This comes out to a minimum of 985 miles.

The Salt Lake City Route
This is what I call the Salt Lake City Route, IFR edition. I’ve added waypoints beyond the fuel stops listed here, to guide me around the Grand Canyon’s airspace and keep me over roads for most of the way.

Pros:

  • I can be an IFR (I Follow Roads) pilot. There are very few stretches along this route that can be considered remote.
  • There are corner-cutting opportunities to save time and fuel. For example, if I don’t mind flying over Salt Lake, I can go direct from Salt Lake City to Burley. (I really don’t like flying over water so I’ve only done that once.)
  • There are many potential fuel stops along the way. And many options for short detours to get to them.
  • The first 2 hours of this flight takes me over my old stomping grounds in northeastern Arizona, including the Navajo Reservation and Lake Powell.
  • My friend Megg lives in Salt Lake City and has, more than once, provided overnight accommodations.

Cons:

  • It’s not the shortest route. I don’t think it can be done safely by one pilot in a day.
  • It crosses over a lot of high elevation terrain. In April, that means there’s a real possibility of snow or icing conditions that I can’t fly in. Getting grounded because of weather wastes time and gets expensive.

The Western Nevada Route

Another way to go that successfully avoids the restricted airspace in Nevada is up the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and up into Oregon. In looking at this route, I realized that I’d never done the whole thing. Once I traced the Tonopah (southeast of Hawthorne) to Wickenburg part of this route with my wasband on board when we had to abandon the coastal route, stopped for the night at a friend’s house in Georgetown, CA, and came over Echo Pass near Lake Tahoe. We might have cut through Death Valley along the way. The route I’m looking at now is at least 942 miles: Wickenburg (E25), Jean, NV (0L7), Hawthorne, NV (HTH), Lakeview, OR (LKV), Yakima, WA (YKM), and Wenatchee (EAT).

Western Nevada Route
The western Nevada route is one I’ve never done before, but it looks like it might work out.

Pros:

  • Relatively short route.
  • Not completely familiar so I’d get to see new sights.
  • A stop at Hawthorne would mean getting to see Betty, the unofficial airport greeter there.

Cons:

  • Not completely familiar so I’d have to be even more prepared for the unexpected than usual.
  • Fuel stops are limited so monitoring fuel consumption and planning well in advance is vital, especially with headwinds.
  • There’s some remote terrain. Help might not be close in the event of a problem.
  • There’s some high elevation terrain. Winter weather could be an issue in April.
  • With restricted airspace and high mountains on either side of the Nevada portion of the route, there aren’t many opportunities to divert for fuel or overnight accommodations.

    • The Central California Route

    The longest two routes take me through California. The shorter version goes up the Central Valley of California. I basically head west through the Arizona and California deserts, then pop over the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at Tehachapi and fly up the Central Valley. Then I continue North through Oregon on the East side of the Cascade Mountains. A flight plan might be Wickenburg (E25), Apple Valley, CA (APV), Porterville, CA (PTV), Woodland, CA (O41), Redding, CA (RDD), The Dalles, WA (DLS), and Wenatchee (EAT). That’s a minimum of 1100 miles.

    Central California Route
    The Central California route is long but very familiar. The stops shown here are just an example; there are plenty of options for fuel and overnight stay in the Central Valley.

    Pros:

    • I know this route really well. I can’t tell you (without looking in my log book) how many times I’ve flown either the entire thing or parts of it.
    • There are lots of places in California’s Central Valley for fuel and overnight stops.
    • More than half the route is through heavily populated areas. Plenty of places to get help if needed.
    • There is very little high terrain so winter weather is not likely to be an issue.
    • Weather is nearly always perfect — although it could be windy — in the desert areas.
    • I can stop along the way to pick up the cockpit cover for my old helicopter, which is somewhere in the Sacramento area of California.

    Cons:

    • The route is long. Enough said.
    • There’s a chance that you won’t be able to cross into the Central Valley at Tehachapi because of low clouds on the Central Valley side. The wind seems to funnel the weather south and when the clouds hit the mountains there, they just stop and accumulate. I’ve had this happen to me twice. The options are to wait it out or detour farther west to Grapevine.
    • Just under half the route is through sparsely populated areas.
    • There are limited fuel stops in the desert areas and in Oregon.
    • Did I mention that the route was long?

    The Coastal Route

    Bonneville Dam
    When I fly back from the coast, I usually fly along the Columbia River. Here’s a nosecam shot of the Bonneville Dam. I can’t get my hands on any of my coast photos right now.

    If you’ve never flown in a small aircraft, low and slow up the coast of California and Oregon, you have no idea what you’re missing. When the weather is good, the flight is absolutely amazing. I’m talking about tiny seaside communities, waterfalls plunging off cliffs into the Pacific Ocean, and odd rock formations just off the coast with waves crashing picturesquely against them. If time and money is no object, this is the way to go. A typical route might be Wickenburg (E25), Apple Valley, CA (APV), San Luis Obispo (SBP), Half Moon Bay, CA (HAF), Eureka, CA (EKA), North Bend, OR (OTH), Tillamook, OR (TMK), The Dalles, WA (DLS), and Wenatchee (EAT). Those aren’t all fuel stops; they’re just points along the way where fuel is available. This flight is over 1300 miles long if you follow the coast as closely as possible. It’s a lot longer if you join the coast at a point south of San Luis Obispo — for example, Santa Barbara (SBA) or Long Beach (LGB).

    The Coastal Route
    Got money to spend and time to kill and you don’t mind gambling with Mother Nature? Then do the coastal route. The extra waypoints I plotted in here are just to keep you on the coast as much as possible. You’d have to calculate and pick your fuel stops.

    Pros:

    • The scenery! There’s none better.
    • Lots of fuel stops — if you plan properly.
    • Did I mention the amazing scenery?

    Cons:

    • Weather. The chances of being able to stay on the coast for the entire distance from San Luis Obispo to Tillamook are about as close to zero as you can get without hitting zero. The marine layer is real and it will definitely force you inland for at least part of this route. That means you need to have an infinite number of Plan Bs. And there’s nothing worse than flying out of your way to get to the coast and then having to backtrack because it’s socked in with fog.
    • Possibly flying over water. I hate flying over water.
    • Some of the coastal areas are quite remote. So even if you’re flying over land, if you have a problem and need to land you might not be anywhere near help.
    • You can’t stick to the coast in certain wildlife refuge areas unless you want to climb to 2000 feet. I get nosebleeds up there.
    • The airspace gets a little crazy around San Francisco, especially if you have to come inland.
    • And seriously: 1300 miles for a trip you can do in less than 1000 miles on at least two other routes? A bit extravagant, no?

    Picking a Route

    Those are pretty much the options I’m looking at. I was leaning toward the Central California route until I started looking at the Western Nevada route in more detail. It definitely has possibilities and I shouldn’t write it off just because I haven’t done it before. If it saves me 2 hours of flight time, that’s hundreds of dollars in ferry flight costs. While I don’t think I can do it in a day, it’s definitely feasible.

    In the end, there are just two things that will help me make the decision: the weather forecast and whether I can stop in California to fetch that cockpit cover. And although my flight is scheduled to begin on Friday, April 13 — yeah, I know — it’s still to early to get a reliable forecast. I’ll likely decide by Wednesday or Thursday — and be prepared to change my mind.

    That’s how flight planning goes.

    Postcards: Heli Expo Fly In

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    I’m at Heli Expo in Las Vegas this week. I arrived on Saturday evening after a week on a frost control contract in the Sacramento area. My RV and truck (and boat) were waiting for me, stored at the Sam’s Town KOA (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it) and I moved right back in.

    A friend of mine who works for HAI was responsible for guiding in the helicopters that would be on display at the show. They fly in over the course of three days on a tightly controlled schedule and flight path. They land in the back parking lot of the convention center, shut down, and get wheeled into the building. It’s a time-consuming process where safety is high priority. My friend invited me in to watch the show on Sunday, when the last six helicopters were due in. I jumped at the chance.

    I used the opportunity to broadcast some of the landings with Periscope. One of these was featured on the Periscope home page and soon had thousands of live viewers. You can find it here. I’ll be the first to admit that it isn’t riveting videography, mostly because of the delay between landings. But enough folks seemed to like it.

    When my phone’s battery got low, I cut the broadcast and switched to still photos. Here are two of them.

    Helicopter landing at Heli Expo 2018 in Las Vegas.

    Helicopter landing at Heli Expo in Las Vegas.

    I’ll be posting additional photos of helicopters on the show floor here and on Twitter. And if all goes well, I’ll broadcast the first departing flights on Thursday afternoon — with a full battery and backup. Follow me on Periscope and turn notifications on to tune in. I’m mlanger there.

    Postcards: An Unusual Rental Car

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    When I realized last weekend that I’d have to spend at least five days in Woodland, CA on active standby for my frost contract, I shopped around for a car rental. (My truck and camper are waiting for me in Las Vegas; long story there.) As I always do when renting a car, I picked the cheapest car they had to offer, which turned out to be a “Ford Fiesta or Similar” at $228/week. Not a great deal, but the best I could find.

    A friend took me to Sacramento Airport to pick it up around midday on Saturday. I waited on a short line. When I got to the counter and handed over my ID and credit card, the guy at the counter looked at me and asked, “Just you?”

    I assumed he wanted to know if there was a second driver. “Just me,” I replied.

    “Would you mind taking a Camaro for the same price?”

    I don’t think I’ve ever driven a Camaro. And I didn’t even know Chevy still made them. I figured it was a watered down version of the 1980s muscle car, but at least it was something different. I told him that was fine and we finished up my paperwork.

    To my surprise, the car isn’t watered down at all. It’s a 2018 Camaro SS with less than 10,000 miles on it. I haven’t popped the hood, but the engine growls when revved and its performance isn’t the least bit disappointing. The car looks hot, sounds powerful, and goes fast.

    Camaro SS

    I guess the car rental guy thought it would be safe in the hands of a middle aged woman. Joke’s on him.

    Although I don’t really like the car and would never consider buying one — terrible visibility, tiny windows, coffin-like feeling — I do admit that I’m having fun with it. After driving my truck for the past 2+ months, it’s nice to be in something sporty. I’ll have it until Saturday and will likely take it on at least one road trip to either Napa or San Francisco (or both) between now and then.

    Postcards: The Sundial Bridge

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    My 2017/18 snowbirding vacation is officially over. Last week, Penny and hopped on a commercial flight home, took care of a bunch of chores my housesitter couldn’t do, and enjoyed the little of home luxuries like full-time electricity, a spacious shower, and a dishwasher. On Thursday morning, we climbed into my helicopter and made the first two of three legs of my annual migration to the Sacramento area for a frost control contract. The destination was Redding, CA, where the helicopter was stripped down for its annual inspection by the folks at Air Shasta.

    While the helicopter was getting work done, I did some exploring. Friday found us at Turtle Bay, which is a park along the Sacramento River. There’s a kids museum there and access to miles of riverfront bike and walking trails. And the Sundial Bridge.

    The Sundial Bridge is a neat little single-tower pedestrian suspension bridge over the Sacramento River. Cables from the tower, which looks like the vertical part of a sundial, collect to the bridge’s deck. It has translucent glass panels in the floor that offer a somewhat ghostly view to the river below; this walkway is set aglow at night by lighting under the bridge.

    Sundial Bridge over the Sacramento River in Redding, CA.

    The tower at the Sundial Bridge.

    Deck of the Sundial Bridge.

    Sundial Bridge deck at night.

    Although I didn’t think it was a real sundial, this Wikipedia entry has informed me that it actually is; the Tower is oriented due north and there are places to read the time on the north side.

    Penny and I spent about 2 hours in the area, walking on the trails and stopping for something to drink at the museum store there. The place was hopping, with plenty of pedestrians, bikers, and dog walkers. Later, when I realized we’d need a second night stay in the area, I checked into the Sheraton hotel there for a little hotel luxury; that’s when I was able to get the nighttime shot.

    Snowbirding 2018: Boat in Tow

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    I finally take my little boat to Arizona and get it out on the Colorado River for the first time.

    Way back in 2011, when I was spending my fourth summer in Washington State for cherry season, a friend of mine sold me her little jet boat. It’s a 1995 Sea Ray Sea Rayder F-16 and I blogged about it here. It’s not much of a boat, but it runs reliably and it does get me out on the water. What else could I ask for?

    The Boat’s Aborted Travel South

    My Boat at the Campground
    I was living in my fifth wheel for the summer, camped out at a golf course campground when I used my boat for the first time.

    I used it for the first time in May 2012, out on the Columbia River. Although I’d been expecting my future wasband to join me in Washington that summer, he had other plans that included his request for a divorce. A (misguided) friend of mine assured me that I’d be able to patch things up when I got home in the autumn and I believed him, so I continued my summer without much thought about his request, especially since he didn’t actually file for divorce.

    Near the end of the summer, I emailed him about my plans to bring the little boat home for the winter. I figured I (we?) would take it out on Lake Pleasant, as we had my jet skis years before, and possibly on other Arizona lakes and rivers. Maybe we could recapture some of the fun we’d had earlier in our relationship. When I got no response from him, I started poking around and discovered that although he hadn’t filed for divorce, he’d gotten a lawyer and was living with another woman. He hadn’t filed for divorce because he was hoping to get his hands on half the money I earned drying cherries that summer. I immediately did three things: filed for divorce, changed my will, and scrapped plans for bringing any of my assets home.

    So the boat stayed in Washington, stored in a friend’s garage until I could return. There was a hilarious scene during the divorce trial when my future wasband’s lawyer tried to get me to admit the boat was worth more than it was by offering me too much money to buy his half of it. I took the offer but my wasband backed down — he didn’t really want the damn thing; it was just a failed stunt cooked up by his lawyer and the old whore managing his side of the divorce. I was awarded the boat in the divorce without having to pay him a penny for it — after all, it was mine — and was back on the Columbia River in it, even before the divorce papers came through.

    Thoughts of Going South

    Time passed. Although I loved my new home in Washington State and used the boat there in the summer, I didn’t like the short, dreary winter days when I had no flying work and little reason to stick around. In 2014, I began wintering in Arizona, mostly in a generous friend’s guest house and in my RV on BLM land.

    I started seriously thinking about bringing the boat south with me for the winter in 2016. I’d sold my big fifth wheel and had replaced it with a truck camper. This gave me the ability to tow something behind me when I went south. In preparation, I took the boat on its trailer to the local Discount Tire shop to get the tires replaced. That’s when I discovered that they were the original tires and were 21 years old. Can you say “dry rot”?

    But when it came time to go south that year, I didn’t feel comfortable about bringing it. The camper was still pretty new to me and I was going to be covering a lot of miles with stops along the way. Did I really want to deal with a boat behind me on a complex trip? The answer was no. So I left it home and made the trip without it.

    I began regretting that decision in January when we camped out along the Colorado River at a campsite with a boat ramp and easy access to the river. I had my kayak with me, but it was a royal pain in the ass to get on and off the roof of my truck camper. It would have been nice to launch the little jet boat and use it to explore the river.

    At Walker Lake
    Here’s a shot of last year’s truck camper (the Turtleback) with my kayak on top. It was a PitA to get it back up there after using it.

    But what really convinced me I needed the boat in Arizona was the day trip I made to Arizona Hot Springs on the Colorado River, just downstream from the Hoover Dam. I’d rented a boat to get there and wanted to go back, possibly to camp along the river near the mouth of the canyon downstream from the spring.

    The Boat Goes South

    Still, it wasn’t until early October 2017 that I committed to take it south. That’s the same time I committed to getting a booth at Tyson Wells Sell-A-Rama in Quartzsite for 10 days in January. The boat would do double duty: I’d also use it as a utility trailer to haul the additional gear I’d need to set up my booth.

    I had to make some preparations.

    First, I had to buy a hitch extender that would enable me to hook up the boat behind the truck with the camper on top of the truck. You see, the back end of the camper extends at least a foot and a half behind the truck’s back bumper. I searched online and found an extender that would work for the boat’s relatively light load. I had to get it cut down to size at a local metal shop; the guy did the work in exchange for being able to keep the part he cut off.

    Next, I had to load up the boat with all of the items I wanted to bring for my Quartzsite booth and possible boat camping along the river: canopy booth tent, extra tarps, tent camping gear (including a new tent), fresh water jugs, cooler. I also had to give the boat’s cover a good coat of water-proofing spray; although it lived in my garage, I remembered the cover getting soggy the few times it had been out in the rain. I didn’t want everything inside the boat getting wet if I hit rain or snow on my way south.

    Once everything was stowed and the boat was covered, I used a pair of ratchet tie-down straps to firmly secure the boat to the trailer. I wanted to minimize bouncing which I knew the lightweight boat did when I trailered it anywhere. I had a long drive ahead of me and I didn’t want any problems back there.

    Finally, I had to hook everything up. That meant getting the camper on the truck (after getting a firiend to help me get the truck’s tailgate off), and then getting the boat hooked up behind it. I wound up using my Jeep, which has a handy front tow hitch, to get the boat out of the garage and position it on the concrete driveway apron in front of my big RV garage. Then I carefully backed the truck with the camper on it to get it into position and hook it up. I needed a trailer wire extension piece to make the connection between the truck and the boat’s light system.

    The last thing I did was set up my “poor man’s backup camera” so I could keep an eye on the boat while we made our way down the road. As it turned out, I only used it for part of the trip. My new truck camper had a window in the back door that made it possible for me to see out the back through my truck’s rear-view mirror. It wasn’t as good as the backup camera, but it was good enough to keep an eye on things.

    And then I headed out with Penny.

    My October Vacation

    I know I promised a blog post about my October vacation, but I guess you can count that as a broken promise. If I don’t blog about something right after it happens, it doesn’t get blogged about.

    The short version is this: I gave myself two weeks to get from Wenatchee to Wickenburg — a trip I have done in the past in just two days. We visited friends along the way: Jim and Teresa in Coeur d’Alene, ID; Ann and Robert in Torrey, UT; Janet and Steven in Hotchkiss, CO. I camped in all kinds of places, from nice riverside campgrounds to crowded National Park campgrounds, to remote roadside pullouts on BLM land. I visited several national parks, hiked for miles, wandered around prehistoric Indian ruins, and did some night photography. The boat trailered behind me like a champ, never giving me any trouble at all. Sure, I looked funny camped out in the desert southwest with a boat, but who cares? At least I gave people something to talk about.


    Why yes, I did tow my boat through multiple southwest desert national parks and monuments last October. Here they are at Capital Reef National Park in Utah.

    I arrived in Wickenburg at month-end, stayed in my friend Jim’s guest house for two days, and left my camper and boat parked out of the way in his yard with a new solar panel keeping the boat’s battery charged. Then I took my truck down to Gilbert and spent two days with my friends Jan and Tiffani there. I even got a chance to fly a Schweizer helicopter for the first time. By November 4, I was home, just in time to see the first snowfall for the season.

    The boat and my camper and my truck waited five weeks for my return.

    Take Me to the River!

    I returned in early December, after my annual Santa flight. Although I’d originally planned to bring the helicopter south with me, I didn’t have enough guaranteed work to make the trip worthwhile. So I left it behind at home and flew commercial to Phoenix with Penny and a big bag of all the things I’d forgotten to pack in the camper in October.

    I spent one night with my friends in Gilbert, reclaimed my truck, and met some other friends in Scottsdale for lunch and a Segway tour. (There’s a long story there that, at this point, isn’t worth telling.) Then I went back to Wickenburg and camped out for two days in Jim’s guest house again. I didn’t do much in the area other than prep my truck, RV, and boat for my winter travels. That included making sure the RV batteries were charged — they were since I’d left the rig plugged into Jim’s house for five weeks — and topping off the fresh water supply. The waste tanks had been dumped before I parked it.

    I did take my friend Janet out for a boat ride on Lake Pleasant one day. I wanted to make sure the thing ran. It would be horrible to get it out to the river and then not get it started. But it started more quickly than I expected and we spent an afternoon out on the lake, tooling around, fishing, and exploring the Agua Fria Arm of the lake before it shut down for bald eagle breeding season.

    It was the trip on the lake I’d envisioned five and a half years before, but with a different person. We probably had more fun.

    Back at Jim’s house, I loaded the boat up again, covered it, and strapped it down.

    Finally, on Monday, December 11, I had everything hooked up and headed out to the river. I was planning on staying at a campsite we called Janet’s Point which is about 8 miles south of I-10 on the Arizona side of the river. The campsite is a big flat area with its own boat ramp and access to both a backwater and the Colorado River. Unfortunately, a redneck loser was there — that’s another long story not worth telling — and I wound up in my second choice spot, which was on the same backwater about a half mile away. When Janet joined me with her little trailer and dog the next day, we launched my boat and I motored it over to our campsite.

    Our First Outing

    Still with me? Yes, I know my backstories can be long.

    We quickly discovered that the level of the water in the river and the backwaters fluctuated wildly depending on how much water was released 70+ river miles upstream at the Parker Dam. The first morning, my little boat was mostly beached and didn’t start floating again until after noon. It was worse the next day. That’s when I got the brilliant idea of putting an anchor off the stern to keep the back end in the water. Problem solved.

    Drone photo of our campsite
    Here’s our backwater campsite, from the air. You can’t really tell in this shot, but my little boat was half out of the water. Oops.

    When the water was full up that day, we took the boat out. It was just Janet, me, and Penny. We motored slowly in the backwater for that half mile, got to the channel, and zipped out into the river. I brought it up to full speed and we headed upriver. My logic is that if the boat’s engine is going to crap out, I’d like to drift back toward where I want to be. But the boat ran great.

    The only problem was shallow water, which was really freaking out Janet. She apparently had some bad experience running aground with a sudden stop that sent things flying. I wasn’t worried about running the boat aground nearly as much as I was worried about that 120 horsepower sport jet engine sucking up sand. But the boat, when planing at speed, had a shallow draft — seriously, I should look up just how shallow it is — and never ran around, although I had my finger poised over the engine kill button more than once. We motored all the way up to where we could see the I-10 freeway bridge cross the river. Then we turned around and headed back.

    Along the way, Janet got a text from her friend Steve. He’d come down to our campsite to visit us, found us gone, used his chainsaw to cut come of the wood we’d gathered into usable pieces, and had headed back toward his camp near Quartzsite. We saw his van, with the bright blue fishing kayak strapped on top, as he drove up the levee road. Janet connected by phone and soon I was motoring toward where he’d stopped along the road.

    Wouldn’t you know it? He stopped right by the shallowest part of the river. The boat’s hull scraped the soft sand and I hit the kill button. We were stuck momentarily and used that time to have a shouted out conversation with Steve. Then the river’s current pushed us free and we drifted away. When the water got deep enough, I started the engine and we continued back to camp.

    We were a lot more confident about the water depth on the way back. We’d both paid close attention to where the sandbars were on the way upriver and I managed to maneuver between them as we headed south. We purposely passed the opening to the channel back to camp, going an extra half mile or so just to see what it was like down there. But then I turned us around and we rode back to the channel. It was a bit tricky getting in to the very narrow channel with the river’s 6-8 mile per hour current. I had to crab the boat in. Once I was out of the current, I turned the wheel hard to straighten out, zipped through the opening, and reduced power down to no wake speed. We puttered the half mile back to camp.

    A Non-Event? Maybe, but that’s not the point.

    It’s funny how a boat ride I’d imagined for years turned out to be such a non-event when it actually happened. But, in hindsight, I don’t think it was the actual boat ride that interested me so much. Instead, it was the logistics and challenge of getting my little boat down to Arizona, as I’d planned to do so many years before, and finally doing it. The boat ride itself wasn’t a big deal.

    And I think this long and drawn out story illustrates something about me that I’ve only recently begun to be aware of: I live for challenges. Small or large, possible or impossible — my life seems to revolve around finding challenges that interest me and turning them into reality. Or, when I fail, learning valuable life lessons along the way.

    Let’s face it: I’m a smart, healthy person with money in the bank, retirement funded, and a comfortable paid-for home to live in. There are no challenges to survival and maintaining the simple status quo of my life. It would be very easy to just kick back and live a boring life at home year-round, entertained by television and punctuated by carefully planned packaged vacations.

    And that’s pretty much what I experienced when I was in a relationship with my wasband.

    Although it didn’t bother me when I was younger, it ate at me as I got older and heard the ever-louder ticking of my life clock. There is more to life than just waiting around for the end of it.

    Finally getting my little boat down to Arizona and taking it out on Lake Pleasant and the Colorado River was a challenge — admittedly a small one — and it feels good to have tackled it and succeeded in making it happen.

    Postscript

    I started this blog post in December — which is when I actually got the boat out into the river — and set it aside for a full two months. I thought I should trim it down a bit and I definitely needed to add photos. But I wound up keeping just about everything I’d written before adding links and photos and getting it ready to publish.

    We took the boat out one more time before the forward/reverse cable decided to seize up and limit the boat to idle speed. I was fortunate to have that; it made it possible to limp back down to the boat ramp and get it back on the trailer. It took a week in Blythe to get the parts and have it repaired. Then it was back in the water for Christmas and a few more rides on the river. I had the throttle cable replaced, too, and the boat runs more smoothly than ever.

    I parked it for nearly a month in a back parking lot at Tyson Wells while I camped out there with my booth. Then, last week, I hooked it back up and headed back into the desert, finally ending up at Buckskin Mountain State Park upriver from Parker, AZ. I had it out a few times, including all the way down to Parker for lunch one day and up to the Parker Dam another day. I enjoyed the luxury of being able to park at a real dock at the campground during my stay.

    My boat docked at the Cantina on the Colorado River.
    Parked at the Bluewater Casino’s Cantina boat-in restaurant.

    I’ll leave Buckskin for Cattail Cove State Park later today and, of course, bring the boat with me. There’s a boat ramp there that’ll give me access to Lake Havasu. Although I’d love to take it all the way up to Laughlin — as I did years go via jet skis with my wasband — I’ll likely limit my explorations to Topok Gorge.

    Next weekend, I’ll be at Willow Beach Campground just downriver from Hoover Dam. I’m looking forward to taking it up to the hot springs every day during my stay.

    Will I bring the boat with me next year on my travels? Probably not. Although it hasn’t been much of a burden to tow it around with me, it is a lot simpler to travel without it. I know I can do and that’s apparently enough.

    Besides, I’m not sure whether I’ll be coming back to then Colorado River next winter. I have other, more challenging travel plans in mind.