February 15-21, 2019 — After spending a “funtastic” two weeks in the Yuma, Arizona area it was time to move on. We backtracked north from Yuma on Highway 95 with an end goal of reaching Craggy Wash, a BLM site on the northern edge of Lake Havasu City. We spent two weeks boondocking at Craggy Wash in February of 2017 and looked forward to returning.
Our timing for being in Lake Havasu centered around an annual event in the city, the Annual Western Winter Blast Pyrotechnics Show held in Sara Park February 13-16. We originally planned to go two nights to the show but, unsurprisingly, the weather refused to cooperate. The first night was cancelled due to high winds and heavy rainfall with flash flood warnings. The remaining three nights the show did go on but the weather remained very cold and windy. We did go on Friday night and luckily found a parking spot on BLM land across Highway 95 from Sara Park where we could remain in the car while still having a decent view of the fireworks. The show was amazing with a constant display of fireworks that went on for several hours making it well-worth the effort to get there. We highly recommend putting this event on your travel list!
All nights this third week of February were free stays at Craggy Wash BLM in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
On the way from Yuma to Lake Havasu City, Arizona we encountered rain, cross winds and flash flood warnings so we decided to park for the night in Quartzsite to wait out the storm. It was amazing how different the area looked compared to a few short weeks ago when hundreds of thousands of RVers flocked to Quartzsite for the annual January convergence. The desert was deserted.
This is our home for the remainder of February at Craggy Wash on the north side of Lake Havasu City, Arizona. It is one of our favorite boondocking spots as we’re surrounded by nature yet there’s a shopping center/Walmart/Home Depot just two miles away. The best of both worlds!
This is not a typical February forecast for Arizona but there hasn’t been much “typical” about this winter anywhere in North America. Parts of Arizona received up to 42″ of snow from this storm. Wow!
Along with the impending snow came the freezing cold weather. These poor little lemon trees at the Lake Havasu Home Depot likely didn’t enjoy the cold anymore than we did.
What interesting cloud formations! The sun is shining brightly over Lake Havasu but in the distance the darkness is definitely from either rain or snow.
Those interesting cloud formations in the photo above brought SNOW to Lake Havasu City, Arizona for the second time in the last 40 years. This is not what one would expect in a “hot desert climate”.
The snow and cold weather grounded us for several days we still managed to stay busy. While cooped up we read, watched Netflix, organized the RV, did our taxes, researched upcoming travel locations, etc. Coconut oatmeal no-bake cookies were also on the to do list. Yum!
As you see from the above photos it was an unusual cold, snowy week in Arizona. Hopefully a warming trend will grace us next week and we can get out an explore the beautiful Lake Havasu City area. Stay tuned to see what we find. See you then!