We left home at about 9:00 am got to Lake Havasu City at about 3:00 pm without any trouble at all. The weather was nice – it never got above 78 and it wasn’t very windy at all. We took our usual route around Phoenix via highway 85 between I-8 and I-10. We get off the interstate about 40 miles short of Quartzsite and go directly toward Parker and up highway 95 to Lake Havasu City. We missed the detail that the turn onto London Bridge required being on a parallel street and that was our only “problem” all day. We cruised at about 63 mph (it felt good) all day and the coach ran like a top.
We arrived at the parking lot where we will spend the next 3 nights and it was wide open – not crowded at all. The problem was we didn’t know where the activities would be so where we should park. We finally settled on a row of spots that are back-in only and less desirable to minimize the number of neighbors – some people are jammed in next to each other.
We spent a nice quiet night – quiet time is after 10 pm and there were lots of generators before then, this is dry camping only for $20 per night. The schedule said that the “mass ascension” would be at 7:45 am so we got up and dressed so we could sit at the far corner of the parking lot. By 8 am there was only one balloon showing at the “balloon field” so we shrugged our shoulders and headed back to the coach for some breakfast and coffee. Walking back we saw a good half-dozen balloons being inflated in the area immediately in back of our coach. It turns out that the balloons launch from all over town – any empty parking lot they can find. There is no better spot to watch than the one we chose.
We watched from 50 to 60 balloons fly out over the lake and back again on a wonderful morning, warm and calm. We wandered around the festival area which is on a golf course and arranged in a large circle around the “balloon field” which is actually pretty small as balloon fields go I think.
Tonight, just after dark, they are supposed to do a “night glow” but it is iffy because of wind. Right now (2 pm) it is a little windy and yesterday it was very windy. We are hoping – had the same problem in Albuquerque in 2009 and no evening or morning events happened.
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