Category Archives: Nevada

Escaping the cold!

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In my previous post, I forgot to tell everyone about a bonehead move that I did. We were leaving Juniper’s RV park in Lakeview OR. I only put down my rear stabilizers on the trailer. However, I did not raise them! I didn’t realize why it was hard to raise the tongue of the trailer to connect to the truck. I only realized after it was hard to pull the trailer when leaving. Well, I bent up an original stabilizer and bent a replacement one I put on about 2 years ago! We made it to Boise and I removed them. I found a metalworking shop to see if they could straighten them out. Jack Metal Works was able to do the repair in a very quick turnaround. Recommended, Jacks, not bending your stabilizers.

Back to our story:

We looked around Idaho Falls and did like the area. It is not growing as much as Boise but there is still an influx there and prices are increasing. We also kept an eye on the weather as we could feel the turn of temperature.

We headed south to Tremonton UT, north of Salt Lake City. We were slowly heading back to California for Thanksgiving and the holidays. I did want to visit family but I SURE didn’t want to go back to Newsomlini-land!

Tremonton is close to the Golden Spike NHP and it was somewhere I have always wanted to visit. My father was a huge train fan, both full size, and model. He lived near the famous Horseshoe Curve in Pennsylvania. When he was a child he had an entire attic full of standard gauge trains. We took many trips to see trains, including the Durango narrow gauge. We were at the California train museum’s opening weekend, watching full-size live steam locomotives 20 feet away such as the UP 4-8-8-4. So it was natural for me to visit.

The last tie placed in the trans-continent rail (most likely a replica).
The Jupiter, completely recreated.
A view to the west.

The forecast showed that the cold wave was coming south. The day after we left Tremonton was supposed to be very cold, luckily we were able to take off and head to middle Utah. It was somewhat disappointing that we couldn’t visit south-central Utah and all the beauty. We spent the night in Fillmore UT at the KOA.

We woke up to very low cloud cover, cold temperatures, breezy winds and it was starting to snow! That kicked us into gear to get going. I had only hooked up to power the night before and did not disconnect so it was easy. Heading south over a few passes, the snow picked up but never started sticking to the road. We made just north of St George for another night of running! I knew if we could hit Vegas, we should be OK weatherwise.

It was worse that it looks!

The next AM was brutal. It was COLD and WINDY! The wind chill was about 22° for us to hook up the rig! That was not fun. We made to the Lake Mead Recreation Area for a week, the weather was very nice.

Our view from our site.

The lockdown was pretty minimal in Nevada, other than not being real close to Henderson, it didn’t impact our excursions too much. We wanted to go see Hoover Dam while we were there and tried to one day. The main road bypasses the dam now but you can still drive there and even over the dam. However, you have to pass through a checkpoint before you can get to any of the dam. We pulled up to the checkpoint, they looked us over and directed us to an alternate checkpoint. I figured they wanted to look in the back of the truck, where all our stuff is. They told me I had to remove everything so they can fully inspect it. I asked if they were serious, and they were. I told the no thanks and we turned around. It was very disappointing.

We discovered, in Idaho, that our cat had a mass in her abdomen so we took her to the Banfield vet in Henderson. We had her on a steroid to help her eating and to possibly slow the tumor. We needed a refill on the steroid. The vet at Banfield referred us to a vet that an oncology specialist and didn’t want to continue the steroid as it might conflict with any potential treatment. He gave us a anti-depressant medication.

That medication sent the cat for a loop! She couldn’t walk straight, started eating her cat litter pellets, etc. We went to see the other vet on the day we left. We got her back on the steroid and decided, after 19 years of life, we would just keep her on palliative care. We headed to our next stop south of Bullhead City, AZ.

We were still looking around for locations, and the AZ or NV border area seems possible. We don’t mind desert motifs at all, heck California will be there soon enough!. In Fort Mojave, we went to see a movie, out to eat, drove to Oatman, rested and enjoyed the warmer weather. After a week we headed to a location that has always been a possibility for relocation.

Pahrump NV. We stayed at a very nice RV there, Lakeside Casino and RV Park:

We looked at numerous properties in Pahrump area. It is definitely on our list of locations. We just have to research the water capabilities there.

We left Pahrump to crawl back to CA. We were going to stay a night in Barstow and then to Bakersfield, since Bakersfield had better COVID limitations. We did a straight drive to Bakersfield, which went to the most restrictive tier two days after we arrived. No one can win with this governor.

As I write this, the dictator has closed down overnight camping. Luckily we have a place we can stay for the holidays, but once we can leave after that we will be getting out of this state, again!

Final leg(s)

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We left Fernley NV and did a short trip down the road, through Sparks and Reno to Verdi.  We have stayed in this town before but we stayed at the KOA.  This time we stayed at the Gold Ranch RV park.  It was a nice stay.  We took advantage of a larger town to take care of some things.  We went to a Scheel’s department store, largest in the country, and looked at their sporting goods.  It was HUGE!  We also went to a few movies while there.  Here is a picture for George, a fake moose at Scheels:

Upon leaving the store it became interesting.  I was waiting outside under their overhang area and there was an Airstream parked there.  Same size as ours (sort of, it was a 30).  While I was standing there waiting to talk to the owners some lady, about 10 feet from me, tripped on the curb, fell down and severely injured her shoulder.  I saw her going down but could not do anything to stop it.  The staff called 911 and an ambulance was on the way, all was being taken care of.  I was able to talk a bit to the owners.  What piqued my interest was they had a bike rack that was above the propane tanks.  I took some pictures and asked a few questions:

Might be something I have to look at…

Another thing we did while in the Reno area was pop in on an old friend from high school, Ray Siner:

He is one of the chefs at a local Mexican restaurant, where we ended up having lunch also.  It was so much fun to visit with Ray whom I last saw at our 10-year reunion (30 years prior)!  I think this is a new thing I am going to try to do when traveling around, visiting old classmates.  So if you are an old classmate and are reading this, let me know where you are!

It was pretty hot during our visit but the city of Sparks has a nice little lake and we thought we would try out our kayaks.  It was even hotter on the water!

After our last night in Reno, we headed closer to Visalia.  We headed south down 395 toward Bridgeport.  It was hot when we left but by the time we had got to Bridgeport for dinner, we had been through some heavy rain and a small bit of snow!  What a difference.  The night at Willow Springs RV park was so wonderful and cool.

The next day was cool to start and we had a date with Tioga Pass and the Airstream.  We usually head east through the pass so we are going downhill.  This westbound trip had us climbing the pass but at least, for Roxie, we were on the hillside of the road.  The truck did very well climbing to the 9900’+ elevation with one exception of a slow car that eventually pulled over.

We stopped at the Olmstead Point lookout to get a selfie of us and the backside of Half Dome:

This was due to the fire going on in Yosemite and 41 south was closed a couple of days after we went through it.

We made it back to our son’s house to get ready for our next trip, without the trailer.