November 5 - The Desert Bar

We are now safely settled into our winter site in Mesa, Arizona. The trip was a safe and easy one, mostly because we avoided routes that would take us up high and thereby close to snow.

We stopped in St George, Utah to visit an ailing friend. She had a mild heart attack, which turned out to be the least of her problems. The cure ended up putting her into a rehabilitation hospital for a couple of months so far. Moral is, hospital care can be as or more dangerous than your original health problem. The good thing is that she is finally getting better.

We also stopped in Lake Havasu City to visit friends. This is where we were introduced to the main topic of this log. That is the Nellie E Saloon, which is known to its hundreds (thousands?) of patrons as "The Desert Bar". It is located on an old mining camp, with lots of old mining equipment littering the surrounding area.

The bar opened in 1983 and was a favorite destination of off-roaders who approached the bar by a 4-wheel trail over the nearby mountains. Our trip to "The Desert Bar" was by a 5-mile dirt road, but we were promised that on a future visit we would take the 4-wheelers route. This is a shot looking towards the bar from that dirt road. That is a Jeep Rubicon in the pic, they come from the factory with most of the options that 4-wheelers want (plus, much to our glee, A/C, automatic, and plushy seats).

Here we look down on the bar, where we drank beers, listened to live music, and ogled some really hot young woman (okay, so Sharon didn't ogle, she just punched me).


This last picture is of the original bar (looks like a lemonade stand, doesn't it).
Some interesting trivia........the original water supply for the bar was a 50 gallon tank brought in as needed on a pickup, then an old firetruck, and finally a well that is 360 feet deep.........there is no electricity from outside, it is supplied by solar cells.........the towers rising over the bar (second picture) are for cooling, water is pumped up, runs over pads, the evaporation cools the air, cool air is heavy and falls, wow, air condtioning...........the bar is only open on weekends from Labor Day thru Memorial Day.........it is owned, operated, and was built by one man (and is continually under construction).

The bar is North of the town of Parker, Arizona. The bar is a legend in the area and its local followers have been supplemented by Snow Birds and tourist. We were there early in the season and it was still packed. See more about the bar at http://www.thedesertbar.com/.