Hanging out in Pahrump…

It’s my kind of town, Pahrump is…I didn’t expect much from it before I came here, I just planned on staying 3 nights, ship the package I intended to ship, do some shopping and then move on to the area around Brenda, AZ. Shortly after I bought this RV back in ’16, I stayed at 3 Dreamers RV park in Salome next door to Brenda and it was worth the stay. It did tend to be hot. Typical Passport America desert park, and it’s quite a ways from any shopping but has many nice residents there and the sites and amenities are good enough for a visit if you’re in the area. Monthly rent is a very economical in the $250 range though electric at $0.20/KWH isn’t… 🙂

But, what happened on the way to Brenda/Salome, was that I found that I liked Pahrump even better! I did check weather in Salome when I first arrived in Pahrump and it was still in the 90’s there, while Pahrump was very nice in the low 80’s F so made my decision to stay much easier. And then this RV park has amenities that are spectacular for an economical park. And here’s where I stayed, at Preferred RV Resort. The park has many mature trees for shade, and blazing fast WiFi. Than there’s the wood shop, pool, card games, hot tub, etc..

Drove around on a tour of Pahrump and found that there’s a bunch of RV parks, 21, with nearly all of them at or right near casinos. Than there are several big box national brand stores, a large swap meet type thrift indoor/outdoor store, several dollar stores for the frugal, killer views of the desert and surrounding mountain ranges, a vineyard/winery/RV park/restaurant, and on and on. So I definitely didn’t give up anything by staying in Pahrump. I would have if I’d left for Salome. I was also staying current with the weather down in San Felipe, and like Salome, it was still pretty hot there so I wanted to hold up here at 2,600 feet for a while anyway.

Here’s the Pahrump Nugget that’s just a short walk from the RV Resort I’m staying at. I expect to be next door here for at least a month, depending on weather, perhaps longer.

And here’s a shot across the street from the casino of some more of Preferred RV park. This is one of the older parks in town and most of the others are on blacktop, or only have immature trees. This park has enough shade that it is fairly comfortable even when it’s in the 80’s though the spaces are all on gravel. I did find most of those 21 RV parks in the area and checked them out, and after seeing all of them, there’s only two other parks I’d like stay at but one of them doesn’t have Wifi at all, and has no plans to install it either. But it’s a really nice park. The other one is on a lake, next to a casino too, and I”ll try that one some day, but for right now, I’m pretty happy where I am.

After a week here in Pahrump, I like it so much that I’m going to make this town one of my anchor towns so I’ll be passing through and stopping over a couple times per year from now on. Oh, and it’s close to Death Valley if I want to do a quick visit in the spring or fall. This town even has a highly rated RV repair shop. And while touring around town I found a couple golf courses. One is just my style (slow playing duffer type course) and then the other is a tournament type course for experts. If I could get there on a quiet day with few other golfers on the links might not be forced off the course by those experts all trying to play through. Heh.

A couple weeks after I arrived, happened to notice a museum during my drive around tours so went for a visit.

Don’t know what was wrong here, I don’t think I was shaking at all, but here you have it, all fuzzy picture of a stove style I remember from the cabin my family stayed in when I was 2 years old.  This style of washing machine was what we had in the cabin. First mom would heat up water on the wood stove, remove the agitator, fill the washer, wash dishes in the washer tub, than reheat that same water for when my brother and I needed a bath. Once the used water was warm, she’d pour it back into the washer, than plop Dan and me in there. We would have lots of fun spinning around on the shaft. And we’d get clean. Our washing machine didn’t have that fancy schmancy auto-open wringer. So we had to be careful not to mess around and put our fingers in between the rollers when we helped mom do the laundry. It was a small cabin, in the winter, so nothing else to do but help mom. Some old radio gear from WWII. Beautiful old piano. An odd design I’ve never had the pleasure to tickle the ivories on.

And then in the back room of the museum is a display of all the nuclear stuff from nearby. The government blew bunches of bombs in the desert nearby, and they dug that nuclear waste material repository near here too.

And than back to your regular museum stuff. Last item on the back wall. Another excellent condition piano. Player piano as well. Neat. Really great condition.

After leaving a donation, headed back outside, where there are many pieces of donated machinery along with several pioneer homes and buildings from around the area that had been colllected here.

People have donated most of these old buildings and they are refurbished by volunteers for display. Of course they have historical significance. Like first this and largest that. First school house in Pahrump. Actually in fairly good condition. Or the volunteers did an excellent job of refurbishing the building. A dry good store from the 1880’s. Check out the imported wood. From California. Betcha that it would be fairly comfortable inside even during some of the summer. It’s so dry here in the desert that wood doesn’t tend to rot too quickly so buildings last for decades longer than in wet areas just normally, and potentially longer if they are cared for.

Interesting water towers over a hundred years old. Wood was from California. Buildings were re-purposed several times over the decades. And now for a look inside the schoolhouse.  I doubt it looked this good the last few years it was in use. Looks pretty nice now though. Now over to visit the store. And a recreation of an old mine shaft with equipment. And that’s the end of the museum tour. I enjoyed reliving that.

It was about this time that my brother came over to visit from Rosamond. Brought me his electric tooth brush that he wanted me to change the battery. Plus he’d never visited Pahrump all the times he’d headed for Las Vegas so, why not? We had a good time hanging out and visiting three different restaurants over three nights. Two Thai and the one out at the winery. All were good.

And soon after I noticed that my surge tank was leaking. Just one tiny drop, but that was enough for me to get a new tank on the way, and make an appointment with the local RV repair shop.

Until next time, thanks for reading…