HOME AT LAST

April 20, 2020

After exploring the ET Highway, we headed for home. It takes us 3  nights and 4 days of long hours of driving to get home. We stayed at Wells, NV, Mountain Home, ID and Pendleton, OR.  We had planned on visiting  with friends in Idaho and Eastern Washington along the way, but that all was cancelled because of  the lockdowns. 

We left later than usual and came home earlier than usual this year. We still had a good time, but, will have to say, this was our worst year for things to go wrong with the truck, RV and our house. We had a total of 9 things go wrong between all 3. 

1.  on the first day, after Chelhalis, WA  the truck lost power. Denny said the truck went into default mode, we couldn't go faster than 20 MPH. We thought we would have to limp to the next town, try to get it fixed or go back home. Luckily, it didn't last long. All of the sudden, the truck took off in full power. A mystery of life. It never did that again, but certainly put us on edge. maybe that was a precursor of what was to come.

2.At our first campground in Canyonville, OR, we were sitting around relaxing after getting all set up and the sconses over the couch and table went out. Our TV went out also.   Denny flipped the breakers and nothing worked. Even some of our plug in's didn't work. Very frustrating. Everything worked fine the next morning. Another mystery of Life.

3. Not sure when it happened, but, we kept hearing a humming noise. Couldn't figure it out, Denny thought it came from a lower cupboard where the water pump is. He tried everything, but, it wouldn't stop. He cut some wires, not a big deal because we never use the water pump, it is only when you are boondocking without any hookups. The noise continued. Finally opened a drawer and it was the battery powered can opener. Somehow it got stuck on the on position, not sure how that happened. I hadn't used it in a long time. Now Denny has to fix the cut wires.

4. We had a  hose leak under the truck in Scottsdale, at least that's where we first noticed it. Unfortunately, it leaked on our friend's, Rolf and Lynn, expensive driveway pavers. Denny tried everything to get it off, but Rolf found a great product after we left. Denny felt so bad about it and very frustrated. We were without a truck for 5 days and it cost $2500.

5. We had a new AC unit installed at Camping World in Fife, Washington before we left. Never needed to try it out til we got to Buckeye, AZ. It didn't work, so took it to Buckeye, AZ. The technicians at Fife installed it but never connected the wires.  Took them 14 days to fix it. Luckily we had friends and family to stay with. We thought it would be under warranty, but it was a case of their word against ours. Hard to prove but we did  get some compensation (not enough) after writing letters and a few phone calls.

6.We had a mouse infestation at our home in Renton. Our house sitter moved out because of it. Our son, Darin, got 6 mice, 2 in the living room, 2 in the pantry and 2 in a spare bedroom. We have never had a mouse problem before in the 20 years we have lived there. I have been doing alot more cleaning and disinfecting than I have ever done once we got home. Never know where those little critters have been.

7.Once we moved to Palm Springs, we thought our troubles were over, but then the corona virus lockdowns started. We were in lockdown a long time before Washington. Such scary times

8. In Palm Springs, at 11 PM one night, our toilet overflowed, by the time Denny got outside to turn the water off, we had a flood in the bathroom that also affected the carpet in the hallway. What a mess to clean up at 11PM!!

9. As we were getting relay to leave St George, Utah, a valve for the gray water in the shower broke. Another thing to fix when we get home. Also the slide out started coming in crooked. Did it again and it was okay.  When we got to Alamo, NV, the slide out wouldn't go out at all. He pushed on it from the inside til it finally went out. Another thing to fix!

We had a few other things happen, but I don't want to turn this into a book. It was such a frustrating trip. I guess it was our time, we have never had much go wrong with the RV in the 10 years we have been doing this.

Synopois of our trip:

Miles Traveled: 6988

Stayed in 11 RV Parks;

                                    Menifee, CA

                                    Yuma, AZ

                                    Tucson, AZ

                                    Cottonwood, AZ

                                    Scottsdale, AZ (our friends driveway)

                                    Buckeye, AZ

                                    Palm Desert, CA

                                    Desert Hot Springs, CA

                                    Pahrump, NV

                                    St George, Utah

                                    Alamo, NV

                                   Besides the above parks, we stayed in 4 going down and 3 going back, 1 night               

each      

Spent $2618.66 on RV parks. 

Diesel: $1681.08. our lowest price was 1.99 in Pahrump, the highest, 4.29 in Redding, CA

After we parked at the campgrounds, we traveled just in the truck sightseeing and geocaching for 2607 miles out of the total 6988

Denny is getting really tired of the driving to so many parks so we are changing it up next year. After driving down, we will stay in Buckeye, AZ  for 3 months, then 2 months in Desert Hot Springs. That will cut his driving to only 2 parks instead of 11. When we first started we didn't want to stay in one spot like a lot of snowbirds do, but since we have been doing it for so long, we know which areas we like the best. 

Wanted to show you some of the wild burros we saw while we were out geocaching in Pahrump, NV. They roam wild in the desert. They were at first blocking the road completely, but as we got closer, they moved 

Saw these cows as we were geocaching near Alamo, NV. it is free range everywhere, so you have to watch out as you drive down the roads.  Unfortunately, we saw some dead cows too

This will be my last blog post til next our next trip. Hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventures as much as I have enjoyed writing about them. Eventho we had a lot of bad things happen on this trip, we are still looking forward to next November to start another adventure.
Until then..........

AREA 51

April 23, 2020

After making a detour to St George, we went back to the usual way home. We stay in Alamo, NV.  This is our 2nd time here. Alamo has about 1000 people.  It is about 177 miles north of Las Vegas and 12 miles south of the ET highway.

I wanted to do more of the  ET highway (the  extraterrestrial highway). It is kind of the mecca for  geocachers. The road is 141 miles long and has  over 2000 caches on it.  On the south side of the road is Area 51, all the caches are on the north side. If you go on the south side for anything, you could arrested or shot.  Area 51 is  high security goverment land where they say  there have been alot of Alien sightings. Not sure if that is true or a hoax, just have to believe in what you want to believe in.   Highway 375 borders Area 51. Utah designated Highway 375  as the Extraterrestrial Highway in the 1970's.  We have done a total of 336 caches. We have never seen an Alien in the 3 days we looked for caches

About 55 miles from the start of the road is  the town of Rachael, NV.  It is the only town along the ET highway and a must see for everyone. Rachael has a population of 50. This tiny town has a restaurant and "hotel". The hotel is actually just 10 rooms with 2 bathrooms. Last year, there was a plan for lots of people to storm Area 51. Rachel was town central for that. We  were told that the restaurant was excellent and try the burgers. Have to tell you they were some of the best burgers we have ever had.  Who would have thought that for a tiny town of 50. We went there 2 years ago, bought burgers and even some Alien Wine. We haven't tried that yet. If we drink, does that mean they will take us up into one of the spaceships?? 

This is the ET highway, it goes as far as you can see. The spots in the sky are bugs on the windshield. I took this from inside the car. 

This is the only Alien we saw. The building is  the Alien headquarters. You can buy anything you need or didn't even know you needed to cruise the ET highway 

We took this 2 years ago because it is closed now because of the lockdowns

Rachael from a distance

Couldn't believe it. Rachael is in the middle of nowhere and there are 3 electric car charging stations. 

We were too tired the next day to go back up to the ET highway, so we just geocached around Alamo.  We saw the huge P off in the distance. We couldn't figure out how people even got up there. The P  stands for  the Pahranagat Valley  that Alamo is located in. Alamo is in the foreground. 

We are leaving tomorrow to head for home😩😖

ST GEORGE, UTAH

April 21, 2020

Since we changed our plans, we decided to spend a few days  in St George, Utah. We had never been there before. We have spent a lot of time in Utah going to all the National Parks and sights, but never made it down to St. George. We had stayed in Hurricane, Utah, but never made it to St George, only 15 miles south.

Also I need to find geocaches in 3 more counties to qualify for a challenge cache that I had found in Pahrump. The challenge was you had to  have found caches in 100 different counties in the U.S before you could claim it as found.  I only had 97. By going to St George, I would get 2 more counties. What people don't do for geocaching😂😂

St George is beautiful. It was so nice to see tall snow capped mountains, real grass and green trees. We love the desert climate in the winter, but we miss all the green in Washington. 

We only stayed a few days, I wish we had made plans to stay the week

On the way over from Las Vegas to St George, we went through the Virgin River Gorge. It was our first sight of  mountains in 5 months

We had to travel 30 miles to get the 2nd county. We went on a dirt (clay) road. It was flat and wide, the perfect kind of road Denny likes. We turned a corner and the road turned to deep mud and very narrow.  He decided not to go any further. The road was so narrow that Denny couldn't turn around and he had to back up. Even after putting it in 4 wheel drive, we barely made it out of there.  The truck skidded alot and the wheels turned, but didn't go anyway. Don't know what we would have done if we had gotten stuck. We were in the middle of nowhere. 

 Pictures of the wheels after we got back. 

All of the dirt in St George is actually red clay. 

CHANGE OF PLANS

Our original plan was to be back in Renton around May 15th, like we usually do. We were also going to stop and visit friends in Idaho and Eastern Washington on our way home. That all got canceled because of the lockdowns, so  we made a new date to get home, May 5th. 

The last week we were in Pahrump, NV was to be a busy week. Friends were coming to visit and we were going to the O Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas,  Both of those also got cancelled. Because we had been on all the roads we could go on for geocaching, we decided to leave a week early. One nice thing about RVing is that it is easy to change plans. All I had to do is call the RV parks and changed our dates. 

We will be home April 30th, the earliest we have ever been home. We have so much to do at home that we decided to get ahead start on it. It takes Denny about 3 months to get the yard back in shape after being gone so long  plus he has to fix a lot of things that went wrong with the RV this year. We have never had so many things go wrong before. I have alot of cleaning and disinfecting to do before we can even unload the RV. We had an infestation of mice at the house. Our house sitter moved out because of it. Our son, Darin, found 6 mice, 2 in the living room, 2 in the pantry and 2 in the spare room. I don't want to move anything in from the RV til I get the house cleaned. We have never had a mouse problem in the house since we moved in 20 years ago

PAHRUMP, NV

I haven't really been posting very often because we haven't really done a lot because of the lockdowns. Everything in Pahrump is closed that we wanted to go to, so all we have been doing is geocaching in the desert.  So glad that when we were here 2 years ago, we saw so many places and things that are closed now. When we get to an area for the first  time, I look up everything there is to do and see. We went to Death Valley, Beatty, ghost towns, Valley of Fire, the Mob Museum in Vegas and a whole bunch more. At least  this time we got out of the RV and do our social distancing because we never see anyone in the desert. 

This RV and truck parked across from us. That truck is a what you see hauling semi's. You don't usually see them haul RV's. Two ladies live there, so one of them has to have a Class A license. maybe one had been a truck driver. You see a lot smaller ones like these but you don't need a class A license to drive them.  We test drove one to see how we liked it, but thought it was uncomfortable so wouldn't be good for long hauls. Besides, this truck and the smaller ones would have a hard time driving around looking at things and places and even driving to the grocery store would be a hassle (I think)

Saw this in the laundry. We go on RTE 160 all the time but never saw this restaurant.  Would have probably looked harder if we could have gone to it. Never thought I'd see a Seattle name in Pahrump

On our geocaching travels, we came across a ghost town. It looks like it has been kept up because the buildings were so white. Most ghost towns we see are falling down

Also on our geocaching travels, we ran across this big cow.  There was a geocache beside it. In the background is a Casino. This was probably at least 20 miles from any store or town. Guess you will find Casino's everywhere in Nevada

This is our new look. We haven't found masks anywhere so bought the bandana's. Felt like bank robbers going into the store. My cousin felt sorry for us, she didn't want us to get arrested, so she made us some masks. She scented them with cloves, cinnamon, rosemary and lemon. They smell so good

Took this from our RV. Couldn't get a very good shot, but it was certainly bright. This was the Super Moon a few weeks back

MY DAD

March 24, 2020

Regressing a little back to Palm Springs, but I wanted to show you something that really meant alot to me.

When we were out geocaching, we came across an historical marker that I knew nothing about. We just happened to find it.

My dad was an Air Force  cargo pilot during WWII. He flew all over the world carrying supplies  for the war. For a time, he was stationed at Palm Springs. My brother was even  born in Palm Springs. 

The cache marked an historical site where all the planes flying cargo took off from. There were 30-40 concrete pads 60' in diameter  located in this area. It was quite moving for me to see this spot and the plaque.  I knew he was in Palm Springs, based out of the Airport,  but to be so close to the exact area where he had been gave me the chills.  This was one of the highlights on all of our travels

Several years ago, Denny and I went to the house where my parents lived when Ray was born in 1944.  There was a very tall hedge around the house. Amazed we weren't arrested for trespassing because we were peering thru the bushes to get a look at the house.  Felt like spies.  Of course, I'm sure the house looks alot different when we saw it compared to when my folks lived there. Now, it is in a very nice part of Palm Springs, just north of the main part of Old Palm Springs.  I wish I still had the address, but I don't. Another highlight of our trip.

This picture was taken of my parents when they lived in Palm Springs.  

A good looking couple

FOUR MONTHS TODAY

 April 3, 2020

We left Dec 3, 2019, so today marks our 4th month on the road. Because we have had so many problems along the way, it seems longer. 

Last Saturday, we traveled from Palm Springs to Pahrump, NV. It is about 60 miles SW of Vegas. It is  a 10-10-10 park. All of the parks in the U.S. are graded three ways, each on a scale of 1-10.  There are actually very few 10-10-10 parks.  I guess if one has to be quarantine, might as well be in a beautiful park.   We will be here a month, then slowly head for home. Think we're safer here than home because the whole state of Nevada (970) has less cases than King County.

Just like in Palm Springs, we are only going to the desert to geocache and not very often to the grocery store. Because of the recommendation to wear a mask now, we went to Walmart and bought a couple of bandanas. We were also able to finally find some plastic disposable gloves at the hardware store.  We are all set now and still do our social distancing. 

We are in the middle of the desert. The closest town, Las Vegas, is even in another county, that's how secluded we are. 

We had a few cancellations here because of COVID19. We had tickets to go to the O Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas. There are 9 Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas. We had heard this was the best one (and the most expensive). Also our friends from West Richard, WA had planned on visiting us but that also had to be cancelled. We had been looking forward to going to the Symphony restaurant right next to the campground, but also closed. It  has been rated the best restaurant in NV 6 years in a row. Who would have thought that in little Pahrump there would be a restaurant better than anything in Vegas. 

These pictures were taken about 10 miles from Pahrump

CORONA VIRUS

March 21, 2020

We certainly have had quite the different adventure this year. After we got the truck and RV fixed and moved to Palm Springs, we were hoping everything would go back to normal. But no, now we have the Corona Virus.  Eventho Washington has more cases and more deaths, California was  the first state to do a total lockdown. Nothing open except for essential businesses, so all we do now is go geocaching in the desert. We figured that was pretty safe. All of the activities in the park have been cancelled.

We were scheduled to go on a tour of the San Andreas Fault, but that, of course, was cancelled. There is always next year. I doubt the fault will have moved!  Because of the stay in place order, we haven't been able to see our friends, but, again, there is always next year. Palm Springs is like a ghost town. 

We are leaving a  week from today to go to Pahrump, Nevada. I called a few days ago to see if the campground is  still open. They are, but, before we get there, I have to call and make my payment over the phone. When we do get there, the welcome packet will be in the outside mailbox, so we don't even go into the office. I'm sure all the activities in the park will also be closed.  Nevada now also has a lockdown so nothing will be open except essential places. 

It has been suggested that we go home early but I really think we are safer here. Washington has alot more cases than either California or Nevada.  At least we will be in  warmer weather, probably just go geocaching in the desert. Pahrump is in the middle of the desert,  Sixty miles of desert between Pahrump and the closest city, Las Vegas. 

Everybody be careful and stay safe

COCHELLA VALLEY PRESERVE

March 21, 2020

Before the lockdown in California because of the coronavirus virus, we went for a walk in the Cochella Valley Preserve. I have always wanted to go there, but, before Denny's knee replacement, he couldn't walk that far.  Glad we went when we did because it is now closed. There are about 20 trails in the Preserve

QUIRKY, NOT SO QUIRKY

March 14, 2020

I like to find quirky, unusual places wherever we go. Found a couple places we hadn't been to, so decided to take a day trip to investigate them.  One was great, the other one we thought of as more junk, but art is in the eye of the beholder. Both of our eyes thought it was more junk than art. 

The GLASS OUTHOUSE

Yes, there is an actual working glass outhouse.  The whole museum covered 5 acres of yard art. It was quirky and fun

This is the outhouse. You can't see in, but you can see out. This is the actual bathroom for  the museum.

No explanation necessary

This is what happens when you work out too much

This little cafe was about 2' tall

This little chapel has been rented out for many weddings

Think this pirate is looking for water but none around

This little frog is just trying to shield himself from the sun

An astronaut meeting ET

NOT SO QUIRKY

We also went to the Noah Purifoy Desert Art Museum of Assemblage Sculpture. Noah Purifoy was a famous African American  artist born in Alabama in 1917. He is most famous for his collage named 66 Signs of Neon, made out of the rements   of the 1966 Watts Rebellion. In 1989 he moved to Joshua  Tree in California until his death in 2004. I'm sure there are alot of people that consider this art, but we couldn't see it. What do you think?

The Band Wagon

65 Aluminum Trays

The White House

No tittle

Sage at Sage (Collage)

Lawn Chairs

Appliance Store

San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge

This is the only one that gave me pause. So true of his upbringing in the south. I lived in the south in 1965/1966 and this is what it was like. You can't read the signs above the fountains and toilet, but, above the fountain it says WHITES, above the toilet it says COLORED. That is how the south felt in those days, some even still