Geocaching in Parker

Sunday February 27th (Day 163)

A side note to start. When Judy and I travel we both work on the blog and to keep things simple, it is written in the 3rd person. Well now, since I (Harris) am traveling alone for these 3 weeks, some folks are wondering if I’m feeling worthy of referring to myself in the 3rd person. Not really. For the remainder of the time I will use the 1st person.

Trailers on California side;Houses on Arizona side



I awoke to clear skies and a crisp 40 or so degrees. After grabbing coffee and making some oatmeal I was on the road by 8. My plan was to do a loop of caches going as far north as Parker Dam on the California side of the Colorado River and coming back on the Arizona side. Carl, my caching bud, asked if Parker was worth a stop on his way to Phoenix. My first thought was if you’re not a gambler, not really. This was before I headed out today. After the day’s trip I changed my mind (it probably didn’t hurt the cause that the sun was out and it was a pleasant 52 degrees with no wind). I left the long sleeves in Howie as I looked for the caches.

Post Office/store for Parker Dam construction workers
cache is in the tree



As I crossed the river to head north to Parker Dam, I noticed a sign that said no RV’s, cars with trailers or trucks could cross the dam. Well now, Howie is a short 21 feet. Many people don’t even consider a class B van as a real RV. I was sure that they would let me cross. As I approached the last bend before the dam where a choke point was created to prevent trucks and RV’s from approaching and which presented no problem for me, a lady came running towards me with hands waving wildly. At the same time red lights flashed on a lowering RR type bar and from the ground rose stout and menacing steel barricades. Needless to say, I stopped and pulled over to a parking spot. It seems that they meant any type of RV. I played dumb (not hard to do) and mentioned that I thought the restrictions pertained to vehicle length so there would be no problems navigating the dam. After she said that the entire category of RV’s was banned I played nice and turned around (thinking to myself that whatever I could hide in Howie in terms of explosives would probably also fit in many large SUV’s. Oh well, it was sunny and I had passed a great park (Bull Frog Park) for lunch. Caches so far brought me to a store/post office that served the Parker Dam construction worker, some spots that looked across the Arizona side of the river where homes probably start at 1 Mill and go from there, and great Parker Dam vantage points.


Parker Dam (passenger cars only!)





Bull Frog day park for lunch



After retracing my steps and crossing back to downtown Parker I headed north and did the caches on the Arizona side. While gathering four within a short walking distance tour called “Going to Grandma’s house #...) the last one was in a small cave overlooking the road. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a flashlight so I didn’t actually find that one. Completing all the ones in town I decided to do a couple more that were on a dirt road just out of town next to a signpost that said “Desert Bar” with an arrow.

Venice in Arizona?



Apparently it was started after an owner lost his lease in town so he took a couple of coolers worth of booze and started the bar (See http://thedesertbar.com/ for more info). There were cars going and coming the whole time I was looking for the caches.

Cache #4 to Grandma's house (20' inside cave)



By the third cache I was only 1.5 miles away on the 5 mile road and a fellow cacher I met highly recommended it as a place to check out even if you didn’t buy a drink there. There were helicopters dropping off people by the bar (probably some of those home owners previously mentioned) and some with tourists cameras at the ready taking pictures of bar patrons as those same patrons were shooting pictures of those tourists. I came back down the mountain and decided to was the rig since Howie was a mess from the trip down from Seattle. The dirt road didn’t add much more to what was already there.

Looking down on 3 levels of Desert Bar patrons



There were many good things today. Besides what I’ve mentioned, I ran into Glenn while geocaching just before I headed up the mountain. Parker really is a small town. I was in shorts for an hour (I got the jeans wet from washing the rig). I grilled a steak with a hash brown frozen patty for dinner at what I’m now calling Glenn’s Grove (there are some trees there) since it was his posting that lured me to the calming and scenic spot. The experimental frozen hash brown patty turned out great. And he Black Angus T-bone is always a good bet.

Looking down the Desert Bar road
(can you spot Howie?)



Today’s high 57

8:30 PM temp 55 (nice!)

Grillin' at Glenn's Grove