January 10 - January 21, 2024 -- Flagstaff KOA to Lake Havasu Fairgrounds
Written By: Wendy Ptolemy
Photos By: Scott Ptolemy
After our 2 and a half month hiatus from RV life, we hit the road again in mid-January. Our hearts were full from the past two and a half months that we spent with both our families. We timed our travel days perfectly in between blizzards in Durango and Flagstaff and luckily only had sunny drives in a month and region known for snow. We had a 3 day pitstop in Flagstaff to regroup and remember how to do all the RV things ("Which is grey tank 1 and which is grey tank 2 again?" "Oh crap, the handle fell off of the grey tank to dump it, how do we fix that?" "We really had the kids sharing one bed before and it worked?!!" "WHERE are we going to put ALL these Christmas presents?!") You know, all the things that come from our tiny mobile living quarters that we had forgotten about.
After our quick readjustment, we headed to Lake Havasu City, AZ for the Xscapers Bash. Xscapers is a group whose goal is to help people who travel full time find community. They hold various meet ups or "convergences" throughout the year with various themes, but Bash is their biggest annual party. When we arrived, we were greeted with 60 degree weather, sunshine, and whoops and hollers of excitement for another family of "convirgins" entering the fairgrounds (convirgin = first time convergence goers). We instantly knew this would be a week our family would not forget. As we parked our rig, we immediately saw multiple families that we had met a few months prior at the "Halloween Hullabaloo" in South Fork, CO. If we were even just mere acquaintances from before, we greeted each other like long lost friends as we were all excited to see familiar faces.
Our Bash experience started off with some minor health issues, (fevers for both kids and a late night trip to the ER for an ear infection), but after everyone was feeling healthy, we were able to settle in and fully experience Bash, where everyone gets weird, or so we'd heard. Our first Bash morning brought sunshine, free breakfast burritos, relaxing live folk music, and a chance to mingle with other Bash goers while watching our kids fly down a giant blow up slide. We met a nice family with kids the exact same age and chatted for a while until we had to head up for lunch and naps. On the long trek up the hill back to our rig, Scott and I excitedly talked about all the great new people that we'd met and were eager to spend more time with them.
We spent the week doing and seeing ridiculous things that we never thought we would see again outside of college. We participated in a "Zombie lot crawl" where each section (there were 5 sections - family, general, party, solo, and solar) had to make a part of a progressive dinner and serve it during a given time slot. It felt like Halloween with people completely decked out in Zombie attire and gore. We ate and drank and ate and drank some more.
Another evening brought what ended up being one of the most memorable events. When I originally saw "Olympics" on the schedule, I assumed it was one of the many evening activities that we'd have to miss out on since we had toddlers in tow, but I shrugged it off. The previous evening while we were all chatting around a campfire long after the kids had gone to bed and we all should have been in bed ourselves, our group of 8 parents of the "toddler gang" decided that we should all do the Olympics together and just take turns watching the kids. Brilliant! It was settled, and we dubbed ourselves "The Stroller Squad." We played human foosball, human hungry hippos, flung tortillas into a bucket, threw cheese balls at my head covered in shaving cream (under a shower cap, of course), dressed up as sumo warriors and ran around, shot nerf guns, built paper airplanes, and even tried a hilarious relay race in which one person had to put their plunger "pole" into another person's toilet paper "hole" in between their legs. Let's just say that the video from that event will never ever be shared on any sort social media platform. The Stroller Squad had many laughs that evening and only a few toddler tears, which was honestly even more impressive than winning 6/10 games.
When we became tired of all the Bash activities, we were lucky enough to be able to escape to nature a few times throughout the week as there was an amazing trail system right across from where we were staying. One morning, we headed out with some new friends to try a slot canyon hike, SARA's Crack, that would be a first for us all. With the sun shining, the 2 year-olds in backpacks, and the 4 year-olds collecting sticks and rocks before we even started the hike, we began with eager anticipation for our first slot canyon. We hiked through a wide drainage ditch or "wash" as they call it in Arizona, and the kids were in their absolute element. They ran up steep rocks on the sides, jabbed sticks at imaginary bad guys along the way, and ran holding hands through the sandy gravel. We all successfully made it through the slot canyon, sliding on our butts and using ropes to help navigate up and down the steep sections. When we burst out into an open sunny space at the end, we all cheered triumphantly before turning around to climb back up. The kids all thought it was the grandest adventure, and I have to admit that I did as well. During the hike back, we talked about how it is these moments that push us to live this type of lifestyle. It was a day basked in sunny adventure that none of us will forget. The day was capped off with the mac and cheese madness competition that night where we sampled 30+ different twists on one of our family's main food groups.
The last day of Bash was filled with bittersweet anticipation. We were eager for the catered BBQ dinner and neon rave that night, but we were all sad that we had limited time all together. We soaked up our last day together by enjoying the potluck style brunch and live chill music provided by "The Border Hookups." All four of the moms in "The Stroller Squad" got our faces painted for the party, and by 5:30 sharp that evening, we were ready to party. The band that evening was "Lyte Bryte." They lit up the stage with flashing neon lights all over their silver space suits and belted out covers of dance party favorites. After we all quickly ran our kids up the hill for bedtime and set up our monitors, we all raced back down to dance like we were in college again. Repeatedly I kept thinking to myself that I have not had this much fun dancing in years, and I don't even have to pay for a babysitter! What a life this is! We all danced until it was nearing midnight, and we heard Caroline's squawks coming from the monitor. Scott and I agreed it was time to call it a night as we raced up the hill to give Caroline some pats before we fell into a deep sleep ourselves.
The next morning came far too soon, but luckily it was an overcast drizzly morning that matched our emotions. We didn't want this week to end and to say good-bye too all these great friends that we met. Over the course of a week, we realized that our neighbors had checked all our boxes of what we were looking for in road road friends, except for one minor box - traveling in the same direction. Dang it. They were heading east, and we were heading west. Or were we? We decided to not let our travel plans stand in the way of a budding relationship with these awesome people, so we changed our plans last minute to follow them down to Tucson for 5 days. A bit too forward? Nah. Not when you have your road family on the line! So we left Bash on a rainy morning to head for rainy Tucson. Wait, rainy, Tucson - what? Just wait and see...