Chaos Leaves Town

The road trip down from Wendell, Idaho was uneventful. Which I’m happy about…nice to have my RV run smoothly and the new tires gave me renewed confidence in the machine over long hauls. I shouldn’t have been all that worried back before I replaced the four 10 year old tires I’d had replaced in July in Walla Walla but before that it was a little nerve racking after reading about fellow RV’ers who had blow outs. Of course my rears blowing out wouldn’t have been as bad as a front tire blow out, but I replaced the fronts back in ’16 so had confidence in them. I did carry a 10 year old spare in the truck of my car for the last 3 years…but after I got the new rear tires, I left that with my son so now I don’t have one with me. But with all new and newer tires all around, less anxiety while on the road even without the spare. Anyway…

Stayed in Ely for one night, then the next day after four hours of driving, passed and stopped at the Death Valley Nut & Candy Co. there in Beatty, NV. I needed fuel too and that was an adventure as that place is always packed and not really designed for allowing an RV towing a car near the pump I needed to access and some bozo had parked his pickup truck, set the pump nozzle to fuel up automatically, then wandered into the nut store. Probably to use the bathroom. Leaving his truck sitting there blocking 2 pumps, and blocking access of my RV towing a car. I could not navigate around the pump island with his stupid truck parked there. I debated calling the cops because he’d left the highly flammable gas nozzle just hanging out of his filler hole. That’s a misdemeanor in many states. Just as I was getting ready to walk back in to have the idiot paged, he wanders out and I yell at him. Still took him 4-5 minutes to leave while I’m sitting there blocking traffic.

After carefully negotiating the RV wrecking type fuel islands and traffic there, I got a few gallons, left the station and parked across the highway where they have a giant overflow lot. I do not like that station because it was designed for cars and small trucks, not big RVs. I should have just gone up the road, there’s a better station a couple miles on. OK, next time I’ll do that. Anyway, after parking in the overflow lot, walked back over to the Death Valley Nut & Candy store, got myself a nice 2 scoop ice cream cone, and afterwards bought 3 bags of nuts and some sugar free candy.

Well, that was nice. Ice cream was good. After that pleasant interlude got back on the road headed towards Pahrump. Only two hours to go and around 4 pm, pulled into Preferred RV Resort, paid for a months stay and was soon settled in. Right at this point in my RV adventures, this park is one of my favorites and I always enjoy staying here. It’s not the park spaces really as they are just gravel with nose to tail parking, it’s the amenities, the relatively good wifi, the bike riding distance to so many good places to eat, the nearby casinos, one with a huge TV for game watching, the pleasant weather, and on and on. I just like it here. And after 16 years of full timing, I should know what I like. If I had made up a check list for my favorite things in and around a RV park, staying here would check nearly every item. Now there are times when I’m looking for a bit more solitude or adventure, and for those times I’ll plan a trip. When I’m just wandering N-S or S-N, this park is it.

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It was getting to be the end of the season here where I was staying in Wendell, Idaho. I’d paid for a months stay after arriving from Milton-Freewater, Oregon in early September. There was a chill in the air, frost on the grass in the mornings, and far fewer campers. It was getting to be that I was one of the few long term campers left at Intermountain RV Campground. Which was fine with me as they only have one 50 amp RV space and I was finally able to move there when I only had 10 days left of my paid up month. My knee was really bothering me so I wasn’t able to get the wifi extension system up for them like I’d planned but I’ll drop by next spring and do it for them then, probably. Anyway, here’s some pictures of the camp and where I stayed after I’d moved over from the spot right next to this one…it took almost an hour to find the best positioning for the RV in this space to get wifi, satellite, and OTA signals all at the same time. Whew. That was a chore, lots of moving the RV back and forth, left and right. Eventually though finally found the exact right position where both entertainment antennas could peak through the trees and get a consistent signal.

Because of the cold front that was dipping down from Canada (made the national news it was so sudden and fierce) I really wanted 50 amp just for comfort. With it I could run my heat pump and all my electric space heaters and it would actually be able to warm up the RV quickly in the cold mornings instead of taking hours on a 30 amp supply. Here in southern Idaho, we only got the southern edge of the cold front but it was noticeably cool near and after sundown and definitely cold in the AM.

Take a look where I’m parked. A day after I parked there, I drove out to do my shopping and on the way back, pulled my little in-the-canal hearing aid out of my ear and put it in the console and when I parked behind the RV, picked it up and stuffed it in my pants pocket. The same pocket where I keep my keys for the RV’s front door. And I knew when I did that I’d have to be careful I didn’t drop my aid when I pulled out the keys. And damn if that isn’t exactly what happened. As I got to the door and pulled out my keys, trying to be careful, the aid went flying. So it was somewhere on the ground next to, under or way far away from the door. For the next week, whenever I went out, I’d slow search the path I’d taken. It was nowhere to be found.

But then I had a great idea, I went over to the office and asked Jessica the owner if I could rent her three kids to search for me. With their low to the ground stances, their good eyes, and tiny fingers, just maybe…

I offered them $1 apiece just to look and $5 to find it. The three of them wanted to look but I had to shoo away Jessica because she was looking too. Showed them my other one so they’d know what to look for, where I thought I’d lost it, and told them to have at it. TWENTY MINUTES LATER the smallest kid found it. She’s around 5, older brother around 8 and the oldest boy is around 10. She found it under a leaf in the grass just outside my door steps. From the looks of it, it had been smooshed into the dirt a few times as I stepped on it I guess. I was so happy I paid her her $5 and gave the boys $2 apiece instead of just $1. Girl saved me $60. It was nearly new too, I’d just bought it the month before. Happy to have it back. After cleaning it’s working fine too.

And here’s a shot across the way from where I’m parked that you can just make out the ‘temporary’ setup for the wifi extension system I made and blue taped to that shore power tower for testing. It worked really well, but there weren’t many campers either. Does need more testing but I think it will work fine right there. There are many reasons that would be a good spot and I’ll go into them when I actually permanently install the extension. Like I said, my knee was giving me fits so I didn’t want to have to dig holes for posts and things like a ditch for wiring so I didn’t finish the installation. At the end of the road is the parks dump station. This RV park doesn’t have sewer at each site, just this dump station. It is convenient, has water too, but usually I wouldn’t even use it, instead I’d drive to downtown Wendell the long way in order to warm up the engine and tranni.   Every morning they would prepare and serve waffles. Free! Usually it would be warm enough to eat outside at the picnic tables under the cover but because of the cold people would eat inside the office where they have a couple tables set up. The antenna on top of the building is the wifi. It’s too far from the center of the RV parking area which is why I’m trying to get an extension installed for them.
While I was here in town I went to a local tire store and bought 4 new tires for my car. When they finished I noticed there were 3 large weights on two of the wheels, that ain’t right, so I took it back the next day, the owner understood my concerns and watched the tech as he re-did the spin balancing on all four of them. Turned out he’d used the wrong wheel cone on the machine so they were all wonky. Dummy. That’s the 2nd time a tire shop has done that to my wheels. After that was fixed, I was ready to head south…but first…

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I’m on my way to Pahrump, NV as of tomorrow AM. I am here in Wendell, Idaho staying at Intermountain RV. It will take two short days of driving to get there. If any of you would like some help working on your rig, I’d be happy to help. I’m spending too much time on the computer and need to get my hands dirty so you’d be doing me a service.

The only projects I’ve got in the pipeline for myself are recharging the dash AC system and either repairing or replacing the dash heater core. That should be fun (?) as I have to drop the front end cap to access it if the core needs replacing. I don’t have dash heat right now as I’ve bypassed the heater core but I only have 1.5 days of driving in the coolish weather to worry about until I’m down in the sunny and warm Pahrump valley. I will run the genset to stay warm if need be.

I’ll be staying at Preferred RV Resort. They take the Passport America card or Good Sam so you can get a nice discount. Plus the park is within walking distance of 3 casinos if you’re into that sort of thing. Also it’s only 55 miles from Las Vegas. Has a nice VA clinic in town too.

I’ll be there for more than a month, until around Nov. 20th,  then I’ll be heading to near Parker, AZ just below Parker dam.

Drop on by and say hi!

I graduated from Walla Walla high school back in 1964 so basically I grew up in this area. They say that 80% of people either stay or eventually return to the place where they graduated HS. I don’t know about that in my case, I’ve always had the wanderlust thing going on so when I stay somewhere, especially now that I’m a full time RV’er, I’m looking over the place as a potential ‘settling down’ area to plant my ass permanently. Same thing with Walla Walla.

And Walla Walla definitely has it’s charm. At one time it had more millionaires per capita then any other town in the country. So when you drive around the older residential areas, you can’t help but notice these older palatial homes…sort of like today’s McMansions only from early last century. Most of them very handsome. Some already refurbished and modernized attaining their former glory.

Back when I was the Montgomery Wards Service Manager here in town, I was lucky to be a field TV tech and got to visit many of these older homes. Even though at that time in the ’70’s many of them were beginning to look run down, they still retained that elegance they were built with. Since I was always in my car, never really got any pictures, I’ll try to do that the next time I’m in town. I did visit Pioneer park, a very large park just to the east of downtown about 10 blocks into an older residential area…where you can find many of those palatial older homes I mentioned. At this park is an aviary. Lots of exotic birds. Big open cages with bird netting over the tops so they can’t escape. Many smaller brooding cages too.

And here’s the duck pond. Used to come here with the baby daughter shortly after we moved back or when we visited the parents. Generally there’s lots of wild ducks here that people use to feed bread too. But now we know that bread isn’t very good for them so people have sort of stopped doing that. Bringing bird feed instead. You can see a cluster of the tame ducks in the picture. They stay the winter because they get fed enough here they don’t feel any need to fly south any more.

And here’s another look at the aviary. Pretty big affair. The birds probably enjoy it…free from predators, lots of quality food, some friends to hang with. What’s not to like?

And here’s the bandstand. Every spring summer and fall there are concerts here under the trees with thousands milling around and sitting on the ground enjoying the music.

And then the son, daughter and Scott came to another ball game with me. This time, I’d bought the expensive tickets at $17 each. Better view.

My son  James. And the Sweets won this game too. Big scores at these AAA games so that’s always fun.

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Now that I was staying right at the edge of Ely, I could bike ride to this cluster of homes built back in the early 1900’s for miners. It was a steep climb up the road from the flat where the town is and where I’m staying. The area is situated just below the railroad tracks and back then the train would stop and pick up the miners in the mornings. There is a rebuilt boarding platform there now I’ll show a picture of later in the article.

Somehow the homes survived all those years of just sitting empty or with just a few of them partially occupied. Much of the stuff inside them is period items used to showcase the ethnicity of the owners of the homes. Note that the diversity of the culture here in Ely has more to do with the act of mining then any feelings of altruism by the citizens. Although townspeople are proud of that ‘get along, get the job done’ type of togetherness here, there was a lot of friction between the groups.

The Renaissance Village attempts to show the diversity that was here in the area by showcasing homes segregated by the owners ethic origins but I’m more interested in the antiques so I won’t go into any detail about which house is whose or what ethnic group they belonged too.

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Sometimes I wonder why I don’t want to party like I use to. Age I suppose has a lot to do with it. The attraction of just hanging out in my comfortable RV space is another. At the risk of boring my readers, I have sort of become a homebody, preferring to enjoy the quiet company of friends, my cat, and RV park neighbors to the boorish types in bars.

With all that said, I had noticed an old bar on main street several times that from the signage appeared to be an interesting train themed bar. But it was only open 3 nights a week starting at 6 pm. Which is dinner hour for me so I’d considered going several times as I passed the place on my bike but kept forgetting as I prepared for dinner.  That link shows the building before it was converted to a bar. The bar owner just opened last year and the google map is older than that. Anyway, one night, I remembered that bar and headed on down there. Just a short bike ride. Got to talking to the people there and turned out one of the guys actually is a train engineer for the special train rides I posted about before. The bar owner is an EMT and does the bar on the side. There was another older guy in there who of course is a character so enjoyed talking to him too. Nice evening. After the other guys left, the owner and I were talking and he asks me if I’d like to taste a very special beer. Sure! So he pulls out this special looking bottle that looks like a cognac bottle and pours me 2 fingers. Dark, rich, with a complex nose. Tasted it and WOW, what a beer. It’s something special by the Sam Adams brewery owner made by him and a crew over in Germany. About 40 proof I understand. Anyway, it’s spectacular so I bought a bottle. Guess how much…$180. Whoa. But, I wanted it, it’s that good. Tried to talk the price down but didn’t succeed.

And here’s a google street view of downtown Ely with the historic Nevada Hotel centered. This is the general area where I’d ride my bike 3-4 times a day for exercise. Beyond this a short distance is the city park which with all the trees is comfortably cool on most sunny days. Behind the park is the county courthouse where I visited and took several pictures of that old building…

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A few days after my train ride…went back down to near the train station and tried out the ol’ timey cafe that’s been there for over 100 years. It has a B&B attached. Off a ways down the street is the train station. Food was really good. And there was enough of it that I took half of it home for the next morning.

Nice little B&B. All nicely remodeled too. If you’re looking for a place to stay in Ely, this place is kind of nice. Restaurant has great food too.

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Had a great time and accomplished much during my stay in Pahrump, but by the 2nd week of June it was becoming unbearably hot! Even with the shade from the trees I had at my new site in row D much of the day, being cooped up in the RV was getting old fast. The heat pump A/C dual compressors did well but the front of the RV was difficult to keep cool, even with the window shades in place.

If I wanted to enjoy halfway decent working conditions, had to complete by noon everything needed that required leaving the RV. Did get my cardboard box of wires, cords, adapter cables, and clip leads all untangled, the wire holders mounted inside my bedroom closet and all those wires stored. Took from 8 am to 11 am over two days to get that all done. It only took me 15 years to get ’round2it. Not bad. Also did several other small jobs that I haven’t found time for over the last few years of having fun on the road. Like straightening out the living room slide basement compartments. Even hand washed all my shop rags.

Well, anyway, it was time to head north to avoid the heat and my destination was to be Hagerman, Idaho because I wanted to be close to the auto shop where I wanted to have my A/C filled so I could get that working again. Remember that a few weeks ago the RV’s A/C compressor on the engine seized up the idler pulley and broke the serpentine belt. Here’s the story: Engine Work… 

The travel plan was to head east over to Las Vegas, turn north and take US 93 north to Ely. Stick around Ely for a week or so and then continue on up to Twin Falls, turning west to continue on to Hagerman.

In the hills southeast of Pahrump, before reaching Las Vegas…they’ve been working on this road blocking traffic for several years now.

Over there is Las Vegas… Continue reading →