Bill Williams River NWR and Parker Dam

It was another beautiful day of weather yesterday. I could get used to these warm temperatures. But time marches on, and we are northward bound at this point. For today, we'll be heading over to Desert Hot Springs, near Joshua Tree National Park, where we were earlier on this trip. There's something we want to see there, but I'll save that for a future post. As for yesterday's wanderings, we visited Bill Williams River National Wildlife Refuge and Parker Dam. I have a lot of pictures to show you, and so I'll just get right to it. But first...kitties. It's a good place to start, don't you think?

Smitty was getting ready for his morning nap, and I was disturbing him. Later...

He loves that morning sunshine. Sadie likes it too, but she also likes being cocooned in a quilt.

With them tucked in, we took off down the road about 15 miles to check out the wildlife refuge. We weren't expecting much, but I'd read there was an auto tour and some hiking trails.

The visitor center was supposed to be open from 10-2 on Sundays, but the door was locked when we arrived. No matter because there were maps of the trails and the auto tour at the front door. There was also a path leading out to the river, and so we started there. Walking out to a gazebo, we found this sign that explained the existence of this place.

The trail was paved, and so we followed it. It ran parallel to the river.

We didn't see a lot of birds at this time of the year, but we watched these guys come in for a landing.They might be mergansers, but it's hard to tell from this distance.

As we walked along, this guy below scurried ahead of us.

We were examining a shrub, when we scared this guy below out of his hiding place. He was hiding among the branches, but ran to the ground when we started messing around his hidey hole. He was twice as big as the first one...long and fat.

The birdsong was beautiful as we stood here. We really couldn't see any birds. They were all hidden in the bushes and trees, and especially along the water's edge. But turn up your volume, and listen to them singing! If you can't see the video, then click right here.

We weren't sure what we were hearing, but it could have been this guy here.

Walking on...we passed by this desert lavender. It doesn't show well in this image, but it had just the beginnings of some flowers.

Also, we passed by a lot of Beavertail cactus. Some were blooming.

Now, watch out! This is how you could die today.

In fairness to the rattlesnakes (and many of you have warned us about snakes), we've been RVing and hiking for decades. In all that time, we've only seen one snake. Digging through the archives, I found these next images from a trip we took to Mesa Verde National Park in 2006. We were hiking along the Knife Edge Trail below.

I'd walked right by him, but Mike nearly fell over the hill trying not to step on him. He was one of those shifty characters who takes on the appearance of a venomous snake in order to avoid having predatory critters bother him. He was actually nonvenomous and harmless. After getting our wits about us, we watched him slither away. You can see him in the image below.

Nevertheless, we do pay attention, especially in warm climates. But all of that to say they are not as menacing as they might seem. And, honestly, they really want to happen upon us even less than we want to see them.

So moving on, the trail was longer than we expected, but a nice length...about two miles in and out...and we learned some things along the way. Bill Williams River is a tributary of the Colorado River, and this part of the river is wide and slow. Just around the bend from where we were, it dumps into the Colorado River below Parker Dam. Here was some information about the Central Arizona Project.

You can see the pumping plant in the image below. Mike believes some of the piping runs through the terraced area. eventually, it passes through some tunnels seven miles long.

The wildlife refuge seems to be a joint effort of Lake Havasu Fisheries Improvement Program and the United States Fish & Wildlife Service.

Here's one of the fishing areas discussed in the sign above. Fishing is allowed 24/7 and some of these platforms are lighted at night.

Eventually, the paved path turned to dirt, and there was a sign informing us that this portion of the path is not maintained. One might think it is probably set for paving as budgets allow.

We were on a sort of narrow peninsula with water on both sides of us. When we'd walked to the end, we found this "patio" with a bench. The stones had names and numbers carved into them, but no explanation about what it all meant.

And this one...no idea.

By then, our shadow selves were exhausted, and so they had a seat on the bench while we waited close by.

Looking straight ahead we could see this.

To our right, we saw this.

When our shadow selves were ready, we hiked back the way we came. Taking a wrong turn away from the parking lot, we came upon an enclosure where a desert tortoise was holed up. We were lucky to arrive just a volunteer came with a plate of lovely lettuce for the tortoise . She (the tortoise) was only just barely making her way out of her burrow. The volunteer explained she had a hard time getting up in the mornings. I definitely know the feeling. I couldn't get a very good picture of her, but you can see her in the lower left quadrant of the image below.

From there, we drove on to see Parker Dam. There are a series of dams on the Colorado River. You might recall our visit to Davis Dam, earlier this trip. That's Davis Dam in the image below.

Yesterday's tour took us to Parker Dam.

Approaching on the Arizona side, we could see this from the road.

We drove through some barriers strategically placed to make a very narrow lane that prevented large trucks, motorhomes, and trailers from passing through. Our dually fenders could barely fit, but we made it, and drove across to the California side. Once on the dam, no stopping is allowed. Interestingly, you may drive across, but you may not walk across. The whole area is pretty locked down with a guard posted.

There, we found some interesting informational signs. Parker Dam is the deepest dam in the world. Who knew? And who cared? Well...Mike thought it was interesting, so there's that. Parker Dam was built about the same time period as Hoover Dam.

Here's a diagram of how this all works showing the water levels.

It seems as if something inaccurate (or offensive) was scratched off the sign there. Turning around, we got a good look at the dam.

Now...don't be like this guy. Watch your step.

To our left was this big turbine. The lettering there at the bottom says it weighs 116,000 lbs. (I was going to make a joke here about weight, but never mind.)

Over our heads were power transmission lines leading into California and across the river into Arizona.

The yellow structure below is used to raise and lower the bluish spillway gates to its right. This is how the lake level is controlled. The yellow structure is on a rail so that it can move from gate to gate.

And that was about everything there was to see at the dam. We got back in our truck, had some lunch, and then did our grocery shopping. After that...we relaxed for the remainder of the day. Smitty led the way. This is what I could see over my head as I told you about the quilt shop in yesterday's post.

Today we'll be moving on to Desert Hot Springs. We'll be visiting the Whitewater Preserve. It's an item I found in my California folder, and it's on the way back home. These are two characteristics that pretty much guarantee a visit. We'll have three days there, and we'll be in close enough proximity to Joshua Tree National Park we might make another trip there too.

From here until we get home, I have a route mapped out, but it will be weather dependent. Already we've crossed King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks off the list. It's just too cold there. Each time we travel south, we hope we'll be able to visit, and we check. So far...no dice. We'll keep trying.