The River

Four major rivers have their headwaters in our home state of Colorado: Rio Grande, Arkansas, Platte and Colorado. We have camped or hiked at the headwaters of both the Rio Grande and the Colorado, camped along the Arkansas in Arkansas where it is the route of major river barge traffic, walked along the Rio Grande in New Mexico and experienced it in Texas where it is the international border with Mexico.

We have rafted on the Colorado in Grand County near where we lived in the 1980s and in Glenwood Canyon.  We have seen the beautiful work it did in creating the Grand Canyon. The river supplies water to 7 states and Mexico and we know there is not always enough to go around. So we were surprised at how much water there was in the riverbed at Laughlin. This was our first glimpse of the waterway.

The water is amazingly clear.

Several of the casinos in Laughlin are on the waterfront and there is a Riverwalk giving people access to a view of the river and the casinos. One casino had murals depicting the history of the area and the Colorado River is prominent in many of them.

Here are a couple of views of the river showing a scenic cruise boat and the marina.

In other places, there is a lot of green along the trail.

The Riverwalk was a good place to get away from the traffic while getting some exercise.

Smokin' Competition

The BBQ competition in Laughlin was the second such event we have attended. The first was in Kansas City and it was huge with lots of well-known chefs, some we had seen on TV. The one in Nevada was not that big and we didn't recognize any of the chefs. We are familiar with the towns  several came from. Participants were mainly from California, Nevada and Arizona. The names of cooking teams are colorful.




The competition was held in one of the parking lots at the Laughlin Riverside Casino.

Jim and Gayle, did someone borrow your RV for the weekend?

This was the most interesting BBQ wagon.

When we walked among the contestants Friday evening, they were prepping their meat for smoking--cutting off fat and injecting with marinade.

Judging began at noon on Saturday. Before turn-in time styrofoam boxes were artistically filled with parsley and other greens then the portions are prepped and carefully displayed. Each contestant must submit chicken, pork shoulder and pork butt and beef brisket entries with at least 6 servings of each.

Entries are taken to the judging tent at the last minute so the meat will be hot. But being on time is important because late entries are not accepted.

When we attended the Kansas City cook-off we were disappointed we couldn't taste any of the entries. This time there was a people's choice competition. We each tasted several of the entries. We like most of them, not all. But I would hate to have to decide which was best. We didn't go down Saturday evening to find out who won.