Back "Home" in Pahrump

Hello again readers. Our last chapter concluded on Monday, September 23^rd when we finally arrived back in our home of record, Pahrump, Nevada. We checked in at the Wine Ridge RV Resort, formerly a Western Horizons park, now a private resort that still gives deep discounts to WHR members. We got a very nice spot facing the mountains and away from the afternoon sun and got ourselves set up for a two week stay. Other than Jackie making a quick run to the UPS store to pick up the last three weeks worth of mail we stayed in the coach the remainder of the day.

Tuesday, September 24^th, we left the coach about noon and headed southeast, over the mountain to Las Vegas. I had an appointment with an ophthalmologist to have my eyes looked at. A few weeks ago I had developed some major floaters, the little objects that appear to be in front of your eye, but are actually stuff floating around inside the fluid in the eyeball. A few little black floaters from time to time are normal, but I had developed some very large misty looking ones that were like spiderwebs or jellyfish. When they settled in the line of vision they would actually blur the vision. I only had them in my right eye. When I did some web research it was mentioned that these can sometimes be caused by tears in the retina or when the retina pulls away, or detaches, from the back of the eye. Both of these are serious problems.

It was a 120 mile round trip journey, but there didn't appear to be any ophthalmologists in Pahrump that didn't just specialize in laser eye surgeries like Lasik, so I had to go to Vegas. The appointment was almost two hours, but I got a very good examination and a finding from the doctor that my eyes were in pretty good shape. There were no issues with the retina of either eye, which was what I was really concerned about. He said the floaters were do to a contraction of the viscera of the eye, which is what sometimes causes the retina to detach. The retina sticks to the viscera and gets pulled away. In my case the viscera just shrunk up a little, mostly from aging, and the floaters were the result. He said they should clear up with time and that I can expect the same thing in my other eye within a year or two. Oh, goody. At least there is nothing seriously wrong and I don't have any follow up necessary.

Before we went into the doctor's office we stopped and picked up a couple of geocaches nearby so we would have our cache of the day. Once we were done with the doctor we headed back over the hill, getting back to the coach about 6:00. We had dinner and watched TV the rest of the night.

Wednesday, September 25^th, we did basically a repeat of yesterday, this time going into Las Vegas so Jackie could see a gastroenterologist about her continuing stomach pains. Regular readers will recall that she had a bunch of tests a couple of months ago when we were in Oregon which didn't find any problems, but didn't offer any answers either. Like yesterday, we stopped and picked up a couple of caches before going into the doctor. Jackie was in with the doctor for about an hour and when she came out she said that she was scheduled for an endoscopy on this coming Friday. This is the procedure where they go into the throat, stomach and upper intestine with a scope. This is pretty much the last test as far as determining if there is anything serious going on. She did say that the doctor ventured an educated guess that the test would be negative and that her pain was most likely due to chronic constipation, a problem with which she does struggle frequently. After she was done with the doctor we stopped for fuel and then went back over the hill to Pahrump and the coach, where we stayed for the rest of the day.

Thursday we finally had a day off from the doctors. We went out after lunch and spent a couple of hours driving around Pahrump, visiting the ten geocaches that we have hidden in town. We wanted to go to each one and check to see the container was OK and put new logs in as necessary. This owner maintenance is one of the responsibilities of the cache owner when they put a cache out. We had to repair or replace a couple of containers and we had to relocate one cache because the hiding spot, under some Joshua Trees, had been compromised when the plants died. We also found four other geocaches, thus keeping our caching streak going. After caching we made a Walmart run and did a couple of other errands before heading back to the coach. We did some pork ribs on the BBQ for dinner and then relaxed with the TV the rest of the night.

Friday, September 27^th, we were up, showered, dressed and on the road for Las Vegas again by 8:30. Today is the day that Jackie is to have her endoscopy, one of the last diagnostic tests left for doctors to try to figure out her chronic stomach pains. We got to the doctor and they took her in while I waited. The procedure is done under anesthesia, so they require someone to be around to drive when she is done, although I would have been there anyway.

She was in for about two hours and when they called me back she was completely awake, dressed and feeling pretty good. She said the doctor's preliminary finding was there was nothing special to find. They did take some biopsies from various parts of the upper GI tract which need to be analyzed, but nothing stood out according to the doctor. She has a final followup with the doctor in two weeks.

After she was done with the doctor we stopped at Denny's for breakfast. She had not been able to have coffee or anything to eat since yesterday afternoon, so she was ready for a breakfast. After we ate we headed back over the hill, stopping to pick up a geocache for our consecutive caching days challenge. Once we got back to the coach we relaxed the rest of the day. Neither of us had slept well the night before, so we were a little tired. I did spent a couple of hours working on containers for new geocaches that we plan to put out in the Pahrump Valley. We put out ten caches in the area a couple years ago and want to put at least eight or ten new ones this trip.

Saturday, September 28^th, we left the RV park right after lunch and drove to the county fairgrounds for Parump's annual Fall Festival. It is sort of small county fair with a carnival, a lot of craft and information booths, and a few animals. They don't charge anything to get in unless you want to ride some of the carnival rides. I have a personal rule that I don't EVER ride anything that some stoner with the IQ of mayonnaise put together overnight. We spent a couple of hours walking around, looking at the various booths and some of the arts and crafts items.

We also met one of the local caching couples there, Nancy and John Bingel. They have looked after some of our caches when we are not in the area and we have communicated by email. They wanted to get together with us while we were here and Jackie gave them a call. When she said we were going to the fair, they said they were too, so we would see them there. They also introduced us to some other people that they have just gotten into the hobby. We had a nice talk with them and will probably get together for lunch or something later next week.

After we were done walking around the fair we stopped at the Pahrump Nugget Casino, our first gaming experience since we arrived in Pahrump. We were there for about an hour and Jackie was down about $30 and I left $28 ahead, so it was almost a wash and we had fun. After the casino we went out and did some local caches. We were able to find a half dozen in about an hour. One of the caches was rated a 5 difficulty by the owner, the highest rating possible. It was well hidden, but I found it in about two minutes of looking. It was hidden in the bark of a big tree in the middle of a small park. The tree's bark had huge crevasse and the cache was a test tube sized container cammo'd and stuck down behind the bark. Very clever and only the second 5 difficulty cache we have found. Yea us! After caching we went back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the evening. I made a big pot of chili for dinner.

Sunday, September 29^th, we left the park after lunch and went out to scout locations for our new geocaches. I had a dozen new containers ready to hide. The process for putting out a new cache is that you first have to go out and find a good location for the type of hide you are placing. The rules of the game are that a new cache cannot be placed within 528 feet of an existing cache, that's a tenth of a mile. Once you find the place and determine, by looking at cache maps on the web, that it is not too close to another cache, you hide the cache. Then you have to take your GPS device and determine the coordinates of the hiding place. We use both of our GPS receivers as well as Jackie's phone to ensure that we get reasonably accurate GPS readings.

Now the cache is hidden, but no one knows about it. You have to go back to your computer and register the cache with geocaching.com, the controlling entity for the sport. You fill out an online form in which you write the name and description of the cache, any hints, the GPS coordinates, and the difficulty ratings, both terrain and difficulty in finding. Once you have everything completed you submit it to the website which then sends it out to a volunteer reviewer. The reviewers responsibility is to double check to make sure the distance requirement is met, as well as checking the description to make sure it is in good taste. If everything checks out, the reviewer will then approve the cache and it will be released, or published by geocaching.com and everyone in the caching community will become aware of it's existence.

We wandered around Pahrump for about three hours and ended up placing eight caches. It takes a while to find the right spot, check to be sure that it meets the location criteria, and then write down the coordinates and other information needed to do a good write up of the cache later. We have some really great caches, some simple ones and some fun ones too. One is a big, black plastic rat that has a log container hidden inside his belly. We hid that one inside some wooden debris near an old building site just off the main highway. We have found a couple of these types of caches over the years in various locations and they are always fun. A couple of the caches are cammo'd pouches that are stuck into one of the big cracks you sometimes find in telephone poles. They can be very hard to see for the inexperienced cacher. We also did a couple that were basic hides, under a bush, under one of the Welcome to Pahrump signs, that kind of thing.

After we finished hiding the eight caches we went out and did some geocaching for our own numbers. We got seven new finds in less than an hour and then went back to the coach. I spent an hour or so working on writing up some of the caches we hid, getting three finished and submitted for review. After that we had dinner and watched TV the rest of the night.

Monday, September 30^th, we left the park about noon and met our friends Don and Phyllis Deal for lunch. Phyllis used to be the manager of Wine Ridge, the RV park we are staying at. She was the manager when it was part of the Western Horizons group, and stayed on for a couple years after it sold to a private party. Don also worked there for a while as the maintenance manager. Don and Phyllis do own an RV, but they also have a house her in Pahrump and have lived here for about seven years. Phyllis and Don left the park this year and are, at least for now, fully retired. We got to know them well over the last couple years as a result of our visits here and the fact that they also have karaoke equipment and love to do karaoke shows.

We went to a little place called Irene's Casino, a very small little local casino that has a pretty good restaurant. They recommended it and said they come here at least once a week for breakfast. The food and service was pretty good. We had a great time visiting with Don and Phyllis and catching up since we saw them last year. She does follow our blog and they are on Facebook too, so we have been in touch most of the year.

After lunch we went out to do some geocaching and found eleven in a little over an hour. We went back to the coach for a while, then left again about 4:15 to take Jackie to the local chiropractor. She has been really stiff and sore for several months, so she decided she needed an adjustment. Apparently she did because the chiropractor told her to come back again on Wednesday. After her appointment we headed back to the coach. We were going to play Texas Hold'em at the clubhouse tonight, but we didn't get back until after the starting time, so we decided to just stay in and watch TV for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, October 1^st, wow, already into the first “official” fall month. We left the coach about 1:00 and went out to do some geocaching. Our first cache find for the day gave us the milestone of 100 consecutive days with at least one geocache find! Yea us! We plan on continuing as long as possible, but we were really striving to hit the 100 mark. We continued to cache and ended up with 20 new finds for the afternoon, in about two hours or so. They were all pretty easy finds, all of them set out by some cachers that we know here in Pahrump.

After caching we did a quick run to pick up our mail and stop at Walmart. We then went back to the coach for the rest of the day. I did take time to go down to the hot tub and soak for a while. I went to the new pool area, just completed this past year, and it was great. Very relaxing views of the mountains and a very nice pool complex. Too bad I was the only one there using it. I guess it is still too hot for most people, but I am a desert rat, so this is nice weather for me.

Wednesday was laundry day again. We went out after lunch and did our clothes, which took a couple of hours. After laundry we did a little geocaching, finding five new caches.  The desert around Pahrump is desert tortoise habitat.  The picture is of one of the signs out on one of the gravel roads that run up into the mountains.  Then it was time to take Jackie back to the chiropractor for another treatment. This one only took about 20 minutes, after which we headed back to the coach. We had a quick dinner and went down to the clubhouse at a little before six for Texas Hold'em. This was the normal, $5 buy-in, low stakes two hour game that most RV parks play. I didn't have a good night, only winning a half a pot. Jackie did OK early on, but lost in the later play. She was down a dollar, I was down seven. Not a good night for poker. After cards we went back to the coach and watched TV until bedtime.

T^rd, we spent most of the day in the coach. About 2:00 I loaded up all of the karaoke equipment and went down to the clubhouse to set up. We had agreed when we checked into the park to do karaoke tonight. After I got everything setup and working I went back to the coach. About the time I got finished Jackie's girlfriend Helen arrived for her visit. Helen and Jackie have been friends since the 60's. At that time she lived in the Torrance, California area as did Jackie. Helen got married and moved back to her native Massachusetts in the 80's, but they are still close friends. Helen has been in California for a family wedding and her original plan was to go to Las Vegas for a week after the wedding. When she learned that we were going to be in Pahrump during her time out west she altered her plans to be able to come see us for a couple of days. She rented a car in Torrance and drove out here today. She will be with us for two nights, then drive down to Las Vegas and meet one of her friends from Massachusetts who is flying out on Saturday.
hursday, October 3

We talked and visited with Helen and also took her out to find a geocache with us. We are still trying to get at least one a day and we went out and found two. Helen even found the second cache before we spotted it, and she has never cached. I left the coach a little after 5:00 to go down and start karaoke. We had hoped for a big crowd, however even a half hour after we started we only had four people. By the time the night was over we had probably ten people, but only a couple of singers. There were two little preschool girls there with their parents and I put on a number of kids songs for them to sing. They really had a great time. The older one, who looked about five, didn't want to sing at first. After a couple songs she wanted to do all the singing. Helen and Jackie came down about 6:30 or so and we ran the music until 9:00 when I closed up the party and went back to the coach. It was a fun night, even with the small crowd.

Friday, October 4^th, we left the coach after lunch to take Helen on a small tour of the area, she has never been to Pahrump before. We first took her straight south from the RV park to the two brothels that are located on the far south end of the valley, within a couple miles of the California border. There was a motorcycle club that was having a rally at Sheri's Ranch, which is the brothel that has the coffee shop and will do tours. We took the tour a couple years ago. The group was called “Leatherheads” and they were all southern California firefighters. They had about a hundred people there and looked like they were having a good time.

On way back up towards town we stopped and picked up one geocache so we would have our cache of the day. We went back to the chiropractor so Jackie could get another adjustment. She will keep getting adjusted for as long as Medicare continues to pay. When Jackie was done the three of us stopped and picked up our mail, so Helen could see where we “live.” We then went on to the Elks Lodge. This was the first time we have visited the lodge, which is now our home lodge, since we've been here. They have some slot machines in the bar so we played for a while, but none of us won anything.

After we had a couple of drinks at the Elks we went to one of the big casinos in town, Gold Town. I played a couple of poker machines and wasn't having any luck at all. I was wandering around the casino and spotted an interesting looking penny machine that looked like it might be fun to play to just kill some time. Within about ten minutes I had hit a super bonus round and ended up cashing out over $300. Yea! Jackie won $100, but Helen wasn't having much luck winning. About 6:00 we moved across the street to the Golden Nugget and had dinner in their dining room. After dinner we gamed for a little while and I found another of the same type of machine I had won on across the street, put in a twenty and again cashed out $100 just a few minutes later. My new favorite type of machine I think. We gamed until about 8:30 when we headed back to the coach. We stayed up until about 11:00 talking before finally heading for bed.

Saturday, October 5^th, the three of us walked down to the clubhouse and the winery about 10:00 for the annual Pahrump Grape Stomp. Located on the same property as the RV resort, and built at the same time, is the Pahrump Winery, one of two wineries in the Pahrump Valley. They also have a couple acres of wine grapes under cultivation right next to the winery. I don't know how long they have been having the Grape Stomp Festival, but it has been at least three years. For the most part it is a street fair type event, with lots of booths and entertainment, but the centerpiece is the grape stomping competition. They feature two person teams, one stomping, one pushing the grapes around in the barrel half, and the team stomps for two minutes. After two minutes they measure the amount of juice created. This goes on for two days. This year they have almost two hundred teams signed up and the event has become a major tourist attraction for the Valley.

We wandered around, looking at stuff in the booths, and checking out the grape stomping, for a couple of hours. We also had lunch down there as there were a couple of local restaurants that set up food booths. Finally about 12:30 or so we walked back up to the coach and Helen packed up and left for the rest of her trip in Las Vegas and Laughlin. We had a great time with her and were really glad she could work it out to come visit for a couple of days.

After Helen left we went out and got our cache of the day and then went back to the festival to spend a little more time walking around looking at stuff. Once we finished the festival we went back to the coach and relaxed for the afternoon. About 6:00 or so we went down to the clubhouse to listen to a live band that the RV resort had playing by one of the swimming pools. The lead singer, Lynn, works at the resort and also sang a couple of songs the other night at karaoke. The band was really good, but after about 90 minutes we got cold and decided to go back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Sunday, October 6^th, we left the coach about noon, after lunch, and made another brief trip through the Grape Stomp. We had to pick up a little trinket we had bought yesterday, a wooden toy truck, because we had asked the guy who made them to modify it for us to use as a geocache. After the Stomp we went out to do some caching. We were able to find 20 new caches in a couple of hours. It wasn't exactly a power trail, each cache required a little walking and searching, but they were all in a line along a road, about 600 feet apart. We quit when we got to 20, even though there were a lot more in the series', and then went to Walmart for some things. We then went to the coach and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Monday was another travel day. This time we had to move a whole three miles, from the Wine Ridge RV Resort to the Preferred RV Resort closer to what passes for downtown in Pahrump. We are moving to Preferred because we are attending a rally of one of our FMCA Chapters, the Beat The Odds Chapter. We joined this chapter earlier this year because we learned they were going to be holding this rally in Pahrump about the time we are usually here. This chapter only has two rallies a year, one in Laughlin in the spring and one in Pahrump in the fall. We were out of Wine Ridge about 11:00 and completely parked and setup in Preferred by 12:30. Unfortunately, the amount of work involved in taking down and setting up the coach is the same whether you drive 2 miles or 200, but at least I'm not tired from driving.

After we got set up we went out and got some geocaches, a total of four, and Jackie went into town to visit with the Humana representative to see if she should change her Medicare prescription plan. They weren't very helpful, just gave her a book and told her to look up her prescriptions and see what worked best for her. When she came home she cooked the dish for tonight's potluck with the rally group.

Around 4:00 we went down to the clubhouse for the potluck. This is a fairly big rally for a small chapter, with what appears to be about 30 or 35 rigs in attendance. There was certainly a lot of good food. The people were very welcoming and we had an interesting group of people at our table to talk to. There were even a couple of people we had met before at other FMCA rallies. Most FMCA members belong to multiple chapters as well as attend the big FMCA rallies, so chances are good that we will have crossed paths with at least some of the folks. The potluck was over about 5:30 and we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, October 8^th, we had to be up and out of the coach before 9:00 so we could get to the Pahrump Nugget Casino for the rally's slot tournament. This is kind of the centerpiece for this Chapter's rally and the entry fee was $50 a person, meaning there would likely be some pretty nice payouts available. My play time was 9:00 and then again at 1:00. Jackie's was 9:15 and 1:15. The Nugget had set aside nine tournament slots for the group and the casino's employees were running the tournament. The format was to play for five minutes, whacking the spin key as quickly as possible to run up points. The highest payout on the machine was red, gold and blue sevens, in that order, which paid 10,000 credits. Jackie's first run was about 3,000 and then another couple thousand on the second run. My first run was mediocre at best, hitting about 2,000 or so, the second five minute run I got almost 1,000. There were 69 participants in the tournament, and there were a number of 10,000 hits during the morning session.

After the morning session of the slot tournament we did some gaming and then had lunch at the casino across the street. We had enough points on our player's cards that lunch was “free.” After lunch we went back to the Nugget for the second run at the machines. This time, in our first five minute sessions, both Jackie and I hit the 10,000 credit jackpots. Yea! By the time we were done I had about 16,000 credits and Jackie had about 18,000. We didn't think we would be in the running for any of the prizes. After the slot tournament was over we went out and got a geocache and also checked on a couple of ours that had recent DNFs. The caches were where they were supposed to be, so I guess the cachers just missed them. Jackie had a chiropractor appointment at 3:30, but other than that we just stayed in the coach for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, October 9^th, I was up and out of the coach at a little after 7:00 a.m. to go and shoot my qualification for my concealed weapons permit. As a retired law enforcement officer I have a Federal permit that exempts me from all State laws with regard to carrying concealed weapons. However, the law requires an annual re-qualification shoot, which I always get done up here in Pahrump since Nye County is the one that has issued my permit. When we first got here I called the guy who has done my qual shoot for the last five years, but he said that the Sheriff's Office changed some rules and he was unsure if he was still a certified instructor as required by the law. I finally heard from him the other day and he told everything was good and he could do my shoot. I drove out to the desert, did my shoot and was headed back to town by about 8:00. I stopped and picked up a geocache on the way back, just so we wouldn't have to hurry about to find one later. The weather was predicting rain, and we didn't want to take a chance on having to cache in the rain to keep our consecutive days streak alive.

Later on in the morning I went over to the Sheriff's Office, turned in my paperwork and got my new permit issued, now good for another year. After lunch we went over to the clubhouse in the resort to play Bunco with the rally group. Neither Jackie nor I have played Bunco in over 30 years, but it is a pretty simple game to play and was a lot of fun. We played four rounds in a couple of hours. I had two Buncos, Jackie had one, and both of us were in the middle of the pack as far as games won. Bottom line, neither of us were going to win any of the Bunco prizes. The most Buncos was five and the the most wins was 17 of 24, pretty high numbers.

After Bunco we stopped at the coach of some friends of ours, Pat and Howie Bates, who we learned are staying the week at the resort too. They were not here for the rally, just happened to be here. Howie was the most recent Past President of the Full Timers Chapter, of which I am now the President. We cross paths with them from time to time and also see them at a lot of rallies. We knew we were going to be close to them in a couple of weeks when we get down to the Phoenix area – they have a home in Surprise, Arizona, however, we didn't expect to see them here. We talked with them for a while and made plans to meet for dinner tomorrow. Howie also gave me a lot of the Full Timers Chapter stuff that is the responsibility of the President to maintain. Oh yea, more stuff to store in the coach.

We then went back to our coach, relaxed for a while, then changed clothes and headed over to the Nugget Casino again for the rally's banquet. The first hour was cocktails and we had a good time visiting with our new friends from the Beat the Odds Chapter. Dinner was served at 6:00 and I have to say it was very good, some of the best banquet food I have had. After dinner they had the prize presentations and Jackie and I were both surprised to get $50 prizes for the slot tournament. It seems that rather than give out really big prizes, like two or three thousand dollars for first and second, they give a $750 first prize, a $500 second prize, and a $250 third prized. They then go deep into the finish order and give out fifteen $100 prizes and fifteen $50 prizes. They find this makes a lot more people happy. Jackie and I basically got our entry fee back, which is OK. It turned out Jackie's score was high enough that it was the last $50 award before they went to $100. Missed it by “that much.”

After dinner we stayed in the casino and played until about 9:30 when we went back to the coach for the night. We had a really good rally, the banquet was the final activity, and will probably plan to be here again next year for the rally.

Thursday, October 10^th, the rally was over and we had a day pretty much to ourselves. We didn't go out until just before 2:00 when I took Jackie and dropped her off for her final chiropractor appointment. While she was doing that, I went and picked up our mail, did some grocery shopping and a couple of other errands. After I picked Jackie up we went out and got one geocache to keep our streak alive and then went back to the coach.

At 4:30 Pat and Howie Bates came over to the coach for dinner. We had some cocktails first and chatted while Jackie cooked her chili relleno casserole. We ate about 7:00 or so and dinner was great. After dinner we talked until Pat and Howie left about 8:30. We will see them again in a few weeks when we are down in the Phoenix area. They have a house in Sun City on the west side of town, only a couple miles from the park we will be staying in. After the Bates' left we watched TV until bedtime.

This was our last full day in Pahrump. Tomorrow morning we pack up and head over the hill to Las Vegas for a few days and then on to points in Arizona. It has been all bit over two weeks since we last published, so this marks a good point to close out this chapter of the blog and get it online. Until the next time, remember, Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused. See ya next time.