Time to travel…

Heading South as the snow birds do. After 6 weeks in Pahrump, it was time to head south and a visit with an internet friend who’s a diesel mechanic with vast experience with Cat engines. He stays at a RV park just 2 miles from the Parker Dam, on the California side of the Colorado River. River Lodge Resort. And it was looking like from the long term weather report that pretty severe weather was on it’s way to Pahrump so time to get ready to leave.

But first, I wanted to get my RV washed and there is a guy who works here at Preferred RV that I saw around washing peoples RVs. So I asked him to do mine. He does both a wash and liquid wax. It was encouraging to see that he had a nice rotary tool to deep clean the rig, and a rotary waxing tool as well after applying the liquid wax. And all for just $140. Just what I’d pay in Mexico. So I hired him. And as I’m sitting at my desk surfing the web, he’s making some pretty loud banging noises. Eventually, I walk outside and there’s a brand new crack radiating up and down from a new ding in my drivers side window. Crap. So round and round we go and with me insisting he dropped a tool on it, and him insisting he didn’t. Crap. Not likely he has insurance anyway, and my insurance will likely cover most of it. So I put that on the back burner and headed south after drilling 3-4 relief holes in the top surface of the glass so the crack wouldn’t radiate out from there, put some lengths of clear tape over the crack in a couple places in case it did decide to brake apart, the tape would hold it together for a while, long enough to pull over off the highway. And off I went south. Everything held together, I arrived at the campground, and I’m now trying to find a repair service.

Anyway, check out the weather south of the campground as I headed off.

It was looking a bit chilly over in the mountains around Las Vegas…and soon it looked like this.

After getting over the pass, it started warming up. That lake off in the distance is only because of the recent storm, it’s an ancient dry lake bed that only gets some water every so often. Here’s a close up as I passed it. And soon after, the dark brooding clouds gave way to these white fluffy clouds. Much better. Started to get warmer too. I’d had my dash heat on since I’d left Pahrump, and now an hour from my destination, it was warm enough to turn it off.

The entire trip was only 4 hours so I took my time, stopped a couple times for a leg stretch, had lunch, and so on.

And here I am parked at my space (below). When I drove into the park and stopped at the office, there’s a sign in the door, Closed – Computers down. Great. No site map, no late check in forms in the box, no one around. Stood around for 20 minutes trying to remember what site I had reserved until finally, the camp host showed up, and lead me to my site. The neighbor Skip (the mechanic I mention earlier) came right over and suggested I take a picture of the electric meter so I did that. Got all set up with his guidance and I’m now enjoying my stay 2 miles south of Parker Dam (the world’s tallest dam, though 2/3 of it is underground).

Just a few feet from the Colorado River. You can see the mini-homes they sell across the street, bordering the river. Pretty bad design, I went and visited an open house unit and the stairs up to the loft bang the head of anyone taller than 3 feet. Stupid design. The loft is basically unusable by an adult. Too bad too, as there’s lots of room up there.

Anyway, I’m settled in, the mechanic and I already checked my engine out and it was all good news, got the exhaust brake lubed, and only need to do a couple more things to the engine. Then I need to get the window replaced, the awnings replaced, and the front shocks changed.

Thanks for reading, next time I’ll be doing touristy stuff around this area. The geology is really fascinating!