Parker

Parker is the other town that I work in (along with Quartzsite -- aka P and Q).  It is also a small town, around 3,000 people, not a whole lot of nightlife as expected, other than the casino which also has a movie theatre.  However it is a beautiful drive from Havasu to Parker (and reverse), and there are plenty of places to pull over or explore on that route or just beyond the town.  Here are a few I've checked out lately.

Bill Williams National Wildlife Refuge

This marks the county line between La Paz and Mohave, I know when I cross counties as there is a bridge over the water at the Bill Will.  On the La Paz (Parker) side is a rough road to trek back into the preserve, climb a sandy hill and get these views below.  The view off the highway is beautiful as well, and I'm sure there are other access points, I just don't know them yet.

Parker Dam

The dam in Parker is the deepest in the world and creates Lake Havasu; south of the dam the Colorado River continues.  I didn't take a picture of the dam itself, since concrete is not that exciting. These couple paragraphs from the site linked above sum it up well:

"Parker Dam spans the Colorado River between Arizona and California 17 miles northeast of the town for which it is named. Built between 1934 and 1938 by the Bureau of Reclamation, Parker Dam is one part of a system of storage and diversion structures built by Reclamation to control and regulate the once unruly Colorado River.

Parker Dam's primary purpose is to provide reservoir storage from which water can be pumped into the Colorado River (California) and Central Arizona Project Aqueducts. Lake Havasu, the reservoir behind Parker Dam, is about 45 miles long and covers nearly 20,390 acres. It can store 648,000 acre-feet or nearly 211 billion gallons of water."

Colorado River south of the dam

View from up the road, Lake Havasu north of the dam, from Take Off Point

 

Ahakhav Tribal Preserve

This place is a bit hard to find if you don't know where it is - the address on the site doesn't come on Google but I recognized the road, and once I knew it existed, easily found the small sign for it on my at-work artist-transportation route.  The preserve features a beautiful backwater area, sandy trails and relaxation/recreation areas.  It is managed by the Colorado River Indian Tribes, or CRIT: Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo tribes.

All photos are copyrighted by me and are not to be used for any purpose without my consent.