It was a dam fine day!

"Twas a week before Christmas ..." when I had my little heart attack. That slowed things down a whole lot. We were supposed to have a sales tour of Emerald Cove Resort the next day, and we were going to say "no" and get a bunch of nice gifts. The resort was great, allowing us to stay at no cost as long as we needed.

Of course, over Christmas, everything was closed, but this morning we called the sales office Wednesday morning to get rescheduled. Turns out, they didn't really want to reschedule us, but would allow us to leave the following morning, and the Marketing Department will send us a new offer some time in the future. Yeah? The age limit is 74, and I'll be 75 in May. I've had a heart attack. How anxious do you suppose they are to have us back?

So, off we went to CVS to see if the big $49.95 nutcracker was still there, but at 50% off. It was, but it was broken, so we decided to leave it behind, and go to breakfast at the Crossroads Cafe. If you are ever in Parker, the Crossroads is THE place to eat, and everybody knows it. The place is packed, the food is good, the service great, and the prices reasonable. Stay out of the restrooms -- they are terrible!

Since we were only a few miles from Parker Dam, we decided to take a look after breakfast.

Parker Dam was built between 1934 and 1938 by the Bureau of Reclamation. (At this point, our daughter Deb takes a bow, as she has recently taken on a management position with the Bureau!) Parker Dam's primary purpose was to provide reservoir storage and power for California, and a little bit for Arizona. But, if you know the area, Parker Dam also created Lake Havasu, the current home of London Bridge, which is not, in fact, falling down.

We drove up the California side of the Colorado River past lots of private RV and mobile home parks, plus quite a few Bureau of Land Management developments. We also found some of the much touted wild burros along the highway!

The dark one was the baby, and was having lunch when we arrived, We waited for a less personal picture!

Mama kept her eye on us the whole time. "Touch my baby, I'll bite your hand!

Then came our first glmpse of the dam.

Not much from a distance, but then we got closer.

Parker Dam is the deepest dam in the world: 73% of its structure height is below the original river bed. Only about 85 feet of the dam are visible -- the dam's superstructure rises another 62 feet above the roadway across the top of the dam. And here's the roadway.

It's kind of like driving along the Colosseum in Rome, I would think!

Looking at the dam from the Arizona side.

Lake Havasu presses against the back side of Parker Dam, and provides boaters, jet-skiers, fisherman and many others excellent recreational opportunities.

While we decry the ugly power lines that traipse across the scenery in many of our pictures, electricity is part of what this dam produces, and it has to get across the state and the mountains some way!

We popped up to Take Off Point, the earliest opportunity for fishermen to get to, into or onto the water to catch those trophy fish.

But I had my trophy wife with me!

And then it was time to hurry back to Earp, CA to get ready to leave in the morning. And so closes another episode, a somewhat strange and unsettling one, in ... Our Life on Wheels.