To start this week, we get to sleep in and spend the next 3 days in Laughlin, Nevada. We have been here before and love exploring the surrounding areas. Today, we head out in the desert, across the Colorado River in Arizona. From Bullhead City, we take the not so nice sounding Landfill Road, past the landfill and into the nicer looking hills east of town. We find an old quarry area and a rough side road that has some geocaches on it. We decide to park nearby and hike the road to see where the caches are. It turns out to be a beautiful hike of 5 miles’ roundtrip with some great scenery and only one encounter with the human species. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon.

Chocolate Shake Stout

When we drive out and reach Bullhead City, we stop at a pub called the Bearded gentleman. I had read that Sunday is half price burger day, and right now a burger sounds pretty good. Just to add to the deal they have happy hour until six so I can see a beer in our near future.

We walk inside and the place is pretty nice with only a few local patrons inside. We sit at the bar and the bartender Christie is very nice. She lets us sample quite a few beers before making our decision. Carol tries one called alien amber and I try a chocolate shake porter, from of all places Boulder, Colorado. They are both very good but I really like the porter. Beer with the added benefit of tasting like dessert. We also order burgers of which they have many interesting combinations.

Chile Mac N Cheese Burger

Carol orders the Gentleman Jim which has strawberry jam, basil, sliced strawberries and pepperjack cheese on it. I order the Mac, which is a burger topped with their green chile mac n cheese. They are both served on pretzel buns and Carol gets a side of parmesan fries, while I opt for onion rings so we can share. At half price these run us about $5.50 each. When they come, they are both delicious and well worth full price, but a real bargain at half price. Maybe a second beer is had as another dessert, I can’t say for sure. If you are ever in Bullhead City, give this place a try.

Monday, the weather is cloudy and rainy, so we head on over to Kingman, Arizona, 30 miles away. I read about a micro-brewery there with good reviews so when we arrive around one o’clock, we just have to stop in. It is on the old main street of town and we go into an antique store first, then into the brewery next door. The Black Bridge Brewery does not serve food, so all we can do is drink. I try the Dr. Frankenstout which is a mix of an Imperial raspberry wheat and a dry chocolate stout. Carol keeps it simple with an Evil Red IPA.

Carols New Friend

We meet a young couple from Scottsdale who had car trouble on their return from Vegas. They moved from Tennessee to Scottsdale and are loving all the southwest has to offer in the outdoors. Maybe we will cross paths again in our travels. After our beer, we head on over to an Indian restaurant for dinner. Our friend Sedona, whose dad lives here, warned us about the perils of trying Indian food in Kingman. Despite her warning, the food was quite tasty and they had a good variety on their buffet. Try India Spice N Bar in Kingman if you like Indian food. After dinner, we head back to our hotel so Carol can get her slot machine mojo going. For a rainy day, we made it turn out enjoyable.

Today is our last day in Laughlin. We travel up Highway 68 to do some possible geocaching and hiking. We turn off a road that leads to the Princess OHV trail but instead continue straight and pass an old mine or quarry. A little beyond that the road deteriorates and we decide to just park and explore the countryside. As we hike across country we encounter some beautiful ocotillos and snap a few pictures. I hear a noise in the distance and realize it is the sound of wild burros braying. Carol wants to see the burros, so we head off in the direction that we think the braying came from. We round a small ridge and there in front of us maybe a hundred yards off is a small herd of burros. There are several babies and one obviously dominant male who hee-haws loudly to let us know he is aware of our presence. I manage to get some good pictures and some vide of the loud braying echoing in the surrounding desert. After enjoying our encounter, we wind our way back to the RAV. I find an unbroken glass conductor from a long destroyed electrical pole and am pretty excited about it. Simple pleasures. We return to the vehicle and head back down the 2-mile bumpy road. We turn onto Highway 68 and after about a mile, I come to the horrible realization that I had placed my camera and GPS on the roof when we returned to the vehicle. I immediately pull over and discover the good and bad news. Good is that the GPS somehow is still there, bad is the camera is not. We turn around and go back to the side road. As we turn off the highway, we notice some ATVers getting into their vehicle, but I continue up the road to where we had parked. We look around and do not see the camera and decide to walk along the road and see if we can find it. We split up each taking a mile-long section. I also search the mile or so along the highway that we had traveled. After a long time searching and losing daylight, we have to give up. I can’t believe what I did and that we could not find it. We start to think that maybe the ATV people saw it come off the vehicle at the last curve before the highway and took it. At any rate, I am not a happy camper and particularly bummed at all the pictures of this trip that I have lost. This is why the last post and this do not have many pictures. The few I have are from Carols phone.

The next morning after check out, we decide to drive back up and do another thorough search along the roads. We spend several hours to no avail. I am just so distraught over this as I love taking pictures. I also had my 64GB memory card in the camera. No camera finding miracle occurred so we head on towards home. We stop in Vegas for an early dinner and make it to St George around 7 o’clock. Other than the sour ending, we had a great time and enjoyed the Mojave national preserve. We still have other places to explore there and know we will go back. We now have two days to prepare for a visit from our friends Judy and Chris. They will be arriving Saturday. Until next week, signing off.