WELCOME TO RIVER DAVES PLACE

Olden Days on the Strip

Hydroman55

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2018
Messages
1,294
Reaction score
3,149
1970 Parker Enduro
8A5140C1-D1E1-4BDB-A14C-B871F6D0D513.jpeg
 
Last edited by a moderator:

C-Ya

Int’l Maritime Captain
Joined
Oct 31, 2008
Messages
2,674
Reaction score
10,018
Very cool pics. I don’t go that far back but sure miss the old days of the river when it was just about water, fun & sun instead of LAM. Definitely miss the days of flatties running every evening.

Dam pics are cool ~ surprises me how many don’t know it’s the deepest dam in the world.

And the pic showing what’s now RiverLand ~ never heard it called Finger Mountain??? We always thought it was the Parker Pecker. 🙃

Lucky’s Wife”
It’s always had 2 nick names………. Cock Rock or Pecker Peak.

But I have always known it’s real name……. Finger Mountain. That’s what the Indians named it….. I believe.

Does anybody remember The Thunderbird Lodge? Also just known as Thunderbird. It was behind Plantation for many years.
 

Havasu Catman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2014
Messages
220
Reaction score
191
The first pic is exactly how it was……

Go to dam, tie off to cable until there are multiple boats wide…… Then the late arrivals tie off to the ski rope of the boat in front of them.

These parties were HUGE back in the day. You would walk from bow to bow, to get around.
That first picture was where my sex education took place. I was with my older cousin in my uncles Rogers and we would tie up at the Dam. Lots of the girls took there clothes off to sun and party. Back in those days it was not easy for a young man to see a naked girl. I was probably around 12. It was awesome. Maybe that was why I always loved the river.
 

575cat

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2012
Messages
828
Reaction score
480
Guy,s were thinner and in shape , and tittie,s or rack,s were smaller back then
 

C-Ya

Int’l Maritime Captain
Joined
Oct 31, 2008
Messages
2,674
Reaction score
10,018
Bravo! Thank you for the walk down memory lane…….

The pic in the flyer of the Enduro at Bluewater predates the camping cabanas and Bluewater restaurant. That must have been late 50’s early 60’s.
 

Toolman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2014
Messages
413
Reaction score
551
Last edited:

C-Ya

Int’l Maritime Captain
Joined
Oct 31, 2008
Messages
2,674
Reaction score
10,018
Here’s some trivia……. I saw the movie “Billy Jack” at the Parker Drive-in. Many other movies too. I can’t remember when it closed……. But a long time ago. I am thinking it closed in the 70’s.
 

old rigger

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2007
Messages
2,642
Reaction score
6,557
Here’s some trivia……. I saw the movie “Billy Jack” at the Parker Drive-in. Many other movies too. I can’t remember when it closed……. But a long time ago. I am thinking it closed in the 70’s.
Can’t tell you how many times we went or what we watched but those were great times at that drive in! Lawn chairs, cooler, girls...it was the best.
 

RVRKID

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2007
Messages
6,062
Reaction score
5,627
View attachment 1107952 Same member that I’m thinking is on the cop car roof is absolutely in this pic at Sundance. One of the friends I need to call sent it to me. It was hanging in Sundance a few years ago, might still be there?
Pretty sure the blonde guy that's turned around is Sparky, one of my buddies that passed away in a car accident in Huntington Beach a few years back.
 

C-Ya

Int’l Maritime Captain
Joined
Oct 31, 2008
Messages
2,674
Reaction score
10,018
Can’t tell you how many times we went or what we watched but those were great times at that drive in! Lawn chairs, cooler, girls...it was the best.
That drive-in would turn into a huge Pow-Wow at times. I was just a kid back then, so I still consider those times the early stages of my Parker career.

In my 2nd stage of growing up there. Those early teenage years, age 13 to 15. My Dad was pretty cool. He would drop my brother and I off at Buckskin to pick up on girls at the arcade. The goal wasn’t to close the deal that night. The goal was to find out where they were camped, so that we could then take one of my Dads boats the next day, and take them boating. By the time we were 11, we were already taking the 16’ Tahiti wherever we wanted to go. But by 13 to 15, we were picking up girls with the bad ass flat bottom my dad had then. 19’ ft Rayson Craft approx 500hp. My brother and I were real closers too! We banged a pair of sisters on the beach across from Sundance, 25 years before it became a hang out spot. We honed our future game at the Buckskin arcade! Lol

At approx the age of sixteen, that Rayson Craft became our ticket into the bars. The bouncers were too busy envying the boat, to ask us for ID. We would get our hands stamped and make sure not to rub it off, so we could get back into bars later that night. That’s when my brother and I went Cougar hunting, even though the girls were probably only19, they were older women to us high schoolers. All we knew is that they wanted to go for a boat ride and liked casual sex! That worked for us!

We used to TROLL Ah Villa campground too. You would look for a girls in inner tubes floating down the river and ask them if they wanted to go for a boat ride. My brother and I learned this from our dad. That’s what him and his friend would do, regardless if their were 2 small children in the boat. Once, my dad boated up to what he thought was 2 women in inner tubes, but when he got close, he discovered it was 2 hippies with beards. My brother and I broke out laughing.

Its fun reminiscing!
 

mbrown2

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2007
Messages
7,683
Reaction score
5,346
Does anyone look at these pics and think....what happened to our food source....people are thin in those pics...even the 80's ones...

Very cool pics...crazy how much has changed and how much remains the same...
 

old rigger

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2007
Messages
2,642
Reaction score
6,557
Big day for me 51 years ago. Myself and old family friend in one of the first 1965 16 Tahiti’s out of the mold that his parents bought new. This was the summer of ‘71, we were both 15 and headed up river to check out Rum Runners. In my head I rembered it being Sundance but was recently corrected about that. Anyway, we tied up and waltzed on in like we owned the place, was a big biker bar back then. Took a few seconds for our eyes to adjust but when they did we could see what everyone else was yelling about. On the bar was a guy and a girl fucking. I’d never seen anyone fucking before, closest I ever got was my uncle’s playboy magazines. It was awesome and as the bouncer took us by the back of our necks and guided us to the ramp he told us to come back when we were 19.

We did.

60FEEBE7-3651-4FC1-B90D-02463D3B6E32.jpeg
 
Last edited:

hboutlaw

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2014
Messages
80
Reaction score
114
Pretty sure the blonde guy that's turned around is Sparky, one of my buddies that passed away in a car accident in Huntington Beach a few years back.
Was Sparky taken out by a car while he was on his motorcycle? Just curious because the Sparky I know was my neighbor and was killed by some idiot in a car who took him out coming out of a parking lot.
 

Sleek-Jet

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2007
Messages
12,709
Reaction score
15,369
Love the Parker Dam pictures. I always wondered how they rerouted the river during the construction of the dam or did they just shut the river off at Hoover. Anyone know?

They would have drilled/mined diversions tunnels and put up coffer dams on either side of the work site to divert the river.
 

RVRKID

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2007
Messages
6,062
Reaction score
5,627
Was Sparky taken out by a car while he was on his motorcycle? Just curious because the Sparky I know was my neighbor and was killed by some idiot in a car who took him out coming out of a parking lot.
No it was a car accident, he wasn't on his motorcycle.
 

old rigger

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2007
Messages
2,642
Reaction score
6,557

RVRKID

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2007
Messages
6,062
Reaction score
5,627
RVRKID, where was that in the strip?
Damn, 1960! We started going in ‘61 but that was Bullhead. I can’t recognize a thing in your pics. Was that little house your parents? BitchIn flat too, what the story on it too?
We were right next to Buckskin fire until about 1977, my Grandpa and his best friend built the place around a little trailer. I wish we still had it, 2 King size beds 2 Queen size beds and a couch bed, set up for sleeping and eating pretty much. Not sure what year the bar opened next door with the big cement pier thing they put in but I know I listened to Kenny Rogers Lady on our dock every weekend we were there in the 70's. LOL
 

old rigger

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2007
Messages
2,642
Reaction score
6,557
We were right next to Buckskin fire until about 1977, my Grandpa and his best friend built the place around a little trailer. I wish we still had it, 2 King size beds 2 Queen size beds and a couch bed, set up for sleeping and eating pretty much. Not sure what year the bar opened next door with the big cement pier thing they put in but I know I listened to Kenny Rogers Lady on our dock every weekend we were there in the 70's. LOL
Awesome.
Our little trailer in bullhead didn’t even have a bathroom! Just a place to sleep (one bed and a fold out couch) and get out of the sun. The 3 of us kids slept under the awning rain or shine.

Is that your dad in the flatly?
 
Top