HOME AT LAST

May 17, 2018

We arrived home May 8th.  Denny was looking forward to it, me, not so much.  I think I could live in an RV full time, but Denny is really only good for 6 months at the most.

Here is a synopsis of out trip:

Left Nov 20, 2017
Returned May 8, 2018

gone 5.5 months
Drove 7897 miles

Stayed at 13 campgrounds that we had been in before

Stayed at 3 new campgrounds that we had never been at

Spent $3164.47 on campgrounds
Our cheapest campground was $23 per night Bakersfield, CA. This park belongs to Passport, a half price camp club that we belong to.
Our most expensive was $61 per night in Surprise, AZ.
There are cheaper ones around there, but we have many friends and family to visit and is is centrally located to everyone

Spent $2056.06 on diesel

We have a large 57 gal tank, so we only had to stop 26 times for diesel. That is actually  more than last year, but we did  alot  more geocaching.
Our cheapest diesel was in Surprise, AZ for $2.19
This price was before diesel stated going up
Our most expensive was in Palm Desert, CA for $3.65.
California always has the most expensive gas/diesel than another state. Also it has the worst roads.


The new areas we went to were Pahrump, Alamo and Wells, all in Nevada. We have really never  traveled much in Nevada, but we certainly made up for it this trip.

We like to go someplace new every time, but, not really sure where next season.  We are actually thinking of shaking it up quite a bit and going to Ireland instead of RVing next season. Will see... never  have been to Europe before and Denny has always wanted to see Ireland.

Hope you all enjoyed reading my blog as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Til next year........

ON THE WAY HOME

May 4, 2018

We plan to be home May 8th.  Doesn't seem possible that this year's trip is coming to an end. Denny is looking forward to it, me, not so much. I could easily stay out longer, but guess we have to get back to the real world.

I really enjoy seeing different places in the United States and meeting new and old friends. It also amazes me how different the terrain is everywhere. From oceans and mountains to large trees to desert. I never get tired of it. 

Amazing to me the colors in the hills and desert due to  the different minerals. 

The local lore says the pattern on the hills is where the Indians got there idea for their Indian Blankets. What do you think?

We were driving in the middle of the desert and all of a sudden came across alot of green. Very unusual for this area, but there is underground water close by, enough to have a large date farm.

Just a mile before we came across all the green trees in the above picture, this is what we had been seeing. What a difference a little water makes

First time Denny had to drive through rain,  leaving Alamo, Nevada going to Wells, NV

Felt like we were home already 

This is our first glimpse of mountains since leaving Washington. I love spending the winter in the warmer climate of the desert, but it is always nice to see the mountains again. 

View from our campground in Wells, NV

Today I made our  reservation  at the last campground we will be in before we get home. Kind of a sad moment for me😢😢

ET HIGHWAY

April 29-30, 2018

In geocaching,  the ExtraTerrestrial  Highway is world famous. Cachers from all over the world take their vacations just to go on it.   It is a power trail  of several hundred miles with 2300 caches on it. They are every 550' apart.  The north side of the highway is the power trail that cachers flock to. The south side borders  AREA 51 in Nevada.   Area 51 is a top secret site that government still doesn't admit that it exists.  This is where  they supposedly found a spaceship with an Alien inside.  In 1996, Nevada officially designated highway 375 as the ExtraTerrestrial Highway. There have many sightings of UFO's on this road.  We were here for 3 days and I NEVER saw anything.

I had heard about the ET Highway for years. Since we are going home a different way than usual, I realized we would be close to it, so had to go on  it. We spent 2 days along the Highway. First day, we found 105, 2nd day, 113. That day breaks my record of 110.  I have to admit, it was kind of boring. Getting in and out of the car 218 times plus walking 50-60' to the cache  and back is very tiring. We could have done more each day, but my  whole body was exhausted.   The 3rd day, we just went up to a little town of Rachael (54 pop) that is a must see. It is the only town on the Highway to stop and stretch your legs and get a bite of food.

This is the Alien Research Center. Really just a gift shop to buy souvenirs and everything you need to   go on the ET Highway and Area 51

Wall inside the Alien Research Center that all visitors sign. I also did, but had a hard time finding a spot. Finally had to sign over somebody's signature. The wall continues around the corner. 

This is just a partial view of the power trail of the ET Highway.  This is probably only a quarter  length of the ET . All the little green dots are geocaches.  I haven't logged my caches yet. When I do, all the   green dots will turn into smiley faces.  The caches I found start at the right and go most of the way up 

There is geoart on the ET Highway That is when people put out geocaches in the shape of things. Below is an Alien Head and a Spaceship.   In the map above, the geoart is in the upper left corner.  Most of the geoart is usually a hike, the alien is about 10 miles, the spaceship 7 miles. 

If we go back this way again, I will do the geoart only. The power trail itself is too boring and exhausting. The yellow smiley faces are caches that I have found. The town of Rachael is at the very right hand bottom of the picture. We did a few caches while having lunch

The ET Highway is open range so you have to be careful of  cows roaming around. I took this picture from the car to show you how close they are to the road. Unfortunately, we saw a couple of dead cows alongside the road. 

This is the Alien Mailbox cache. All the Aliens check their mail here!! Wonder how much they get or is it all junk mail like humans usually find in their mailboxes!

Denny is checking out the spaceship in front of the cafe