Lake Pleasant Regional Park

For the second year in a row we decided to join an Airstream Rally for Thanksgiving. When we signed up for this rally, owning an Airstream and being in the Wally Byam Airstream Club were all we had in common with fellow attendees. Oh, and we all love to travel.

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The rally was held in the Coyote Campground which is part of Lake Pleasant Regional Park just northwest of Pheonix, AZ. The rally is sponsored by the Four Corners Unit of the Wally Byam Airstream Club. Richard and Jan Girard hosted this event and what a wonderful job they did. Kudos to both of them!

Susan and I spend so much time in this area that we became members of this unit after last year’s Thanksgiving Rally at Caballo Lake State Park in New Mexico. It was a tough decision but we decided to spring for the $2 affiliate membership fee. 🙂

Four 17 lb turkeys and one 23 pounder were cooked up. All the fixings, and oh my there must of been two pies for every one of the 34 people there.

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Coyote Campground is dry camping, that is no electricity or water hookups so everyone had their solar panels out. Solar only works adequately when the sun is out and the first three days here it rained. So everyone had their generators out as well, including us.

Most people used their generators for a short time in the morning and then just after dark for an hour or so. The generator of choice was the 2000 watt Honda which is very quiet so the noise was not that bad.

Susan found her happy place on a close by hill which was full of Chalcedony rocks. Click here to listen to her drumming meditation from the top of Geode Hill

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More pictures by Susan. Click on them to look more closely.

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Wild burros came down from the hills, through the campground, and down to the lake for water every day. We were told that the burros are worse than bears so all of us were wary of leaving trash or food out. We did not have any issues however.

One of our fellow Streamers here was Denny Kuller, a professional musician. Denny plays around the Pheonix/Tucson area and if you ever get a chance to see Denny, go for it, he is a wonderful country artist. Denny knows lots of country tunes. I tried to stump him with Hank Williams’ Kaw-Liga but he immediately started strumming the indian drum opening of the song on his guitar and he sang the whole tune for me. What a delight!

Some of these people have been Airstreaming for decades. They have traveled to places and know these trailers better then I ever will. I got much enjoyment listening to their stories.

The camaraderie here at this event made me feel like we now have many new friends. What we like about these rallies is seeing beautiful new areas, learning about more cool spots from the locals who know the area and learning more about the ins and outs and inventive modifications of Airstreams. We also really enjoy hearing about how couples live out their dreams (and survive the challenges) of travel and living in very confined spaces. We are suited to the loose social demands of attending what we want when we want with no pressure to participate.

So, if we can’t be with family at Thanksgiving, this is a great alternative.