Today marks nine years (!) since Dad died. 

Here he was less than a month earlier, on a much happier occasion - 

we were celebrating his Big 9-0!  

We also took the opportunity to celebrate his brother Allen's 87th,

which would arrive two days later

and Sandy's 63rd, coming four days later.

I'd really surprised everyone when I flew in for the festivities. 

(Snowbirds Mom & Dad had just left Arizona a week or two earlier.)

Yesterday I rendezvous-ed with Alex, across the bridge from Parker, with perfect timing, arriving at the designated spot only about a minute after he did!  Followed him the few miles to the lake house, and see now why it was necessary to lead me down the dirt road to Bob & Karen's house.  (Apparently there is an actual address in Earp, CA... but seems that anyone plugging it into their GPS arrives someplace else.) 

It's quite the party house, right on the water

(and I see how it really could sleep 30 "if necessary"!)  

Because their sons Kyle and Jolly work for Rockstar (which of course is how Alex knows them) there are a few things scattered around with the logo - just like around here.  That's "me", parked in front of Alex.  (I was relieved that his car made the trip from Phoenix with no issues.) 

This wall in the kitchen sums up the river philosophy:

Today is Bob's 65th birthday.

I'm 'guessing' the celebrating started last night once all the guys had arrived.

Kyle, Jolly, and Alex (DJ seated with his back to us)

Time to put the boat in the water and play!

Turns out that the guys go wake surfing (wake boarding is so last year) and it looks like a lot of fun.  At this point the water is still way too cold for me to even think about it, but I am invited back anytime, so in theory it could happen at some point. (Bob and Karen dearly love "Dodge", and were happy to finally meet me.) 

They really tried to talk me into staying for the night, but I knew the evening "might" <G> be a late one of drinking and carousing, and declined.

Alex snapped this pic of me on the boat,
enjoying watching the guys do their thing.  

For various reasons we didn't make it out onto the water until 2:00 (and I wanted to hit the road by 3:00) so Alex was the first to surf.  Here he's still dry... but looks like he's wondering,
"Hey, just how cold is the water?"

Getting started, with the rope

and now surfing merrily along!

Guess the water isn't too cold -

though of course it may have helped that he'd had something to warm him up.  Here's the hand-off, and looks like they've done this a time or two (or three!) before.

I did take several videos with my camera,

but for some reason (LOL) can't seem to access them to share.