Lake Havasu, AZ & CA …
Itinerary:
Homolovi State Park, Arizona (READ ABOUT IT HERE!)
Camp Davis County Park, Bullhead City, Arizona/Laughlin, Nevada (READ ABOUT IT HERE!)
Salton Sea State Recreation Area, Mecca,California (READ ABOUT IT HERE!)
Joshua Tree National Park (READ ABOUT IT HERE!)
Palm Springs (READ ABOUT IT HERE!)
Lake Havasu Landing Resort and Casino, Needles, California/Lake Havasu City, Arizona. (In this Blog)
The final destination of our spring break trip was originally the south rim (the popular side) of the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, a freezing, snow-filled spring storm hit, so we changed the plan and headed to Lake Havasu instead.
Side note: The last time we hit a snowstorm, driving conditions were so poor that we had to stop at a sold-out Motel 6 in Flagstaff where we’re pretty sure we picked up COVID – so NEVER AGAIN!
We’ve been to the Arizona side of Lake Havasu and really loved it. Since we waited until the last minute, the Arizona side was sold out, so we booked a stay on the California side. Lake Havasu Landing Resort was right on our way home, about 15 miles off the road that passed through the desolate Mojave Desert. While driving on that road you would never know that there was a lush, green, water oasis just over the horizon and a beautiful, ginormous, safe, clean, man-made lake. The desert is so beautiful and serene and surprising. It turns out that even though our dreams of sipping pina coladas by the Salton Sea were thwarted, we did get to do it by Lake Havasu.
While I was researching Havasu Landing, I wasn’t really sure how it worked or what all was there. There was only one restaurant (in the casino), one gas station, a casino, and one store on the California side so we wanted to make sure that we had enough food supplies etc. The website did say that there was a ferry that ran across the lake to Havasu City. But due to COVID, ferries tended to be closed, so we didn’t want to count on that.
Havasu Landing Resort and Casino was a lovely little location, although I’m not sure I’d call it a resort. If you expect “VEGAS, BABY” – you will be disappointed. The RV park had large RV sites, full hook-ups, they were not paved but were nice and even, well-marked, all of our favorite things in a campground. The sites were kind of close to one another, but we had more room than at some of the campgrounds we’ve stayed at and we didn’t feel like we were packed in like sardines.
The water was easily accessible & close to the campground. We walked about 300 steps to read, color, collect shells, and sunbathe by the lake. We could each go when we wanted and didn’t have to travel to the lake as a pack, and we could go fetch things we forgot or wanted from the RV. The campground was also just a short walk from the casino and the ferry to the AZ side of the lake, where all the touristy stuff is. R and I went to the restaurant at the casino and the food was affordable and delicious, and the staff was super nice. (Side Note: another surprising fact about me is that I’m a hopeless romantic… R is not. I’ve been trying to get her to go on a romantic, moon-lit walk with me ever since we’ve been dating to no avail. On the way back from the casino I finally got it – by a beautiful lake surrounded by palm trees no less – so I was quite happy.)
Much to our joy the ferry to Havasu City was running!!! We interrupted our days of sunbathing by the lake for one day to ride the ferry over to Lake Havasu City. It was $2 per person roundtrip & runs hourly. We took the teen on their first ferry trip and spent the day being tourists. We walked around the London Bridge. YES – THE London bridge! Stopped at the visitor center to find out the weird history of how the London Bridge come to be in Lake Havasu, AZ. (Crazy, rich guy – OF COURSE!). Be sure to stop in there – it’s very interesting. We ate lunch, people-watched, shopped and relaxed. It was so much fun being a pure tourist!
We rode the ferry back, which I almost missed because I had to go potty. We could feel the distinct RED-ness of Arizona vs. California. The California side was COVID-safe. They made people wear masks in the store, the casino and in the public spaces of the campground. As soon as we crossed the lake to Havasu City no one was wearing masks. They didn’t care about social distancing, and after almost a year of lovely social-distancing-pandemic-life we felt kind of… claustrophobic. We have thoroughly enjoyed pandemic rules and wish they would last forever.
London Bridge ~ Lake Havasu City, AZ ~ Photo by T. Evanskin ~ All rights reserved.
FONDUE!
Eating/cooking food and relaxing is how we spend most of our evenings in the RV. R works on her music, the teen draws, and I like to read. R and the teen got the creativity in the family. We do most of our adventuring during days.
Some of you may think that I am a stereotypical big, butch lesbian who likes fixing stuff and doing outdoorsy stuff and leaves the cooking and cleaning to R. NOT TRUE- I LOVE to cook and bake. This year for Valentine’s day R. bought me a cute, little, electric fondue pot. It is fabulous! It just so happens that it’s perfect for the RV. Over the years I’ve also received crockpots, instant pots and fancy coffee makers but those don’t work so well in the RV because they are bulky and use a lot of electricity. As we were shopping for Havasu Landing, we made sure to get the ingredients to make cheese fondue and chocolate fondue!
I just kind of made this recipe up as we went along because it was easy to take all the ingredients in the RV and didn’t require much prep. You can find a ton of delicious fondue recipes on Pinterest.
The Easy Evanskin RV Cheese Fondue
Ingredients
… that are super easy to use in the RV
- ½ cup chicken broth
- ½ cup 2-buck-chuck white wine
- ½ cup corn starch (when we plan fondue before leaving the house we just add the cornstarch to a large zip top bag so we don’t have to carry the whole can)
- 2 cups shredded swiss cheese (or more)
- 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese (or more)
- Garlic powder
- Pepper
Directions
In the bowl of the electric fondue pot put the 1 cup of liquid. Heat it until it simmers. While the liquid is warming put the cheeses in the zip top bag along with the corn starch, then shake it up so the cheese is coated.
Add the garlic powder and pepper (you can other seasonings as well, when the teen isn’t with us, we like red chile flakes or green chile) to the simmering liquid. Add the cheese and cornstarch mixture and stir till it becomes ooey, gooey, delicious fondue-y texture. You might need to add more liquid or cheese depending on your preferences. We ate ours with cut up mini bagels, pretzel sticks, French bread, broccoli, pickles, and apple slices. (Food that is easy to prep!)