September 12 – 14, 2020

We headed out from Las Vegas, heading for Albuquerque, NM. A few days prior to our arrival in Las Vegas, we got a phone call from our friend Tom. Tom owns a hotel management company. Andrea and I are retired from the hotel business; but help Tom out occasionally with contract work when he needs a temporary hotel manager for some reason.

This time around, he needed us to go to Hays, KS to run a Days Inn hotel for a month or two. We had been at this same Days Inn back in March of this year when he first took over the management of it. We had stayed there until he hired a permanent manager. Well, this manager flew the coop last week. Just up and left the hotel. He also cashed some checks he wasn’t supposed to and ran up some credit card expenses on the company card. Needless to say, he is now in a bit of trouble.

So, we needed to be in Hays, KS by September 14th. We drove through, about 10 hours a day, until we reached Hays. We still managed to see some interesting stuff along the way though.

Right out of Las Vegas, we entered Arizona, the Grand Canyon State.

We were in Arizona a couple of weeks ago to visit Page, AZ and the Horseshoe Bend portion of the Colorado River. I was also in Arizona last week when we were in Las Vegas after we visited the Western Rim of the Grand Canyon (in Arizona). I tried to see the Hoover Dam, with no success. It was closed due to the Covid – 19 protocols. This time through, it felt like being home again.

We drove straight east across the state through the Mojave Desert. We had driven through Death Valley last week into California from Las Vegas. This route had been a bit north of where we were now. The Mojave Desert is not quite as hot as Death Valley, but is still pretty desolate and lonely.

We made it into New Mexico towards early evening. Unfortunately we missed the official state welcoming sign, but got a good substitute with the Welcome Center Sign.

We kept heading east and made it into Albuquerque. We stayed at the Route 66 Casino Hotel. They had a RV park attached. New Mexico had just reopened their businesses and were being very careful. The casino and restaurants were only accepting New Mexico residents. I guess they didn’t want us foreigners infecting the locals.

This part of New Mexico is part of the historic Route 66 route that runs from Chicago, IL to Santa Monica, CA. We had been on parts of it when we went through Illinois and Chicago a few months ago. Now here we are on the southern part of it.

We got up bright and early the next morning and continued driving east. We soon arrived in Texas.

Just cruising down the highway we saw a typical Texas cowboy moment. A cowboy training a horse. The horse being trained was not happy.

Soon after, we got into Oklahoma.

From Oklahoma, we started to head north. There is no easy way to travel north/south in this part of the country. All you have is miles and miles of cattle grazing lands and crop farmlands. There are very few people here and the towns are practically non existent. You have to keep an eye on the gas gauge and watch out for idiots passing cars in your lane.

We soon reached Kansas and kept heading north as the sun started to sink in the west.

We saw a beautiful sunset as we crossed the vast farmlands.

We got into Hays about 9PM and settled into Tin Tin (our RV) at a RV park near the hotel. The plan was for us to show up unannounced at the Days Inn the next morning and start to talk to the staff to determine what the heck was really going on with the manager leaving and the true situation of the hotel.

We arrived about 8:30AM the next day and got to work. Oh joy, back in the saddle again.

This officially ends the Up North and North West Trip. We were planning to head back to Florida anyway when we got the call from Tom. We needed to get back to Ft. Myers and set up our condo for the winter rental season. Plus, three months on the road and we were ready to slow down for a bit.

We will be in Hays for a month or two. Andrea will drive Tin Tin back to Florida by herself later this week and return to Hays with our Ford Edge. As we will be stationary for awhile, it is better to have a normal vehicle. Plus, it gets really cold in Kansas. We don’t want to have any parts freeze up in Tin Tin, like happened last winter. So, he is going to Florida to stay warm for awhile.

The blog will continue with different subjects. We are certainly not done traveling. There is a lot more to see out there in the world.

Map progress – Las Vegas, NV to Albuquerque, NM via Tin Tin.

September 11 – 12, 2020

After visiting the Winchester Mystery Home and its’ brand of weirdness, we moved out east a bit from San Jose, CA and decided to hang out with the aliens. We first drove to Tonopah, NV, through the Sierra Nevada mountains. Along way, we had to drive through Senora Pass, the second highest mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We reached an altitude of 9,624 feet as we crested this magnificent road.

This is the highest we have ever driven in Tin Tin (our RV) or any vehicle to the best of my knowledge. Remember, at 10,000 they make you use oxygen if you are in an airplane!

This is a very narrow, twisty, road with extreme variances in altitude along its’ route. We would go from 5,000 to over 8,000 in just a few miles. There were restrictions on the size of vehicle they would allow on this road. Tin Tin, at 24 feet in length just barely fit under the maximum 25 foot size limit.

We made it over the Sierra Nevada mountains and found a RV park still open at about 8PM in Tonopah. It wasn’t fancy, but they had a spot left and we turned in for the night.

Tonopah used to be a silver mining town back in the early 1900’s. When the silver ran out, most of the mining shut down. There are still a few mines going, but very small. Tonopah is now just a stop along Highway 6 with a bit of interesting history.

They have a cemetery there where some of the original settlers and victims of various mining accidents are buried. We explored the cemetery for a bit and also found a geocache or two.

The cemetery is also the final resting place for 14 miners who died in a mine fire on February 23, 1911. It is a fascinating collection of graves primarily from the turn of the century, with a few 20th century folks also.

We also found a geocache hidden just outside the main entrance to the cemetery in some cinder blocks that formed a wall.

Next, it was off to the Extraterrestrial Highway in Rachel, NV. This highway runs just outside of the famous Area 51, where the US government supposedly does secret testing, possibly with the remains of crashed alien spacecraft. The area is highly guarded and civilian intrusions are dealt with very harshly.

The highway begins at Rachel, NV. This is basically a stop on the road, with a unique bar/restaurant and easy access to the western gate of Area 51.

The claim to fame for Rachel, NV is the Little A’LE’INN Restaurant and Bar. They have some very unique signage.

We had a quick lunch in the restaurant and saw a bit of nature outside too.

We then got serious and got directions on how to get to Area 51. The lady in A’LE’INN said go 1.7 miles east, turn down the dirt road, and you will see the western entrance to Area 51 in 10 miles. She was right.

So, we left Rachel, heading to Area 51 and the first aliens we saw, looked vaguely familiar.

Hey, what better disguise for a Martian than to dress up like a cow and patrol Area 51. Makes sense to me!

We drove down the bumpy, very dusty, narrow dirt road, and saw the entrance to Area 51 in the distance. As photography is strictly prohibited, we took some video way before the entrance. Andrea was not impressed with our brave quest.

Here is a picture of the entrance, as close as we dared to get. Luckily, we didn’t get shot at or arrested.

The Extraterrestrial Highway gets a lot of traffic each year. It also attracts a lot of geocache folks, including teams, that really place a lot of caches in small areas. Our app showed that there were 1,500 caches in about a 20 mile section of the highway. We found a few of them.

You see the theme? Lots of film canisters hidden in rocks and bushes all along the highway. Fairly easy to find, once you got out and hiked in a bit.

It was starting to get late in the afternoon, so we started to keep pushing east. All of a sudden, we saw it. Definite proof of alien life on Earth.

Or maybe, just a really tall statue in front of the Alien Museum.

Last year there was an internet initiative to get 1,000,000 people to gather in this part of the state to storm Area 51. At the museum here, in Crystal Springs, they had about 6,500 actually show up. This pretty much overwhelmed this little town. The operators of the museum set up a replica of the gate to Area 51 so they could have a “symbolic” storming of the gate. It was behind the museum.

We had a fun day chasing aliens and geocaches. We continued to head east, looking over our shoulders the whole way.

We ended up in Las Vegas, NV that night. Heck, we were just here a couple of weeks ago. We stayed in the RV Park at the Circus Circus Hotel. It was surprisingly nice. We had a nice dinner, lost a few dollars in the slot machines, and turned in for the evening.

Map progress – San Jose, CA to Tonopah, NV via Tin Tin.

September 11, 2020

We left smokey San Francisco and continued down the road a bit to smokey Santa Clara, near San Jose, CA. We wanted to see the Winchester Mystery House. For any sportsmen or hunters out there, you will recognize the name Winchester as one of the finest firearms manufacturers in the world. The company rose to fame with the Winchester Repeating Rifle. This featured bullet cartridges, one of the first of its kind, and could fire 15 rounds very quickly with it’s lever action and tubular bullet storage device. This rifle was used by sportsmen, frontiersmen, and military alike extensively in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

The son and heir of company founder Oliver Winchester, was William Wirt Winchester. When William died of tuberculosis in 1880 his widow, Sara Winchester, inherited his fortune and income from the Winchester Company. She used these monies to build the Winchester Mystery House. It is estimated she spent 5.5 million dollars from 1886 to 1922. That is equivalent of 58 million dollars today.

Sara was somewhat eccentric. She believed that the spirits of the dead that had been killed by Winchester rifles were haunting her. Upon the advice of her medium, she moved to California from Connecticut, and started building the house in 1886 and continued until her death in 1922. The house featured 160 rooms, 7 stories, 10,000 windows, and 2,000 doors. The original seven floors were reduced to 4 floors as a result of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

Sara was the sole architect of this completely crazy house. There are doors that lead to nowhere, stairs that go nowhere, rooms too small to do anything, and all of the posts are installed upside down. It is said she did this to confuse the ghosts.

Sara lived in the house, under construction the entire time, until her death in 1922. In 1923 the house was opened to the public as an attraction.

Unfortunately, we could not visit the inside of the house, due to the Covid – 19 protocols. However, we did get a complete tour of the exterior and got to peak into a lot of windows. The house and grounds used to sit on 160 acres. It now consists of 4.5 acres, a fraction of it’s former gardens and grounds. They are still quite impressive though.

We wandered the grounds of this very strange and unique house and got some interesting photos of the grounds.

While the house gardens used to be over a hundred acres, the remaining few acres are still very nicely sculpted and maintained.

We had a great time exploring the gardens and peeking into the house where ever possible. Hopefully, next time we can get inside and experience the whole thing.

Map progress – Santa Clara, CA to San Jose, CA via Tin Tin (our RV).

September 8 – 10, 2020

We left smokey Groveland and headed northwest to even smokier San Francisco. Actually, we are staying in the nearby city of Vallejo, but close enough. It was a short drive, but as we came out of the mountains, it appeared that the smoke from the wild fires was getting worse. This was not an illusion.

As we drove west, there were officially 22 wild fires in California. As of that day, over 2.3 million acres had been consumed by the fires, just in California. Entire towns were being evacuated and countless buildings and homes were being destroyed. This does not even count the fires in Oregon, Nevada, and Washington State. It is very sad and very scary.

We arrived at the Tradewinds RV park in Vallejo and found the smoke even worse here than what we drove through.

To make things even more difficult, this is not a good RV park. It is rundown, lots of long term residents, and the office was not open when we arrived at 2PM.

They left our site number on a board on the wall, which is fine. However, there was a lock on the electrical box, so we couldn’t hook up. No answer on several “emergency” numbers listed on the office door.

The sign said they would be back between 3PM and 5PM so we went out to get supplies and do laundry. When we got back around 4PM, still no one there, but at least they had taken the lock off. Welcome to San Francisco!

Evidently in the San Francisco area they have a homeless situation, similar to Seattle. Everywhere we went, we saw campers and RVs parked, legally, on the side of the streets, but obviously occupied. This was even on the street leading to our RV park. I guess this is why they had to lock up the electric connections. We also saw cars being used as homes. Seattle had tents. San Francisco has campers, cars, and RVs. Such a shame.

The next day, we got on a ferry from Vallejo, across the bay, to go the the marina at the Fisherman’s Wharf area of down town San Francisco. The ferry ride is great, but all the smoke makes it look like we are going through a war zone.

We get off the ferry and start our walk towards Fisherman’s Wharf. This is the area between Pier 39 and Pier 41. It is about a mile and a half, not too bad. Luckily it is flat. We don’t have to deal with San Francisco’s very steep hills. We take in some sights along the way strolling down the Embarcadero.

By the way, not only is it smokey in Frisco, it is cold. The temperatures were in the low 60’s. We were in over 100 degrees just last week!

We figured it was lunch time and stopped at a nice restaurant at Pier 39. We had to have drinks, of course, with Alcatraz in the background.

After lunch, it was time to continue wandering and see what we could see through the smoke.

This picture just sums up the day. Lots of smoke, hard to breath, time to pack it in.

We got back on the ferry, made it back to Vallejo, and hauled butt out of San Francisco the next day.

Map progress – Groveland, CA to San Franciso via Tin Tin.

September 5 – 8, 2020

As we left Three Rivers, CA and Kings Canyon National Park, heading to Yosemite, we knew we were going to have issues getting into Yosemite. Yosemite has followed the lead of many of the more popular national parks and instituted a Day Use Pass requirement to get into the park. We had run into this at Zion National Park and were able to obtain the passes the night before we arrived.

These passes are only issued via the Recreational.gov website. For Yosemite, they only post 80% of the allowable passes on the 1st of each month, for the entire month. The remaining 20% are released two days prior to arrival dates within the month. Needless to say; we could not get passes to enter Yosemite prior to our arrival in Groveland at the Yosemite Pines RV Resort.

This park is very open spaced, which is nice, but it is definitely beat up and not maintained very well. In addition, as it was Labor Day Weekend, the park was very full of families carousing and having fun. We expected this, so no big deal. Thankfully, they all observed the quiet time of 10PM to 8AM. They did have a petting zoo for the kids, which was kind of interesting.

We had tried for over a week to get passes into Yosemite with no luck. We even got up at 7AM the two days prior to our arrival to see if we could get one of the 20% passes released. No luck.

Our next option was the Yosemite Area Regional Transport System, YARTS. This shuttle was allowed into Yosemite up to the main visitor center in the middle of the park. Passengers on this shuttle could then get off, hike around as much as they wanted, and get back on the bus later in the day to return. Again, no luck. All passes were sold out on the shuttle for the days we were in Groveland.

Well, there was another option (we are persistent to a fault, you might have noticed by now). There is a northern entrance to Yosemite that is not very popular. It is called the Hetch Hetchy entrance. It takes you to the O’Shaughnessy Dam and the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. From this location you can not access any of the primary areas of Yosemite, as there are no roads leading into the main park, but it is a pretty drive through the mountains to the dam. There is one issue. They only allow vehicles under 25 feet in length and less than 8 feet in width, including side mirrors into the park itself. Tin Tin (our RV) is only 24 feet long. No problem there. However, the width between the mirrors is 8 feet, 4 inches. I know because I measured it. However, these side mirrors fold and collapse into the side of the doors. This reduces the width to less than 8 feet. We figure we are good to go and head up to Hetch Hetchy the day after we arrive in Groveland. At least we can see a bit of Yosemite and not have this leg of the trip be a complete waste. Yeah, let’s see how that worked out.

To get to Hetch Hetchy, we have to drive through Stanislaus National Forest. Normally this would be a nice pleasant drive through the hills and trees. However, there are numerous wild fires through out California with a couple of big ones very near us and concentrated in the Stanislaus Forest area. We aren’t affected by the fires, but the smoke is really dense.

We start climbing the mountains and finally can see the dam and part of the reservoir.

We continue on the narrow, twisty, winding, road and it finally starts to level off at the top of the mountains. Then the smoke starts to get really bad.

By now both Andrea and I have burning eyes, coughing, and definitely feeling the effects of the smoke. We figure what the heck, we have come this far, lets get into Hetch Hetchy. Yeah, right (can you tell what is about to happen?).

We enter the official section of Yosemite and approach the entry station to present our Senior National Park Pass and go check out the reservoir area.

We get to the entrance, present the pass and the ranger immediately says “your vehicle is too large to enter”. I tell him that we are only 24 feet. Without the slightest hesitation he then says “you can’t enter as your width is more than 8 feet”. I say yes, but I can collapse the side mirrors, which I do on the driver’s side to show him. Again, he doesn’t miss a beat, ” California law requires the use of side mirrors. You can not enter the park”. Well isn’t this great. We just drove 1.5 hours to not get into another national park.

I asked him what are our options to see the park. He says we can park on the side of the road about 100 feet ahead and take a 2.5 mile round trip hike to an overlook to see the dam. No thanks. We are already having breathing issues from the smoke, not to mention we are at an altitude of 4,750 feet. Once more, we turn around and head back to our RV park with our tails between our legs. So far, we are not having much luck in California, other than Death Valley.

As we head back, Andrea finally gets some signal to her phone and checks out the geocache app. There are a few in the area, so we go geocache hunting a bit on the way back. Heck, we have plenty of time now.

The next day there is nothing to do, so we hang out at the RV park and get caught up on household stuff and some little repairs to Tin Tin. Oh yeah, we might have napped a bit too. We did take a walk about and Andrea got some good bird pictures inside the park area.

By the way, on our off day, we found out that in the morning the State of California had closed off the Stanislaus National Forest (where we have driven through yesterday) due to the expansion of the wild fires in the area and the smoke issues. The state also closed down all camping areas in all parks in the entire state. Among the other forests closed were Sequoia National Forest, where we had just been a few days ago. We have one more stop planned in California then we are getting out as soon as we can.

Map progress – still in Groveland, CA. Maps posted for reference of past progress.

September 3 – 5, 2020

After our escape from death at Death Valley (ha ha, get it, escape from death??) we headed straight north to Three Rivers, CA trying to see Sequoia National Park and maybe Kings Canyon National Park. Unfortunately, we only accomplished a bit of this plan.

As we left Death Valley we ran into some pretty serious smoke from the area wild fires. As we were doing our travels in California there were approximately 12 wild fires acknowledged by the officials. They ran all up and down the state. At first they were interesting to us, as we had never seen anything so wide spread. Now, they are actually affecting our breathing and we dealt with air quality issues in the various towns and areas we visited.

Later that day, we arrive at the Sequoia RV Ranch and are greeted by a few local residents.

The next day it is off to visit Sequoia National Park and see all of those great big trees, or not.

At Sequoia, we realized that Tin Tin (our RV) would be over the 22 foot size limit for vehicles in most of the park. We knew this in advance and had planned to drive to the visitor center, which was not supposed to have vehicle restrictions, then take the park shuttle around to the various points of interest in the park. The park shuttle system, which the park website said was functioning normally in 2020 was shut down. The lady ranger informed of this and just said that the website had not been updated. Then, she wouldn’t let us into the park at all. Gee, thanks a lot National Park Service. So, this plan failed miserably. Back to the RV park to hang out for the day. There is absolutely nothing else to do in good ol’ Three Rivers, CA.

The second plan, for the next day, was to enter Sequoia through Kings Canyon ( the northern entrance), then drive Tin Tin along a wider road to get to some of the more desirable areas. This plan failed also. It turns out that the road we needed to take was being worked on through out the summer. It was down to one lane and the traffic congestion was horrible. So, plan #2 was out also.

We fell back to plan #3, which was a variation of plan #2. They would let us enter Kings Canyon and drive to one visitor center in Grant Grove Village. We decided to do this. This was very close to the General Grant giant sequoia tree. We could not get to the General Sherman giant sequoia tree, which is the largest tree in the world, but the General Grant tree is pretty close in size.

We finally made it into the park and headed to the visitor center. The ranger told us how to get to the General Grant tree and off we went.

It is one heck of a tree!

From Kings Canyon we continued on to Groveland, CA to Yosemite National Park. We did not have much luck in Yosemite either, but that is another story. So far, the California leg of our trip is proving to be less than satisfying, other than Death Valley which was really cool (ha ha, get it, really cool??)

Map progress – Lone Pine, CA to Three Rivers, CA via Tin Tin.

September 2, 2020

We left Las Vegas and headed straight west into California. Andrea and I have never seen Death Valley, so we decided now was the time. The fact that it is still summer time and the temperatures had reached over 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Death Valley in recent days, should have bothered us. But, it did not. Let’s see if we survived.

First of all, Death Valley is a desert. As the name suggests it lies in a valley between the Amargosa Range to the east and the Panamint Range on the west. It also contains the lowest point of elevation in the Western Hemisphere. In Badwater Basin the elevation is 282 feet below sea level. As a point of interest, Andrea and I went to the Dead Sea last year, the Jordan side. The Dead Sea has an elevation of 1,410 feet below sea level. This is the lowest point of elevation of any spot on land on the planet Earth.

We drove out of Las Vegas and in a couple of hours arrive at the eastern side of Death Valley.

Before we took this turn, we headed north a bit up to the last gas station before you enter the desert. We filled up on diesel and headed back to Death Valley.

Death Valley has numerous vistas and sites for the adventurous traveler to see. As we were just driving through, we saw 3 of the more accessible spots.

First site was Zabriskie Point. This area featured some really amazing sand and rock formations.

We have been in a lot of national parks and seen an awful lot of mountains, rock formations, and geographical formations over the past 3 months. Nothing compares to Death Valley. These formations are really unique and fascinating.

We next made it to Badwater Basin. This is the lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level.

As mentioned above, Death Valley had seen 130 degree temperatures a few days ago. We didn’t see 130, but we sure saw 116. See Tin Tin’s (our RV) temperature gauge.

We kept on heading west and soon arrived at the Mesquite Sand Dunes. These were unusual in that they were the only sand dunes we ever saw in this vast desert.

We also saw a few trees that succumbed to the heat many, many, years ago.

Oh, and Andrea is still flashing her ring bling that she got at the Pawn Stars shop this morning in Vegas!

We continued driving, but now we were heading up the mountains out of the desert into the Panamint Range. Even though the sun is setting and the temperature is dropping; it is still very, very, hot outside. As we begin to climb into the mountains we see a sign that says “Turn off air conditioning for the next 20 miles”. Well, usually we take warning signs with a grain of salt, but this one makes very good sense to us. We turn off the air conditioning, crank up the fan, and lower the windows a bit.

We are now rapidly climbing the mountain range. Tin Tin is basically a Mercedes Sprinter van that has been outfitted as a RV. It has a 6 cylinder diesel engine that is very powerful. The transmission is made to handle hills and pull the 10,000 pounds of weight that we carry.

Lets just say that Tin Tin had a job ahead of him. He was not as bad as the little engine that could; but he kept plowing forward. After awhile, we noticed kind of a metallic rattle coming from the midsection of the RV. We couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Tin Tin seemed to be doing fine, so we kept driving. That rattle kept getting louder and louder. Just at the point where I was starting to get worried, it suddenly made a loud crescendo and just quit. Just like that. We have no idea if something broke, or something expanded in the heat, or what. But, it stopped and has not come back since. Good job, Tin Tin!

We soon reached over 6,000 feet in elevation after about 15 miles into the climb. Remember, we were at negative 282 feet just an hour or so before. This was one heck of a climb.

Luckily, the sun had set by the time we reached the summit, so the heat wasn’t too bad inside Tin Tin. We crested the mountain range, put on the AC, and cruised on into Lone Pine, CA and our RV site at the Boulder Creek RV Park about 8PM. We cheated death in Death Valley and lived to blog about it! We also got to add another state, California, to the map on Tin Tin’s backside. Overall, a very good day.

Map progress – Las Vegas, NV to Lone Pine, CA via Tin Tin.

Map on Tin Tin’s backside with California added.

August 29 – Sept. 2, 2020

As mentioned before, Andrea and I really like Las Vegas. As retired hotel folks, we enjoy wandering around the fabulous hotels and seeing the incredible architecture of these immense buildings. These properties have more people and more infrastructure than a lot of small towns we have been in during this trip.

As a bit of reference, Mandalay Bay is owned by the MGM Resort group. They own and operate the Mandalay Bay, Luxor Hotel, the Bellagio, and other hotels. Together they produced 12.9 billion dollars of revenue in 2019. In comparison, the country of Monaco, with it’s famous casinos and Prince Albert, had a total Gross National Product of 7.185 billion in 2019. That’s a lot of money from hotels and slot machines!

We did some wandering around at night and got to enjoy these fantastic buildings up close.

For dinner we found a great Irish Pub, Nine Fine Irishmen, in the New York, New York Hotel.

The next day was a bit strange, but still fun. I wanted to go see the Hoover Dam. Andrea had no interest whatsoever, so I took off in our rented pickup truck to drive the 40 or so miles to see this great modern marvel.

Problem was, once I got there, I was informed by a very serious, no nonsense, Park Ranger that the Hoover Dam was closed to tourists and I needed to turn around immediately and just get the heck out of his life.

This seemed very strange to me. We have been in national parks, other dams, and major tourists sites for the past 3 months. Granted, the visitors centers may be closed, but you could still drive up to an overlook and see the structure, or park. Not here.

So, I decided to go exploring and try to find a vantage point from a trail, or access road, or even hike around the road blocks.

Strike one. The wilderness road.

Strike two, the bridge access road.

I didn’t even get a picture of this one. I kind of drove around a Road Closed sign up to a Park Ranger who really was not happy with me. I wanted to see if I could park in the overlook area and hike to the dam. In no uncertain terms he told me no and get out of here. Oh, well.

Strike three, the hike around Lake Mead. While driving around, I found the Lake Mead overlook. It had a map that showed a hiking trail that led right to the base of Hoover Dam. Well, heck. Let’s give it a try. It was about 1.5 miles away. The map quite clearly showed a trail. However, once I got into the hike, this trail quickly deteriorated into vague paths, very steep hills with loose rocks, and oh yeah, a Forest Ranger positioned to see any idiots like me that were trying to get around the closed roads.

I saw the ranger and kept trying to get around him. I finally decided I couldn’t make it to the Dam, the trail was just too tough. I turned around and then he spotted me. He wanted me to climb down the hill to him, but I told him I couldn’t. I really couldn’t, even he could see that. I told him I was returning to the Lake Mead overlook and he was fine with that and let me go without calling in the SWAT and anti terrorist teams.

Three strikes. I was out. Back to the Mandalay Bay I go.

That night Andrea and I went to explore Fremont Street. This is an area north of the Vegas Strip that features nice, but cheaper hotels and casinos and a really amazing light show. They have constructed a huge LCD display covering entire city blocks of their casino area. They play music, usually rock & roll tunes, and put on an unbelievable light show.

We wandered around a bit, had dinner, and proceeded to the Golden Nugget to try out my roulette system. Well, the system failed that night. $60 into the coffers of the Golden Nugget. Oh well, we still had fun.

The next day we are due to leave Vegas, but had to make one more stop. Andrea and I like the show Pawn Stars that airs on the History Channel. The show is based out of a real life pawn shop, owned by Rick Harrison, in Las Vegas. It is a family business, started by Rick’s Dad, Richard, in 1989. Sadly, Richard passed away a few years ago.

The show features Rick, his son Corey, their employee Chumley, and a host of characters who come into the shop trying to sell or pawn very unusual items. Since we were here, we decided to try to get into the shop to see it live and in person.

Luckily, we hit it on a slow day and got right in. Of course Andrea had to buy something flashy, so one more ring got added to her already sizable collection. Luckily it was only a cubic zirconia for $59.00.

We got some funny pictures with card board cut outs of Rick and Chumley.

Overall, we had fun in Vegas. We were a bit surprised at how much the town had changed since we were last there. It had more hotels, but the people seemed a bit more down trodden. We saw more down and out people then we had noticed before. It might be the Covid – 19, it might be the down economy. Either way, we had fun and will definitely return another day. Maybe we’ll get to see the Hoover Dam next time.

Map progress – still in Vegas. Maps shown as references from previous progress.

August 29 – September 2,2020

We are now in Las Vegas, NV after leaving good old Page, AZ. We headed pretty much straight west, although we got into Utah again for some reason, back into Arizona, and finally into Nevada. I’m going to blame the GPS, and the scarcity of roads in this part of the country, for our meandering route.

Andrea and I really enjoy Las Vegas. In fact, we got married here over 16 years ago. We did the white limo, with the Clark County Courthouse marriage license, and the little white chapel experience. Luckily, Clark County NV allows easy access to marriage records. We actually had to download our marriage license to remember our wedding anniversary. Oh well, it’s only a date.

We decided to splurge a bit and used some American Express points to book 4 nights in the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino. It took us about 2 hours, several weeks ago, to make this hotel decision. The key factor was the matter of a good bath tub. Andrea loves to take bubble baths. This is kind of difficult to do in Tin Tin (our RV), because Tin Tin only has a shower. Even when we have occasionally stayed in hotels, their bath tubs are not up to Andrea’s soaking criterion (too shallow, not wide enough, not big enough, the list is endless). So, in picking out our Las Vegas hotel we spent most of the time looking at bath room pictures. Mandalay Bay won because it showed great bath tubs in their room pictures. Hey, every one has a hotel room requirement, right?

As the Mandalay Bay only has a parking garage, and therefore a very low roof, we left Tin Tin (our RV) in a long term parking lot near the airport. It actually was a bit fortuitous as Tin Tin had developed an issue in the bathroom. The toilet seal started to give out and the toilet kept running water into the bowl. Now you might not think this is a big deal. After all, a lot of us have toilets that run water until you replace the flapper valve. The water just runs into the bowl and out into the sewer. However, in a RV that is not hooked up to a sewer line, this is a very big deal. That holding tank for the toilet gets filled up very quickly when the water is running steadily into the bowl. In fact, one morning we woke up to a bit of a flood in our bathroom. Luckily, we were parked on a RV lot that tilted to one side, so most of the water ran out into the lot down underneath the shower floor. But there was still a considerable amount of water on the bath floor. Luckily, nowhere else.

This happened a day or two before we got to Las Vegas. We were out in the boonies when this first occurred and could not get a new toilet. Well, there is a good Camping World in Vegas where we were able to buy a new toilet. I installed it while Tin Tin was in the airport parking lot. We had a bit of an issue matching up the water supply connections, but a trip to Lowe’s produced the parts we needed to complete the job. The repairs never seem to end in the RV life.

We had planned to visit the Western Rim of the Grand Canyon during this visit. We found this part of the Grand Canyon by accident 16 years ago when we were in Vegas. At that time, we were going to go to the southern rim, about 4 hours south of Vegas. As we were driving though, we saw a couple of old beat up billboards that said the western rim was only about 60 miles away (instead of the 120 miles we planned on). We turned left, drove down some very bumpy and dusty dirt roads, and found the western rim. It is on the Hualapai Indian reservation. We paid $6.00 to a sleepy Indian lady at the gateway for a hunting permit, and explored the mostly deserted section of this rim of the canyon for the rest of the afternoon. It was virtually unspoiled. We really enjoyed it.

Since then, however, the Hualapai Indians have really developed this area. They now feature a Skywalk, that juts out 70 feet from a cliff and has 65 feet of walkway made of glass. You can walk out onto this and see the Colorado River about 4,000 below you. If you are scared of heights, you do not want to do this. The roads are now totally paved. The Indians have installed a restaurant and gift shop by the Skywalk and at the main entrance. It is a bit sad to see the development, but obviously very good for the tribe and its’ finances.

Even with the Indian developments, the western rim is still less occupied then the southern rim, which gets all the attention. The views are really incredible, especially when you let your mind wander to the fact that the Colorado River has taken about 6 million years to form this section of the Grand Canyon. Scientists believe that other parts were formed as long ago as 16 million years.

We got some great pictures of the Grand Canyon and the Skywalk. FYI, the Skywalk is a bit of a racket for the Indians. They will not let you take a camera or cell phone out onto the Skywalk. They have photographers out there that take your picture, if you want, then charge you a small fortune to collect these pictures. They are so serious about this that they make you put all of your belongings into a locker before you go out, then make you go through a metal detector to ensure that you have not secreted a camera in some body part or body orifice. Andrea got pictures of me out on the Skywalk from the restaurant situated right above it. She might have broken a rule or two in doing this. Oh well!

This is not a cheap experience. It costs $59 per person, just to get into the Indian reservation to get access to the western rim. It costs another $19 to get out to the Skywalk, with no pictures. The pictures costs $17 for one, or $65 for a full set. We also had to prepay $15 apiece to get into the restaurant. The $15 included a meal, kind of like a good McDonalds happy meal.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not begrudging the Hualapai Indians what ever monies they can make off of their lands. Lord knows, they deserve it. Just saying, this is kind of an expensive outing.

After we toured the Eagle Point of the Western Rim, it was time to get back on the shuttle bus and head back to our rental pickup truck. On the way, we saw a couple of more interesting critters.

We to back to our rented pickup truck and start the 1.5 hour trip back to Las Vegas. Andrea decides to look at her geocache app and sure enough, there are a few in the area. It is only late afternoon, so what the heck. Let’s go find a few.

We head back west from the reservation, on some very bumpy dirt roads, going into the very gorgeous desert.

The first geocache is pretty easy, on a trailhead just off the road.

The next one was much, much, harder. The clue was that it was hidden in the area of the graves of 5 miners. What the heck? We are going to gravesites?

Sure enough, we found the grave sites. They are out in the middle of nowhere. We had no idea who they were, or why they were buried here.

Maybe the local guy knows.

Finally, Andrea finds the geocache, way off what the GPS coordinates say it should be.

It’s time to head back for real now, but we are miles off the main road, out on a dirt road, out in the bush, looking for our geocaches. On the way back to the main road, we run into some cows, who are not real happy that we are on their road.

We get by Bessie with no incident, but then find her friend that jumped over the moon!!

We left our friends the cows and made it back to Mandalay Bay safe and sound.

Map progress – Page, AZ to Las Vegas, NV via Tin Tin.

August 27 – 29, 2020

From Hurricane, UT, and Zion National Park, we headed southeast into Arizona. This is pretty awesome as we have now picked up another state for our map of the back of Tin Tin (our RV).

We arrived at the town of Page, AZ and checked into the Page – Lake Powell campground. This park is fairly basic with gravel roads and sites, but at least we got some good spacing between us and our neighbors, not like the crammed in spots from the Sun Resorts we have been in the last few destinations.

Page, AZ is home to the Glen Canyon Dam. This dam was built in the early 1960’s and created Lake Powell, one of the largest man made reservoirs in the U.S. The Glen Canyon Dam also has a hydroelectrical plant that produces about 4 billion kilowatts of electrical power each year.

After our limited visit to the Glen Canyon Dam, Andrea noticed there were some geocaches in the area. Of course we had to go find them. Most were fairly easy, but one was a real killer.

The tough geocache took us out on a trail around the back of the city.

The geocache GPS led us on this trail to the base of a hill. We had to scramble around this blasted hill for 20 minutes until I finally got lucky and found the #$%?*& thing.

During our geocache search we got to see some great views of the surrounding area around Lake Powell.

After this tough day, it was time for drinks and dinner at a very nice Mexican restaurant in the area.

The next day was the main event. We went to see Horseshoe Bend. This site is created by an offshoot of the Colorado River as it has carved it’s way through the mesa for eons as it passes by Page. It is a really amazing geological formation.

After our visit to Horseshoe Bend the weather turned bad with nasty winds and thunderstorms in the area. We headed for Tin Tin and hunkered down during some very impressive storms.

Map progress – Hurricane, UT to Page, AZ via Tin Tin.