Nevada - Gambling, Hiking & Overeating

It's been a busy week, first up was Cedar Breaks National Monument - drove up to 10,500 ft, 3 degrees, snow & ice on the trails! Beautiful amphitheatre, looking down into red, yellow & white peaks & canyons. Not much hiking as we really didn't want to slide down a mountain.

Picnic lunch, then off to Kolob Canyons, a part of Zion National Park. Here we were looking up at amazing red peaks, did some hiking ( now 20 degrees), & started a pine cone collection. Somehow we seem to end to collect stuff! One hike took us along a creek & required us to cross this water 6 x each way!

Went to Sonny Boys BarBQ for some yummy eats, including deep fried cauliflower & hush puppies. We ended our time in Cedar City by watching their agricultural parade, the highlight do which was herding about 1000 sheep down the main drag! quite a sight to see.

We moved on to Mesquite, Nevada & boondocked in a casino, spent $1.00 & left with $30.00. From there we drove out to the Valley of Fire State Park - spectacular scenery, lots of petroglyphs, good hiking & 27 degrees. We had breakfast at the Virgin City casino- $3.99 for eggs, hash browns, toast & a 16 oz., bone in ham steak!

We are now in Las Vegas, have had a couple buffets, of course, wandered The Strip, spent a few dollars, took a lot of pictures. We took in Freemont Street with Pat & Trudy- lots of street performers & lots of "interesting" people dressed in costumes expecting tips for photos - everything from Superman to Mario to showgirls. I foolishly ate some deep fried Oreos & Twinkies - this I don't recommend. We walked The Strip on Halloween night, even crazier than usual, lots of bizarre costumes again!

We can remove one more thing from the Bucket List - we drove 2 hours out to see Death Valley. Everything from the view at 5000 ft from Dante's View, to 282 ft below sea level at Badwater Basin. Every color & shape of rock formation that you could imagine at a cool 24 degrees. Now I feel that we got our money's worth from the National Park pass that we bought last October!

Had our last buffet tonight - we must have eaten over a pound of crab legs each, along with clams, shrimp & of course, dessert! probably won't sleep very well, but I think it was worth it!

We head further south in the morning, not nearly warm enough here & no beach!
Having a blast!

On the Road Again - October 24, 2013

Here we go again, it came up quickly this year, not sure if we are really all packed.

We made a big change this summer, selling our house in Penticton and moving to Edmonton into the townhouse that we own. We are close to the kids and grandkids which was worth the move, plus there is almost no yard work (but still room for a few veggies & flowers).

Before heading south we went on a road trip in the RV with Shane, Sarah & Scott out to visit with Adam, Jen, Emma & Ty. We had great weather, did some hiking & sightseeing & spent time playing with the grandkids. Emma is quite the little lady, great imagination & way too little fear of anything. Ty is growing so quickly, starting to walk & thankfully not really making strange. We will miss everyone while we are away but hopefully we have mastered Facetime & Skype to keep up.

We left October 21 south through Calgary, but stopped to check out some new RVs along the way - dreaming more than anything. Montana lives up to it's name of Big Sky Country, mountains in the distance & flat prairie. We saw several herds of antelope & the only snow was on the peaks.

We stopped at a roadside rest stop at the same time as a tour bus - Robin was chatting with the driver & discovered that the bus was full of Korean tourists travelling from Vancouver. They were excitedly taking pictures of semi trucks & one fellow was heading our way. We were outside the RV with the door open. Robin waved the fellow over & before we knew it the entire busload of people was crowding into the RV, taking pictures of it & of us then thanking us profusely for "the tour"!

We stopped in Idaho Falls & took several pictures of the falls - beautiful fall colors everywhere. No need for jackets midday, still cool at night.

We ordered 2 pair of  binoculars on line & picked them up at Cabelas in Salt Lake City - amazing how well you can see with good ones. Crazy big store too, complete with resturant, a shooting gallery for kids & an aquarium!

We are now in Cedar City, first actual campground with hook-ups - nice. Tommorow we are off to do some hiking in Kolob canyons, part of Zion Park, then to Cedar Breaks Nat. Park for more sightseeing & hiking. After that we head to Las Vegas for a few nights.
Life is good, happy to be back on the road, still loving it!

Home Sweet Home

The last leg of our journey took us through Las Vegas where it was raining so hard we didn't even go see the Strip! It was definitely spring there though, with trees in bloom, but snow on the mountains.
We took a secondary hiway north, it was a great suggestion & a relaxing drive. We stopped at ET Fresh Jerky, a small roadside shop, bought jerky, of course & learned more about Area 51 which was almost "next door". The road followed a wide valley, good road complete with tumbleweeds blowing across the hiway. We stopped for lunch in Ely, at Hotel Nevada which was built in 1929 & at that time it was the tallest building in the state. Lots of eclectic decor!
We overnighted in Boise, tucked in with 20 semis at a truck stop, then off to Cabelas for a bunch of fishing gear for next winter.
Through Oregan we drove thru forests & snow along the ditches & then spent 3 nights at a Pilot truck stop & RV park in Stanfield. From there we headed west to Hood River for our much awaited kayak purchase! The drive there was through the beautiful  Columbia river valley, green hills, flowers & a big group of  some type of big horn sheep.
We are now the proud owners of a tandem sit on top bright yellow kayak. Of course along with the kayak comes roof racks, a kayak rack & paddles. Cannot wait to try it out on Skaha or Vaseau lake. We were happy to find a wonderful authentic Mexican resturant close by for carnitas, but no cervesas!
Some sights through Washington - Moses Lake, 20,000 people with an international airport, a runway that#s 13,500 ft long which is one of the longest in the US. It was built to protect the Grand Coulee Dam & an atomic energy site & it#s now used by Boeing, the US military & air carriers for heavy jet testing & training. Strange to see Hercules flying low over us. Washington also provides horse corrals at it#s roadside rest stops.
North thru Washington along another secondary hiway, thru Grand Coulee then through the border. It took less than 10 minutes to get thru customs, just a small fib about purchases, didn#t claim the kayak.
It#s nice to be home, but after 1 warm day it is now quite chilly & it has snowd a bit - yucky! We are busy with yard work, cleaning & organizing the RV, setting up assorted appts & doing taxes.
Our next adventure will be heading out to Edmonton to do a bunch of renos on our condo & visit the kids.
Pictures: Joshua trees & cloudy in Nevada, hiway, Hotel Nevada, Cabelas display,our kayak,sheep, Columbia river valley, flowers x 2, Penticton & Skaha lake.

Still Living the Dream, just slower.

Buffets & Burros

It's been a fairly quiet week, but I'm doing an update before we head off into the wilds of Nevada & no WiFi. We have been enjoying the lovely weather, highs of 24-26 & sunny until today which now looks like rain. We are in Bullhead City, Arizona which is right across the river from Laughlin, Nevada. The RV park has a hot tub - guess where Robin is, and a gym which we both have actually used! It also has cable TV but we are proud to say that we have not turned on the TV that we brought even once. The TV doesn't get to come on vacation next year either.

We checked out Laughlin - we found the info magazine, figured out which casinos give you $5 free play for signing up for their player cards & those are the ones we went to. We also received 2 T-shirts & a travel mug for our efforts. I am down $18, but had some fun, Robin declined to "waste" his money. We also checked out the buffets - 3 in fact in 3 days (rather embarrasing to say). You can't go wrong for dinner buffet for $6 or lunch 2 for $8. Laughlin doesn't have quite the glitz of Vegas, but it's also not nearly so crowded.

We had a great visit with Mary & Gary, old friends from Two Hills & a longtime co-worker of mine. They are lucky enough to have a place here is Bullhead City and spend the winter here.

Today we went on a road trip to Oatman, Arizona, an old gold mining town on Route 66. It was a lovely drive through the mountains, very scenic. The town consists mainly of souvenir shops - Route 66 stuff, jewelry, native arts & crafts & lots of motorcycle stuff. Thier signature thing is that there are many wild burros who wander through the town, waiting to be fed burro food (of course also sold in most shops). They are the descendants of pack mules used in the gold rush days. The babies have a sticker on their foreheads that states "Don't feed me anything please". Very cute. They also had a "gunfight" on main street at noon - kinda hokey, but it's a fund raiser for the Shriners.

We are leaving here in the morning, headed to Vegas, but hoping to mainly bypass it - need to pick up a proper Honda roof rack so we are ready for the kayak we are buying in Hood River, Oregon. After Vegas we are heading north to Twin Falls, Idaho along state hiways but not big interstates. We have it on good authority that it's a good route. This way we get home sooner, we are at the point that home sounds good.
Getting home also means that we then get to head out to Alberta in April to see the kids!
Pictures: casino in Laughlin & the lights at night, then pics of our trip to Oatman.

Still lovin it!

Farewell to Mexico

Since our last post we travelled from San Quintin, thru huge vineyards & hilly Mexican countryside to Ensenada where we camped just above the ocean. We enjoyed our last walks along the ocean, saw dolphins & maybe a whale off shore, pelicans and an amazing sunset. We shopped at an outdoor market for veggies & fresh tortillas and at Walmart for our last really good Mexican ice cream. A trip to the fish market helped fill our freezer with shrimp & fish & ourselves with more seafood.

We stashed our "extra" booze (not that much really) & ate the rest of our fruit & veggies (except for the avacados & little bananas I hid in the oven) then headed for the border at Tecate. Our last "interesting" Mexican roads & our last military checkpoint & inspection, then an uneventful crossing. A ways down the hiway we could actually see the high fence separating the US & Mexico. We caught a glimpse of snow in the ditch at 3800 ft, hopefully it's the last snow we will see this winter.

We stopped in Blythe for a nice visit with a couple from Oliver who winter there.
We had to check out Quartzsite, even though the main season is over. We missed the million people who go there for the swap meets & gem shows - glad we did. There are shops & tents all over town selling everything from rocks & gem stones to clothing to RV supplies & much more! Needs to be seen to be believed! Probably the strangest thing we saw was at the Oasis Bookstore - the owner Paul only wears a G-string.  A friendly normal kind of guy, but.....

We made a quick day trip back to Yuma for a few things for the RV - found some great deals, including 2 salt water fishing rods & reels. Still looking for the kayak. While we were in Yuma we crossed into Mexico at Algodones to return our tourist cards (supposed to do, but no where to park in Tecate). Of course we had to have more tacos & beer.

We did get a couple estimates for solar for the RV, but they were a lot more than we expected, so we are rethinking it for a bit.

We are currently in Bullhead City, Arizona to visit some old friends from Two Hills ( & probably hit a casino across the river in Laughlin, Nevada.)

The roads are better, the desert is greener with flowers blooming & now we are like the horse on the way to the barn - in a hurry to be home.
Pictures: Mexican countryside, our sign we had made,fish market in Ensanada,  last Mexican  sunset, area of huge rocks,  camping at Quartzsite on BLM land (where you can stay 14 days for free), vineyards & olive trees, Arizona countryside, our last Mexcian campsite right above the ocean, Robin's carving - spirit wood canes - pretty good! Oasis Books- the guy with the G-string.

Still Living the Dream!