through the visitor's center then spent the afternoon driving around National Park. Very impressive - I certainly wouldn't want to break-down on some of the back roads we were on. Of course, we had to stop at the lowest spot in the continental United States and get the obligatory photo! We may come back here during the Death Valley Days Encampment for a day, but not to camp. The Death Valley desert makes the desert around Quartzite look like Manhattan.The weekend of October 19th our good friends Barry and Colleen came up from Indio to visit. They drove their car rather than their motorhome since they were only going to be here two nights. They stayed with us and we had a great time. Went out to eat one night, had a BBQ the second night. Barry loves to do karaoke
with Roy so they spent hours in the back of the coach singing.That Sunday we had to move the coach from the Western Horizons park (Charleston Peak) to another park in Pahrump. We were only able to stay in Charleston Peak for two weeks, then we have to be out for one week. We moved over to an ownership Park called Seibt's Desert Retreat. It is located about six miles north of Pahrump on Highway 160. It was a fairly nice resort, but the spots were kind of small for individually owned sites. The resort has a spectacular clubhouse with a fully equipped spa, restaurant and bar. The restaurant and bar are not regularly open until after the first of the year when the real snowbird season starts. The rates for the resort are very reasonable so for that reason I would recommend it for a short stay, week or two perhaps, for anyone passing through the Pahrump Valley looking for place to stay.
On Wednesday, the 24th we took a drive into Vegas, about 60 miles one way. Jackie's brother Dennis was in town so we went in and had lunch with him at Caesar's Palace. Had a nice visit with him, then went downtown to say hi to my brother Russ who is a floor manager at the
Golden Nugget. Did a little gaming then drove on back to Pahrump. We did see a glorious sunset as we came over the mountain into the Pahrump Valley. The smoke from the California fires was blowing into our area and it made for a golden sunset. The next couple days were really bad with the smoke. You couldn't see the mountains at all. It finally cleared up on the weekend.We can certainly empathize with the people dealing with the wildfires because it was exactly one year ago Saturday that we were trapped at Silent Valley, near Banning, in the Esperanza fire. That was a very worrisome time, something I don't want to have to deal with again.
On Saturday, the 27th we went up to Beatty, Nevada for the Beatty Days celebration. Beatty is an old mining town located on Highway 95 about 60 miles north of Pahrump. The population is about 1,500 and the town is in the middle of nowhere. They had a great little celebration in the
park with food booths, games, and crafts and other vendors. They also had bed races down the middle of the street. When given the signal to go, the team had to make the bed up with full linens, then one person would get on the bed as the "driver" (although most had no functional steering) and the other five would push and pull the bed down the street. When they got to the end of the block they had to change "drivers" and then race back to the starting line. The race course was two city blocks long, so they were racing a total of four blocks. Most of the teams were pretty whipped by the time they finished the run.They also had mock gunfights in the street as well as a car show and motorcycle show. All in all it was a pretty good time for a small town in the desert. There were several hundred motorcycle folks there, mostly from the Vegas area who rode up for the day. Ran into a bunch called the Marine Riders who were all former Marines and members of the Vegas Marine Corps League.
On Sunday the 28th of October we moved back over to Charleston Peak RV Resort for another two week stay. We were going to leave Pahrump on the 11th of November, however, we found out that we need to be at the Pahrump Elks Lodge on the 13th for the meeting so we can be introduced to the Lodge as new members. We applied for a transfer from the Indio Lodge to the Pahrump Lodge so that we could keep all of our resident eggs in one basket. The dues for the Pahrump Lodge are also lower than those at Indio and since both Jackie and I are Elks, the level of the annual dues is an important issue. Anyway, when our two weeks at Charleston Peak are up we are going over to another Pahrump RV resort called Preferred. We will be there three nights. It is located right in the middle of town, behind one of the casinos, and is said to be a very nice resort.
We'll probably next update the blog when we move from Nevada down to Casa Grande, Arizona in mid-November. Unless something interesting happens before then, we'll talk to you in a couple weeks!
