Balloons, Balloons, and More Balloons!

Welcome back friends. Our last chapter ended on Tuesday, September 28th, with our arrival at the Needles Elks Lodge after a long, hot drive from Pahrump. Later in the afternoon we went into the lodge for a cocktail and chatted with the bartender for a while. We were able to get a lodge pin for our banner, our first new lodge pin in a while. We didn’t go out and explore Needles because it was too hot and we just wanted to stay in and relax. This was a one night stay because we are headed for Albuquerque, New Mexico for the Balloon Fiesta and have to be there by Sunday.

Wednesday, September 29th we got up and out early, about 9:00 a.m. for our 170 mile drive from Needles, California to Williams, Arizona. Again I spent most of the trip watching the temperature gauge to be sure we didn’t overheat. We went from about 500 feet elevation in Needles to nearly 6,800 feet in Williams. Although there were only a couple of steep grades, the entire trip was uphill so the coach was working pretty hard and the outside temperature was still in the 90's. We did arrive in Williams about 1:00 p.m. without any overheating problems and got settled into the RV park there. Since the temperature in Williams was only in the high 80's we decided to go out and do some geocaching. We were able to find nine caches in only a couple of hours. On one find we got yelled at by a security guy for being on the private property of the Grand Canyon Railroad, but we had already found the cache so we said we were sorry and were leaving. Our bad. After caching we went back to the coach for the night.

Thursday, September 30th, was yet another travel day. We left around 9:30 a.m. and started a 130 mile trek East on I-40 from Williams, Arizona to Holbrook, Arizona. We stayed at a Passport America RV park there called the Root 66 RV Park. (Not misspelled, that’s what they call it) We had full hookups with 50 amps and a level site, but it was literally in the middle of nowhere about ten miles East of Holbrook. It looked like an old motel that went bust and they put in a bunch of RV spots around the buildings. Pretty rustic, but quiet. After getting settled in we went out to do some caching. There were only six geocaches in the entire town and we were able to get to five of them in just a couple of hours. We skipped one because it was out in the middle of the desert and we didn’t feel like going out there in the heat. While caching we ran across a classic old Route 66 motel where the rooms were Tee Pees. There were vintage cars parked in front of each one. Very cool. After caching we visited the Holbrook Elks Lodge. The lodge is stuck back next to the railroad tracks almost under a freeway bridge, but the inside was nice. We chatted with the bartender for a while and then another couple came in and sat at the bar. After talking with them we learned that they were from California, near Sacramento, and were also heading for the balloon festival in Albuquerque. We also discovered that they had been parked right next to us at the Needles Elks Lodge on Tuesday night. We also got our lodge pin since we had never been to the Holbrook Lodge before. After a couple of drinks we headed home for dinner and stayed in the rest of the night.

Friday, October 1st we left Holbrook about 10:00 a.m. We didn’t have to leave real early because the trip East to Gallup was only about 85 miles and the weather was going to be in the 80's. We arrived at the USA RV Park in Gallup about noon. We would have been even earlier, but we stopped to fill up with fuel so we could go into the balloon festival with a nearly full tank. We will be dry camping and using the generator, so having sufficient fuel is important. We had stayed here at the USA RV Park last March after the FMCA rally in Albuquerque. It is a very nice, large park that is very well kept. The only issue is that it is right across the street from the main rail line, so there are trains going through all the time. After we got settled in and had lunch we went out to do our shopping. We went the local mall for a while and then to Walmart. We learned a valuable lesson at Walmart. Gallup is at the edge of the Navajo Indian Reservation and government checks come out on the first of the month. It had to be the busiest Walmart I have ever seen. Not only was the place packed, but people were stocking up in huge quantities. Costco and Sam’s Club are missing the boat by not building a big box store in one of these reservation towns. Although it was crowded and irritating to try to get around, it was kind of nice to hear all of the conversations in Navajo. It is a very lyrical, musical language that is pleasant to listen to. After our shopping we spent the rest of the day at the coach.

Saturday, October 2nd we finally got to sleep in as we were staying in Gallup for two nights, so this was not a travel day for a change. After lunch we went out to do some geocaching in Gallup. There were only seven caches in the immediate area - apparently there is not a big caching community here. We did manage to find all seven caches within a couple of hours. After caching we went to the Gallup Elks Lodge. The Lodge is located on the North end of town, way up on a bluff which overlooks a golf course and the mountains, The bar is all windows and looks out over this view. It is a very nice lodge. We chatted with the bartender and one of the patrons, who turned out to be the secretary of the Lodge. We have never been to this lodge, so we made sure we got our lodge pin as well. As is the case with many lodges, we bought one drink and the lodge bought our second. We enjoyed our visit. After the Elks we headed back to the coach for the night.

Sunday was another travel day. We were continuing East on I-40 to Albuquerque, about 135 miles. We left about 9:30 and got into the American RV Park on the West side of Albuquerque about noon. We checked in, got set up and had lunch before going out to find our friends. We had known that our friends from Indio, Bill and Lynette, were at the American RV Park, but we were surprised to run into Lynette in the office doing laundry when we checked in. They had been at the park since Friday and were also there for the Balloon Festival. For those that are not familiar, the Albuquerque Balloon Festival is an annual event that runs for ten days. However, it is split into two “sessions”, one the first five days, the second over the second five days. They do a very similar schedule for each of the two sessions and don’t have too much going on for Tuesday and Wednesday, which are the days when people from the first session leave and people for the second session arrive. Bill and Lynette had come for the first session, but they were not staying at the Balloon Festival grounds like we were going to be. They stayed at the RV park, which is about ten miles from the grounds. They had to get up at four in the morning to be able to catch a bus, which took two hours to get to the grounds. Then they had to wait for the bus and wait in traffic to get back. They told us they were very disappointed in the Festival. With that type of schedule, I am not surprised. They said they would be leaving the next day, Monday.

After we visited with Bill and Lynette we got together with our friends Gary and Ramona Wilson, whom we had talked into coming to the rally. They were also parked at American RV Park, just around the corner from our coach. We had some cocktails and then all went out to dinner at a local Mexican Restaurant. The food was pretty good and we had a good time catching up with Gary and Ramona, who we had last seen at the FMCA Rally in Redmond back in August. After dinner we went back to the coach and relaxed.

Monday, September 4th we went out after lunch on a Costco run to get some more Absolute. Gary and Ramona went with us as they needed some stuff too. After we got back to the coach we met up with Rocky and Peggy Rahkola, the assistant Wagon Masters for our rally group, which is from Monaco International, one of our FMCA Chapters. Rocky and Peggy were parked just a couple of coaches down from us. Jackie had volunteered to help with the cooking, so we wanted to get together with them to find out what the schedules and menus would be. We also expected to meet up with Dave and Kay Piper, the Wagon Masters, who were also supposed to be at the RV Park. However, they had some trouble with their coach in Prescott, Arizona and were running late. Rocky said they were expected to arrive late that evening. Peggy gave Jackie a bag full of Velveeta and other stuff for the queso dip and cream cheese dip that she is supposed to prepare for each of the evening happy hours at the rally. We also learned that the Wagon Masters wanted us to come into the Balloon Festival grounds with them on Tuesday, one day before the rest of the group arrives. They considered us staff for the rally and wanted me to help with parking on Wednesday.

We had reservations at the American RV park for three days, but it wouldn’t cost us anything more to go to the rally site one day early, so we really weren’t losing anything, so we agreed to go with them on Tuesday morning. We knew we wouldn’t get a refund from the RV park, the Balloon Festival is their big money maker for the year. They charged us $65 a night with a three night minimum. The Festival draws tens of thousands of RV’s each year, so the parks really jack the rates up during the festival. The only thing we faced was one additional day of dry camping, but that still made only six days which is very easy for us to do.

After our meeting with Rocky and Peggy we made a quick run to Walmart for some supplies that we thought we could wait until Tuesday to get, and then we stopped to find two geocaches that were just down the street from the RV park. We had to get at least a couple of caches in Albuquerque and we knew that it was unlikely that we were going to get out to cache during the festival activities. We had happy hour cocktails with Gary and Ramona and then relaxed in the coach for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, September 5th we got up and prepared the coach for travel. We only had about ten miles to go from the RV park to the festival grounds, and we weren’t leaving until about 11:00, so we didn’t have to be in a big hurry. Finally, about 11:30 we left the park, following Rocky and Peggy over to the festival grounds. We got into our rally site and were set up by 12:30. We are in a gravel parking lot on the South end of the Festival grounds and are parked right on the front row of our parking area. We are the closest RV parking to the actual balloon field, which is a couple hundred yards North of us. If not for one low building a couple of big tents, we would have an unobstructed view of the launch field where all the balloons set up. In addition to us and the two wagon masters, there were three other “advance” coaches that parked on Tuesday. Since there were no evening activities scheduled for Tuesday all of us went out to the Texas Roadhouse restaurant for dinner. The food was great and we had a great time meeting all of the other people who would be helping with the rally. After dinner we went back to the festival grounds for the night.

Wednesday, September 6th we woke up at 6:00 a.m. and watched our first balloon flight. There is a normal morning schedule for the Balloon Festival which is followed each morning, weather permitting. At around 6:00 a.m., while it is still dark, they launch four balloons which are called the “Dawn Patrol”. Their purpose is to check the winds, both direction and intensity, and report those back to the officials on the ground. Hot air balloons require a little wind, but if it gets too windy they won’t fly because it is too hard to keep them upright on the ground when setting up, and too hard to control them once airborne.

At around 7:00 a.m., just at daybreak, they start the “mass ascension” which is basically as many balloons launching as possible. The actual launch field is a ninety acre grass field where the balloons set up and inflate. As balloons inflate and take off, more balloon crews take their place and set up. The result is a continuous flow of balloons for about 90 minutes. On most mornings there are about 600 balloons that fly. The normal morning winds blow from North to South, so when the balloons take off, they would fly directly over our motor home. Needless to say, we took a lot of pictures and had a wonderful time watching the balloons.



After the morning launch there is little activity around the park until the evening. Most of the balloons have landed by ten or so. After a brief meeting with the Wagon Masters we started the process of parking all of the members of our group, which started arriving about 10:30 a.m. I was one of the parking crew and we parked from 10:30 until after 3:00 p.m. We had 56 coaches attending the rally from Monaco International and we had all but about 5 parked before 2:00 p.m. We had a couple of late arrivals, and one that wasn’t coming until Thursday. By the time I got back to the coach I was dead tired and my back hurt from all the standing and walking. It was still a good time though, the parking crew was great. Plus, they gave all of us Subway sandwiches for lunch. I was lucky enough to be able to park our friends Gary and Ramona just one coach down from us on the front row. When they came in we had one front row spot left and the rally master let me put them there close to us.

At 4:30 p.m. we had the first of our rally happy hours and everyone attended. Jackie made her dips, and the wagon masters made hot dogs. There were also chips and veggies to munch on. We had a good time visiting with our friends Gary and Ramona, as well as meeting new people. After dinner we cleaned up and then just crashed for the night. We were in bed by 9:30 because we knew we would be up again at dawn the next morning.

Thursday, September 7th, we were again up at 6:00 a.m. to watch the Dawn Patrol take off. About seven the mass ascension started again. Like yesterday, the weather was perfect, 60 degrees, just enough wind and the take off’s going right over our heads. One thing I didn’t mention in yesterday’s description is an atmospheric feature they call the “Albuquerque Box”. This is one of the things that make Albuquerque a very unique place for balloon flying. With the box you have ground level winds blowing in one direction, in this case North to South, and then upper level winds, only a thousand feet or so higher, blowing almost the opposite direction. What this means if the balloons take off, fly South for a while, gain some altitude and catch the reverse wind at the higher level and fly right back over the field again. By going up and down they can do this “box” several times in one morning. It is really something to see. The box was working well this morning and we watched the balloons for about two hours.

The second session of the Festival features the “special shapes” balloons, which are the ones that have unique designs, shapes, and decorations. There are dozens of special shapes ranging from pigs to angels to monkeys to houses to you name it. We took hundreds of pictures, many of which I will post with this blog. There were also hundreds of regular balloons flying as well.

After the morning flying we relaxed for a little while until our 11:00 lunch time came around. Our entire group then car pooled to a local country club for a luncheon. The Tanoan Country Club was a very nice gated community in the foothills East of the Festival grounds. We had a cocktail first and then a very nice grilled chicken lunch. It was standard banquet fare, but it was very tasty. We had rode up to the lunch with Gary and Ramona and we sat with them along with another couple we had not met, Bob and Honey Shellman. They were a very nice couple and we had a good time getting to know them. After lunch we went back to the Festival grounds and Jackie and I took a walk over to the balloon field. Since there were no activities during the late morning and afternoon, there weren’t too many people around. Many of the vendors and food booths were also closed for the afternoon, but would open later in the evening when the activities started again. We walked around for a while and looked in some of the shops that were open, but the only thing we bought was an inexpensive visor for Jackie. Jackie did manage to score a free breakfast burrito at one of the booths. We had been told by several people that the green chili breakfast burritos served at the Festival were not to be missed. However, we found that almost all of the food vendors served them and most had signs that touted “voted best burrito” or “award winning burrito”. Finally Jackie stopped at one booth and asked the guy how we would know which one was best if they all claimed it. He said that they had a contest every year for the best green chili burrito, and he thought they had won this year, but it hadn’t been announced yet. They then gave Jackie one for free. I am sure it was left over from breakfast and they probably would have tossed it anyway, but it was a nice gesture.

After wandering around for a while we went back to the coach so Jackie could get her dips prepared. At 4:30 we had another social hour for the entire group. This time we had taquitos along with the dips and chips and other snacks. Since we had only had lunch a few hours before, it was plenty of food to serve as dinner. After dinner we gathered around the front area of our parking area to await the evening’s entertainment. On the schedule was a “balloon glow” which was to start right around sunset. A balloon glow is where they get as many balloons as will fit on the launch field, blow them up, but keep them tethered on the ground. Balloons don’t fly at night, but once they get stood upright the flames from the gas heaters cause the balloon envelope to glow quite brightly. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing too hard for the balloons to safely inflate, so the glow was cancelled. Around 7:00 they started the evening fireworks show, which was very nice. Again we took a lot of pictures. After fireworks we watched TV for a little while and then went to bed around 9:30 again.

Friday, September 8th I got up about 5:30 a.m. because there was supposed to be a launch of the gas balloon flight. Gas balloons are the very large hydrogen balloons that folks race across the country and around the world. They fly at twenty and thirty thousand feet sometimes. They are totally unlike hot air balloons. The Albuquerque Festival always serves as a starting point for a race across the U.S. that lasts three days. Unfortunately, the launch of the gas balloons had been delayed several times. They were originally supposed to launch the Saturday before we got to the Festival, but it was cancelled because the balloonist that was lost during a race in Europe was supposed to have participated and he was well known in Albuquerque. Then the start got delayed a couple of more times because the weather wouldn’t cooperate. They were supposed to launch this morning, but there were thunderstorms in the area, so it was cancelled again. Although the thunderstorms were to the West and North of the city, the morning’s launch was still delayed. Hot air balloons do not do well in thunderstorms, so they ere on the side of caution. The weather finally cleared about 7:30 a.m. and they started the mass ascension.



I decided to actually walk down on the balloon field for this launch. Jackie chose to stay at the coach and take pictures from there again. Although it was a little more windy than it had been the last two mornings, a lot of the balloons still flew. Some of the larger special shape balloons inflated but didn’t launch. I spent a couple hours on the field, walking around, taking pictures and watching the activities. The balloons are very big when you see them up close, especially some of the special shapes. They have one which is a giant cow, 120 feet long! It has blown up every morning, but never launched. It needs very low winds to fly safely.

After I got back to the coach I rested for a bit and then at 11:00 we were off to our next luncheon, this time at El Pinto Mexican Restaurant. They had set up a buffet for us and the food was very good. We all had margaritas to go with lunch. We sat with some very nice people from Southern California and had a very good
lunch. After lunch we went back to the coach to rest for the afternoon and get ready for the evening activities. Jackie got her dips ready and at 4:30 we were back out with the group at happy hour. This time the nibbles were chicken wings/legs and shrimp cocktail. We were so full from dinner that we didn’t have much. I had a couple of wings and Jackie took some home for later. After the get together we noticed that balloons were starting to pop up into sight out on the field which meant that the evening balloon glow was going to happen. This would be our first glow since the one the night before had been cancelled. We debated going down on the field to see it close up, but decided to just sit in front of the coach and watch. We could only see the balloons set up on the South end of the field, but we got some good pictures. After the balloon glow, about 8:00 or so, the fireworks started and we had another great fireworks display. We watched the fireworks and took a bunch of pictures. After that we finally went back into the coach and crashed for the night.

Saturday, October 9th we got up and got dressed so we could go down on the balloon field and watch the morning’s ascension. I had told Jackie how cool it was yesterday and she wanted to see it today. We walked down on the field about 7:00 a.m. and walked around for a couple of hours, watching them inflate the balloons and take off.



There were more balloons today than on previous mornings and I can only guess that some pilots can only fly on weekends. This was the best flying weather we have had all week, cool temperatures and very little wind. This meant that we were able to watch two of the larger special shape balloons fly for the first time since we arrived. One was Airabelle, the gigantic cow. This was the biggest balloon at the event at 120 feet long. We watched it take off a fly away. Right next to it was a huge stagecoach from Wells Fargo, which also flew for the first time. We had watched them blow these two up on previous mornings, but they didn’t fly because the wind conditions were not quite right. We took a lot of pictures, bought a breakfast burrito and went back to the coach to get cleaned up and have our breakfast burritos. Unfortunately, the one’s we bought had a lot of potato in them and were not very good. So many people had told us that the breakfast burritos at the Fiesta were great. We were a little disappointed. The one Jackie got for free the other day was full of potatoes also. I guess it’s a matter of personal taste.

For the first time since we were arrived we didn’t have a provided lunch as part of the rally. Since we had our breakfast burritos, we weren’t hungry anyway. We spent the day just relaxing at the coach until we had to start getting things ready for the evening’s happy hour. Tonight’s meal was all the leftovers from the previous nights and there was plenty. After happy hour we settled into our chairs in front of the motorhome and waited for the evening’s balloon glow. They put up a few balloons for the glow, but none of the big one’s because the wind was a little too strong. We don’t have a lot of pictures of the glow because it’s hard to get the timing right to catch the balloon as it lights up. After the glow they had another super fireworks show. All three of the fireworks shows they have put on have been great.

Sunday, October 10th was to be our departure day. Even though it was the last day, and the day everyone was supposed to leave, they still had a morning ascension scheduled and it went off as scheduled. Our wagon master had told us that if the Sunday ascension went up it would set a record for the Fiesta in that it would bethe first time in 39 years that there was no cancellation of morning flying for the entire week of the Fiesta. In the past there has always been at least one morning when weather conditions caused cancellation of the flying. We set a record! Yea us!



After the morning’s flight we started getting the coach ready to travel. The wagon master had told us not to plan on leaving much before 11:00 a.m. or so because the traffic would be too bad. However, by 10:00 we were ready to leave and there was no traffic on the roads going out of the Fiesta grounds. With this, we said goodbye to our friends Gary and Ramona, and our new friends from the rally, and headed out to I-25 for the 160 mile drive South to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. We had called ahead to ensure that we had a spot, thinking that there would be a lot of people from the Fiesta crowding the RV parks. We found that there was plenty of room at the park and we were parked way up on a hill with a great view of Truth or Consequences. We learned that the town got it’s name from the radio (and later television) show of the same name back in the 50's. The show’s host, Ralph Edwards, announced that they would broadcast the show from the first town that renamed itself after the show. Hot Springs, New Mexico did that and afterwards Edward’s visited the town with the show at least once a year for the entire time the show was on the air.

We didn’t do any exploring of the town because we just wanted to relax, but we decided we needed to come back and visit again in the future. I thought that I would have to spend the night troubleshooting an electrical problem. We lost 120 volt power to our outlets while on the road and I thought that the GFI receptacle in the bathroom had gone bad. I started to pull the GFI out of the wall after we got settled and found that a wire had come loose from the back. When I reattached it all was well. Yea!

Monday was also a travel day. We left Truth or Consequences about 10:00 a.m. and headed for Deming, New Mexico, about 80 miles Southeast. On the way we stopped in the little town of Hatch, New Mexico, which is famous for it’s chilies. We shopped at a couple of the little stores and Jackie wanted to get one of the hanging chili bunches, but the store that had the best looking one’s was being visited by a bus load of tourists so we finally just left. We arrived in Deming about noon and settled into the Little Vineyard RV park, the same place we stayed in March when we passed through Deming on our way to Albuquerque for the FMCA Convention. After lunch we did a Walmart run and then went out and did some geocaching for the first time in a week. We found five caches in a fairly short time before heading home for cocktail hour. We were going to walk around downtown and explore some shops, but there wasn’t much to Deming’s downtown. About 6:00 p.m. we headed to Irma’s Mexican restaurant for dinner. We had eaten at Irma’s with Peggy and Vernon Bullock back in March and loved it. The food was just a good this time and we left very satisfied. After dinner we relaxed at the coach for the night.

Tuesday, October 12th we left Deming about 9:30 and headed East on I-10 for St. David, Arizona. St. David is a very small town just South of Benson, Arizona. Our trip was about 170 miles, but we gained an hour back when we crossed into Arizona from New Mexico. Until the end of the month when daylight savings time ends, Arizona is on Pacific time. Arizona doesn’t participate in daylight savings time. We arrived at the Western Horizons RV Resort in St. David about 12:00 and got settled into our site fairly quickly. We were surprised to find that it was still HOT, about 98 degrees. I decided to wait until the next morning to do all the outside work like the window screens and patio stuff. We are going to be here at this park for two weeks. Yea, no more traveling for two weeks.

Our arrival here in St. David also marks the conclusion of this episode of our travel blog. We will be back in a couple weeks with the story of our stay here in Southeast Arizona. Until then, be happy and healthy and enjoy everything the world has to offer.

Home Sweet Home

Howdy friends and neighbors. Welcome back to the story of our travels. As you may recall, we arrived in Pahrump, Nevada on Tuesday, September 7th for a three week stay. Pahrump is our “home”, being the place where we get our mail and are registered to vote. After our arrival we settled into the Charleston Peak RV Resort, one of our Western Horizon membership parks.

Wednesday, September 8th we went out after lunch to do some shopping at Walmart. It has been a while since we did grocery shopping so we were out of a lot of things. After shopping we went back to the park and relaxed the rest of the afternoon. At 6:00 p.m. we went down to the clubhouse for the twice weekly Texas hold-em game. We have always played in these games and had a good time. Almost every time we have been here we play with most of the same people. There were at least four people we have played with on other trips to this resort. Jackie won $5 and I lost $5, so as a team we broke even. The buy in is only $5.25 and you play for two hours.

Thursday we woke up and began waiting for our friends Barry and Colleen Cohen to arrive. They are our best friends who live in Indio at the Motorcoach Country Club. They live in their coach full time, but rarely travel because Barry still owns and operates a transmission repair shop. They are members of Western Horizon, Charleston Peak is their home park, so they said they would drive up for a few days when they found out when we were going to be here.

About 11:00 a.m. they arrived and we had a grand reunion. We had not seen them since we left the California desert back in April. After we let them get settled in we went out to a local Mexican Restaurant for a late lunch. We all like a place here called Romero’s. The food and service are great. After lunch we went back to the coach and the girls started their normal Skipbo tournament. They can play this card game all day, every day, and never get tired. Barry and I sat outside, watched TV and talked until the sun started to creep onto the patio and made it too hot. We then went inside and watched television for a while. Later Barry and I went over to his coach and watched TV while he made some of his great spaghetti sauce. The girls played cards until about 10:30 p.m.

Friday, September 10th we went out after lunch for a visit to the Pahrump Elks Lodge. This is our home lodge, Barry belongs to the Indio Lodge. We sat at the bar and played the nickel slots, had some cocktails and talked to some of the local members. After about an hour, I hit a Royal Flush and won $200. I had done the same thing last October when Barry and Colleen came up to visit us. Within twenty minutes Jackie yelled out from the other end of the bar that she had hit a Royal too! $400 in winnings in less than an hour. Yea us! We stayed for a little while longer and then headed back to the coach. Barry and I spent a few minutes fixing one of the windshield washer outlets on our Jeep and then just sat and talked outside while the girls resumed their Skipbo challenge. About 4:00 p.m. we all went down to the park’s clubhouse for a social hour. We talked to several other guests and had a good time. This is a very social park. We then went back to our coach and had dinner, a corn beef and cabbage dinner that I had put on the stove in the morning. The corn beef was great and everyone enjoyed it. After dinner the girls resumed their perpetual card game and Barry and I went in the back of the coach and fired up the karaoke machine. Barry loves to sing, but he would never consider going out in public to do it. He will only sing when he and I do karaoke. I bought my first karaoke machine and discs back in about 2002 when we still lived in the house in Indio. Barry and I started singing then and still do anytime we get together. We sang for about three hours, until we got hoarse, and then just listened to music until the card game was done about 11:00 p.m. Everyone then headed off to bed.

Saturday, September 11th we went out for a late lunch at Tomasinno’s Italian restaurant here in Pahrump. This is a very nice place, which is actually a supper club with jazz music most nights. They are open for lunch though and have great food. The portions are huge and the food pretty tasty. The place is owned by the guy who owns the local Chrysler/Jeep dealership, which is right across the street from the restaurant. After lunch we went to the Pahrump Nugget Casino for some gaming. Again, Jackie and I were quite lucky with both of us clearing close to $100 each before we finished our gaming. Barry and Colleen broke even. We then went back to the coach for cards and conversation. Later in the evening Barry and I spent several hours looking at the pictures from my parent’s photo albums which I had recently scanned into the computer. The party finally broke up about 10:00 p.m. and we all headed to bed. Sunday morning Barry and Colleen packed up and headed back to Indio about 10:00 a.m. We will not see them again until we are back in the desert in December. We were kind of wore out from three days of partying, so we stayed in and played the rest of the day and evening.

Monday, September 13th, was a chores day. I had a lot of little repair jobs to do around the house and spent most of the day doing various tasks. We did go out after lunch to get some repair supplies at Home Depot and to run some errands, like going to the County Clerk to fill out the paperwork for our absentee ballots in November and for me to pick up the paperwork for my concealed weapons permit at the Sheriff’s Office. At 6:00 p.m. we headed down to the clubhouse for the Texas Hold’em game. Both Jackie and I were lucky tonight and both of us ended up five dollars ahead. Since the buy in is only five dollars, we both doubled our money. At this rate we will be rich in a couple hundred years.

Tuesday started out to be the day we were going to do our laundry, however, in the morning I noticed that the voltage on the chassis batteries in the coach was low. The chassis batteries are the two twelve volt batteries that start the engine and operate all the automotive accessories and lights on the coach. We also have four six volt golf cart type batteries that power all the twelve volt house lights and accessories. I did some more checking and found that the chassis batteries were dead - they wouldn’t even begin to turn over the engine to start it. I had noticed when I was doing my maintenance chores the day before that the chassis batteries had used a lot of water, which was unusual since they normally are being charged. Since they were the original batteries and well over five years old, I figured they had just wore out. I needed to get them changed before they went completely flat because then all the computers on the engine and transmission would reset which could cause problems.

I threw on some clothes and headed out to find batteries. My first two stops were two of the consumer auto parts stores in town, Checker and Auto Zone. Neither of them carried the large type of battery needed for a big diesel engine like we have in the coach. I then went to the last place, the Napa store, and he told me he had two left in stock which matched what I had in the coach. Yea! I bought the new batteries and hurried home to change them out. This was a pretty quick and easy job, except for the fact that the batteries weigh close to a hundred pounds each. I got them changed out and tested and everything was fine. I then took the old batteries back to the store and got my core charge back. Job complete, in just a couple of hours. After lunch we went and did our laundry. About 5:30 p.m. we went out to Romero’s Mexican restaurant for dinner and then headed over to the Pahrump Elks Lodge for the Lodge Meeting. We haven’t been to a Lodge Meeting in close to two years, so we figured we would make this one at our home Lodge. This evening’s meeting was also an Initiation night, where a new member would be initiated into the Elks. This meant that the meeting would be a little longer than a normal business meeting. It was also the night that the District Deputy Grand Exalted Ruler visited the Pahrump Lodge. The DD, as he is known, is the Elks official in charge of all of the lodges in a particular district of a state. In the case of Nevada there are only two Districts, South and North. Pahrump is in the South District, which includes Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Mesquite, and a couple others. The DD is supposed to visit each lodge in his district at least once during the year. It just so happens that this year’s DD was a member of the Pahrump Lodge, so it was really a homecoming rather than a visit, but he still had to do his DD duties. The DD is supposed to review the books and administration of the Lodge to ensure that everything is being done in conformance with the requirements of the Grand Lodge of Elks, the National organization. The meeting was fun, we met a few folks from our lodge and the initiation is always moving no matter how many times you sit through it. After the meeting we headed home.

Wednesday, September 15th we finally got out to do some geocaching! It has been about two weeks since we were last caching. Because we have been through Pahrump at least three times since we started geocaching, we have already found most of the easy, urban caches. There were a couple of new ones right in town, placed since we were here last October. However, most of the caches on our list were desert caches, which meant more travel time. The bottom line is that we were only able to find eight caches in our afternoon of searching, BUT - the last cache we found was number 1,800! We finally hit our next milestone. After caching we headed back to the coach to relax for a little bit before heading down to the clubhouse for Texas Hold’em. We didn’t do quite as good this night as we did on Monday, but both of us broke even. Not losing is sort of like winning, isn’t it? After poker we headed home for the night.

Thursday was a shopping day. We stopped at Terrible’s Casino before we went to the store and it lived up to it’s name - Terrible! We both lost our twenty bucks. Oh well. After that we went to Walmart and got our stuff and then headed home for the rest of the night.

Friday, September 17th we didn’t do too much until about 2:00 p.m. when I started getting all the stuff together for karaoke. We had mentioned are ability to host karaoke to the office when we checked in. The activity director had asked us to do karaoke this Friday right after the social gathering. I gathered all the stuff from its various hiding places and went down to the clubhouse to set up. At four we went down for the happy hour and about 5:30 p.m. or so I started karaoke. I was surprised to find about six people that wanted to do karaoke and they had selected multiple songs. Several of them, including a couple named Don and Phyllis, were very good singers. We had a great time and had singers until we closed up at 8:00 p.m. They also asked us to come back next Friday, so I guess they were happy with the outcome. After karaoke we put a lot of the stuff in the clubhouse storage room and then headed over to the Nugget casino with Don and Phyllis and several other folks to listen to a county and western band. Phyllis is the activity director for the RV resort and the one that asked us to do karaoke. We did a little gaming and listened to the music until about 10:00 p.m. when we headed home and off to bed.

Saturday, September 18th we headed out after lunch to a local weekend swap meet in one of the community centers. We looked around, bought a couple of things, and then went out to do some exploring. We drove South and West away from our RV park and ended up at the two Pahrump brothels, the Chicken Ranch and Sheri’s Ranch. They are right together at the end of the road. There is a dirt road that continues South for another mile to a couple of white posts that designate the border between Nevada and California. We parked on the border, took a couple of pictures and then headed back. While we were down around the brothels we also got one geocache which happened to be down in that area. We then headed back to the coach.

After we got to the coach I went over and visited our friends, Bob and Bette Thomas. Bob and Bette are the Treasurer and Secretary of the 100%ers Chapter of FMCA, the same Chapter that I am the President of. At the FMCA rally in Redmond Oregon the Chapter voted to disband or dissolve. We simply couldn’t get enough people interested n the Chapter to keep it alive. I wanted to gather all the material from the Chapter from Bob and Bette so I could decide what to sent back to FMCA. I now have all of the paperwork from the Chapter in my possession. Sunday was a stay in and rest day. We stayed in the coach, did chores and played the whole day.

Monday, September 20th my brother Russ from Las Vegas drove up for the day. Zen, his wife didn’t come because she was not feeling well. We sat and talked for a little while. While we were chatting our friend Ken Woepke came over to visit. Ken and his wife Bonnie are full timers and have been on the road for ten years. We met them several years ago and cross paths with them from time to time. They are here at Charleston Peak for a week or so. After Ken left Russ, Jackie and I went out to lunch at Terrible’s Casino and then did some geocaching. We had gotten Russ interested in Geocaching last year and he is nearly half way to our total already. We were doing desert caches, so they took a while to get to, but we still managed to find six caches in a couple of hours. We then headed back to the coach and talked for a while until he left to go back to Vegas about 5:30 p.m. We then headed down to our Texas Hold’Em game. Didn’t do so good this time, between us we lost $5. After cards we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Tuesday we left after lunch and drove down to Las Vegas for a Costco run. We needed to stock up on liquor before leaving Nevada and heading over to Albuquerque. We also stopped at the big Bass Pro Shop sporting goods store because I needed to buy some 9mm ammunition. It takes about an hour to get over the hill to Vegas and we spent a couple of hours at the various stores before going back over the hill again to Pahrump. We did stop for a geocache which was in the parking lot near the Bass Pro Shop. We also did two caches along Highway 160 just East of Pahrump. After all our errands we headed home and relaxed the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Wednesday, September 22nd we went out after lunch to try some gaming at the local casinos. We had a good time, but didn’t win any money. The luck we had the first week we were here seems to have departed. In the evening we went to our Texas Hold’em game at the clubhouse and did a little better, I only lost fifty cents and Jackie lost about eighty cents. Not bad for two hours of fun. We had two tables with eight players each, so we had a good time. The people at this park are very friendly and very easy to get to know.

Thursday we got up early and were out of the coach at 9:00 a.m. We signed up to go on the “tag along” Jeep ride into the mountains East of Pahrump with a group from the RV park. We had one guy in a VW dune buggy, one Jeep Wrangler, us in our fancy Jeep Grand Cherokee, and four people on quad ATVs. We headed up following along on the gravel roads which gradually deteriorated into a gravel trail, but it wasn’t too bad. I kept the speed down and the Jeep handled it well despite not being set up for trail riding or true four wheeling. We only went sixteen miles up into a place called Wallace Canyon, but it took us two hours. We had packed a lunch and the bunch of us stopped up in the canyon and had lunch. We went from 2,600 feet in Pahrump up to over 6,000 where we stopped. We were actually up in the pine trees. We even found a geocache only a few hundred feet from where we stopped to have lunch. After lunch we headed back down, taking a different route. We had a great time with some great friends and saw some great views. I wouldn’t attempt the trip by myself, I’d be too worried about what we would do if something happened to the car, but going up with a group was fun. We got back to the coach about 1:00 p.m. and relaxed the rest of the day. While we were out Jeeping, Scott, the local guy that washes and waxes rigs here at the RV park, was working on cleaning up our coach. He finished the wash today.

Friday, September 24th we went out and did our grocery shopping and picked up our new coffee pot at the UPS store. Our previous Cuisinart coffee pot had quit working less than a year after we bought it. It was a $100 coffee pot so we figured that it should last longer than that. Jackie contacted the company and they sent us a new one for free. Yea! After running our errands we went back to the park and I went down to the clubhouse to set up karaoke for the evening entertainment. We went to the happy hour and then started karaoke. We had a good crowd, lots of singers and we went until about 8:00 p.m. before we quit and packed up everything. We then went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Saturday we went out after lunch and did our laundry. After laundry we went to the Pahrump community park for the Pahrump Fall Festival. This is an annual event, similar to a county fair. They had a carnival set up along with a lot of booths for crafts and trinkets. There were also a lot of booths from community groups and commercial stuff, as well as a number of political booths. The election is only a month away, so the politicians take every opportunity to get out and try to earn votes. We wanted to find the Elks Lodge’s food operation too, because tomorrow we are working in the food booth for six hours. We volunteered to help since the Pahrump Elks Lodge is our home lodge now. We figured that as members we should contribute when we can. After a couple hours at the fair we decided it was too hot and we headed home.

Sunday, September 26th we went over to the community park at 11:00 a.m. and started our shift at the Elk’s Lodge cook shack. It was a very simple menu, hamburger, cheeseburger, hot dog, or pulled pork. Beans, slaw and chips as the sides. Water and pop. Five other people there and all of them had worked the shack in previous years and they took all of the real cooking and serving work. Jackie and I basically did odd jobs, kept things stocked and helped where we could. The folks working were all very nice and we had a very pleasant afternoon. It was extremely slow, I think we only had a couple dozen food orders, but we sold a LOT of water. We had the cheapest water at the fair at $1 and it was almost 100 degrees outside, so we had a lot of water customers. We worked until about 5:15 p.m., helped clean up the shack and then headed back to the coach. It felt good to be helping out the Elks again. We used to do a lot of volunteering at the Indio Lodge when we still lived in the house there.

Monday, September 27th we had been expecting my brother Russ, the one in Las Vegas, to come up. However, he contacted Jackie on Facebook and let her know that Zen, his wife, had chipped a tooth, so they were going to the dentist instead. Bummer. Jackie can certainly empathize given what happened to her earlier in the month in Fallon, Nevada. So we spent the day relaxing around the coach, doing a few chores and maintenance tasks so we will be ready to leave early in the morning. We had hoped to go out caching one last time, but the temperatures were going to be close to one hundred, so we just stayed in. At 6:00 p.m. we went down to the clubhouse for our last round of Texas Hold’em with our friends here at Charleston Peak. We were joking with everyone before the game started that we were leaving in the morning and needed fuel, so we were going to be playing aggressively. Damned if Jackie and I were not the big winners for the night. The buy-in is only $5, so it’s not exactly high stakes, but still Jackie left with over $13 and I left with a little over $12. We need to seem needy more often!

I will recount one interesting anecdote about the poker game tonight. We play Texas Hold’em and for those not familiar with the game, each player is dealt two “hole cards” which are theirs alone. Then five cards are dealt out on the table as community cards in three stages. The “flop” is the first three cards all put out on the table at the same time. After a round of betting the “turn card” is dealt on the table. After another round of betting the “river card” is dealt and then players make the best five card poker hand out of their two hole cards and the five community cards. Tonight, on one of the deals, the dealer put the flop on the table and it was three queens. I had a pair of sixes in my hand, so I had a full house (a pretty good hand) on the flop. After the betting round the turn card put out by the dealer was another queen! I have never seen four of a kind dealt in Texas Hold’Em in the first four community cards. I dropped out because I knew that someone in the group had a king or ace in their hand, which would take the hand. It turns out that a king did take the hand. That deal was quite a conversation starter.

Tuesday, September 28th was our first travel day in three weeks. Our time at Charleston Peak RV Resort is through. We left the park about 9:00 a.m., stopped for fuel, and then headed South towards Needles, California, 167 miles to the Southeast. It was still hot and I had to really watch the temperatures on the engine and transmission of the coach on the grades. There is a long grade out of Pahrump over the foothills and the water temperature got up to 120 degrees, the hottest I have ever seen it on the motorhome. The warning light was only yellow - I’m not sure when the red light kicks on, probably about 125. Fortunately, it hit 120 just as we topped the pass and started back down the other side into Las Vegas. That cooled it off and I felt a lot better. We had to run the generator most of the trip so we could run the roof air conditioner to cool the inside of the coach. Once we got through Vegas and the traffic it was smooth cruising down to Needles and we got to the Needles Elks Lodge right at 1:00 p.m. We have never been to this Lodge. It looks nice and it has a half dozen big, level pull through sites with 50 amp, water and sewer hookups. All for $16, a bargain. We are only going to be here one night. We have to be in Albuquerque on Sunday, so we are going to be scurrying across I-40 for the next few days.

Our arrival here in Needles marks the end of this chapter of our travels. We are headed for Albuquerque and the Balloon Festival, so look for the next chapter of our blog in a couple weeks with lots of cool pictures. Until the next time, make the world your oyster (whatever the hell that means) and enjoy life. See you soon.

Working Our Way Back "Home"

Well hi there friends and followers. Welcome back to our story. You may recall that our last chapter ended on Tuesday, August 17th, as we arrived at La Pine State Park, South of Bend, Oregon. We stayed in this same park back in 2006 during our first trip through Oregon and enjoyed it. The sites have 50 amp electric with water and sewer connections. The only downfall at all is that it is a bit out of the way, about 25 miles South of Bend and seven miles North of the little town of La Pine. It is also six miles off of the highway, although it is a nice road going back to it. Our site is right next to the camp host’s site, near the entrance to the camping loop. Although we are in a wooded area, we have a fairly open site and were able to even get our satellite TV with the dome on the roof. After we got settled into our site we did a little cleaning inside and then relaxed the rest of the day and evening. One nice thing about this stay, at night, once all the campers have gone to bed, it is VERY quiet and peaceful. No generator noises, no street lights shining in the windows. A real departure from the last couple of weeks. It also cools off very nicely at night, from the high 80's during the day to the 40's at night. It all makes for very restful nights.

Wednesday, August 18th we drove up into Bend for the day. Our first stop was lunch at the Black Bear Diner. On our various tours through the Northwest over the last few years we have seen a number of these restaurants. They are a chain with stores in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. This was the first time we decided to try one and we found it very good. The restaurant is very nice inside, the staff was friendly and the menu large. The food was very good with large portions at prices comparable to other chain diners. I had the Big Bear burger which was nearly too big for me to finish. (“Nearly” being the operative word) I did end up leaving a few of the large portion of fries. We would definitely eat at one of these again and I can recommend it to anyone looking for a good meal, breakfast, lunch or dinner.

After lunch we did some caching in the Bend area, interspersed with some shopping. Altogether we ended up with only five finds, but that was mostly because we spent an hour or so walking around downtown, looking in shops and the local farmer’s market. We also spent an hour or so at The Mill, an upscale shopping area South of the downtown area. All in all we had a very pleasant and relaxing day. After the hectic pace of the rallies, it was nice. By late afternoon we were ready to head back to the coach for the evening. I did discover another downside of our camping location - mosquitoes! I wanted to sit outside around sundown and enjoy the cooling evening and found I was being attacked by mosquitoes. Haven’t really seen any of those since Alaska last year. They don’t seem to be around during the day, but come out in strength in the evening hours. We are only a couple hundred yards from the Deschutes River, so that is probably the reason.

Thursday, August 19th was a chores day. During the FMCA rally I purchased several items which needed to be installed, and I had some minor repairs that had to be made to the coach. Jackie did some cabinet cleaning and rearranging. I installed new covers on our outside steps and put in new LED bulbs in place of the halogen bulbs in our reading lights. The halogen bulbs were very hot when in use. The LED bulbs are much cooler and use far less 12 volt power as well. I feel so Green! Another of my chores was replacing the connectors on our 120 volt shore power system. Over the last five years the connectors have gotten a little loose. This causes heat buildup from resistance and tends to deteriorate the connectors. Eventually they fail completely, and can even catch fire if left to deteriorate too badly. The male connection went fairly quickly, but when I went to replace the female connection on my surge protector I found that the cord was too short to use the connector I had bought in Redmond at the rally. I had to make a run into La Pine to the hardware store to get another type of connector. Fix it jobs are no different for a motor home than they are for a sticks and bricks house - they always require at least one run to the store.

I also installed an automatic fire extinguishing system in the outside compartment of the refrigerator. The gas leak that we had last Fall in Casa Grande scared me enough to decide to get the Halon extinguisher at the Redmond rally. It was a real easy install and gives me a little peace of mind. Although the gas absorption type refrigerators used in most RVs work well, there is a significant fire danger if and when they do fail. There have been a lot of stories recently about RVs being burned to the frame because of refrigerator fires. The extinguisher I installed has a head just like a sprinkler in a building. If a fire starts in the outside compartment, which is where all the equipment is, the heat melts the element and the extinguisher goes off. We had a very productive day and got a lot of things done that have been put off while we were on the rally tour.

Friday, August 20th we decided to go out after lunch and do some caching in the area around where we are camping. In a couple of hours we managed to add ten finds to our list. This whole area is forest and we had a good time exploring. We also spent a little bit of time in the town of La Pine, which is only about 4,500 population. When we came through here four years ago we ate at a small mom and pop Thai restaurant and we spent some time looking for it. Although there was an internet listing for it still, we were unable to find it where we remembered it, or at the listed address. It must have gone out of business. Too bad, the food was pretty good. After caching we headed back to the coach for the rest of the night. We used the BBQ for the first time in a while and cooked up a nice big tri tip roast we had found at one of the local markets in La Pine.

Saturday was a shopping and laundry day and we headed back up to Bend after lunch. After some searching we managed to find a Laundromat and got our clothes washed. It had been nearly two weeks, so we had quite a batch. After laundry we went to the outlet mall for a while, and then hit the local Fred Meyer store for groceries and other stuff. No super Walmarts in Bend - Fred has the place tied up I guess. After our shopping we spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the coach. Sunday we just stayed around the coach and relaxed.

Monday, August 23rd we went out after lunch for some final caching in the La Pine area. We actually spent most of our time in a very nice residential area called Sunriver just North of the State Park. There is a big golf resort there and just this past week they played one of the PGA Senior Tour events there. It is a very large development pretty much “in the woods”. The area looked like it might have been logged back in the 40's or 50's and the new trees were just reaching maturity. There are some very nice, large homes, some condo complexes, and shopping areas. Looks like a very nice place to live. We had a good afternoon of caching and managed to find fourteen caches with no DNF’s. A couple of times we thought we might DNF, but we persevered and found the cache. After caching we headed home for dinner and relaxed the rest of the night.

Tuesday, August 24th was a travel day. We got an early start packing up and then headed out about 9:30 a.m. After a quick fuel stop in La Pine we drove back North to Bend and then headed East on State Highway 20 towards the town of Burns, Oregon, about 140 miles East. The ride was pleasant with a lot of rolling hills and few steep grades. It was all two lane road, but there wasn’t too much traffic. After we left bend there was not much of anything for the next 100 miles. The terrain was typical high desert, lots of scrub pines and sage brush. Most all of Oregon East of the Cascades is desert type terrain. We arrived in Burns about 2:00 p.m. and got settled into the Burns RV park for a couple of days. After four hours of driving and the work of taking down and setting back up, we were tired and just stayed in for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, August 25th was our only day to explore and experience Burns. We started by going downtown and having lunch at one of the local cafes. We ate at the Elkhorn Café and I had a very simple grilled cheese and a bowl of chili (one of my favorite meals) and Jackie had Thai food. Yes, they had a Thai menu and a buffet that seemed to be very popular with the townsfolk. A number of people came in while we were eating and the owner of the café seemed to know all of them. After lunch we spent an hour or so walking around downtown and exploring the various shops. After our tour of downtown we started doing some geocaching. When I ran the list for local geocaches I ended up with a total of twelve caches within 15 miles of Burns. We managed to find ten of them in a few hours and decided that ten was a good number. We found ten with no DNF’s, although a couple of them had us stumped for a while before we found them. One interesting thing was we were looking for a cache in a National Forest campground North of town and there were thousands of small white butterflies all over the place. We were amazed at the number of them flying around. Once we started back down the hill and out of the big trees we stopped seeing them. They only seemed to be in the forested area. After our caching and exploring we headed back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Thursday, August 26th was a travel day. We originally planned to drive from Burns to a little town called McDermitt on the Oregon/Nevada border. A little research showed McDermitt to not really have any RV facilities, so we decided to suck it up and go the entire 220 miles from Burns straight to Winnemucca, Nevada. We got out of the Burns RV park pretty early, about 9:15, but the drive was still tough. The wind was blowing, most of the way directly to the front of the coach, and it was hot, very close to 100 degrees. I had to constantly watch the temp gauges on the coach to make sure we didn’t over heat. The wind was blowing us around and it was a long, tiring drive. We finally made it to Winnemucca, Nevada about 2:30 p.m. and got settled in. Not the nicest RV park we have ever been to, but adequate with 50 amp and full hookups. It is a Passport America park so we get two of our three days here at half price. The total cost for three days of camping here was only a couple of dollars more than what we paid for two nights in Burns. We have never been to this part of Nevada, so we are looking forward to exploring. After getting settled in we just chilled and tried to stay cool. The temperature peaked at 99 degrees before starting to drop.

Friday the weather promised to be a little bit cooler, so after lunch we went out to do some caching in Winnemucca. Although only about 7,700 in population, there were a lot of caches around town. One of the caches was virtual at a small Veteran’s Memorial park on Highway 95 just North of town. We had seen the park the day before as we arrived. There were various pieces of military equipment on display, a WW I artillery piece, a couple of WW II tanks, a Korean era fighter jet and a Vietnam era Huey helicopter. On the helicopter was written “Welcome Home”, the traditional greeting for Vietnam vets. Welcome Home was also the name of the cache. In the cache description the person who placed the cache also suggested a tour up the side of nearby Winnemucca Mountain for those who had never been to Winnemucca before. We went ahead and took the drive which was six and a half miles of switchbacks up to the top of the mountain which overlooks Winnemucca. The road was paved, although in rough shape, but no too steep, so the drive was easy. We went from 4,300 feet at the intersection with Hwy 95 to 6,680 near the summit. The actual summit was closed because there were a bunch of radio and telephone antennas and microwave towers up there, but we were close and had great views of Winnemucca and the surrounding desert. We also learned from the cache description that this was an old Air Force station, probably a radar surveillance station back in the pre satellite days. This was a good example of the kind of things we would never find except for caching. To get to the road to the top of the mountain you had to take the road to the county dump and then just keep driving. There were no signs except for the dump and a gun range, so without the cache info we would have never known this road went to the top of the mountain.

Altogether we found ten caches in a couple of hours just in the North central part of town. After reaching ten we quit and went to the local Walmart for some shopping. We also made a stop at a liquor store to get some more Absolute. We wanted to wait to get out of Oregon before buying more liquor because it is pretty expensive up there. We had stocked up before leaving California in June, so we didn’t have to buy any while we were there. After shopping we headed back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the day and evening. The temps were still in the nineties, but now in the low nineties.

Saturday, August 28th we woke up to cloudy, threatening skies, cool temperatures and a brisk, cold wind. The weather report said possible showers but it looked like it would storm any minute. We decided to just stay in for the day and do chores, play games and just relax. As it turned out, it never did rain, but it was pretty cold and windy so we were glad we didn’t go out to cache.

Sunday, August 29th was another travel day. We left Winnemucca about 9:30 a.m. and started Southwest towards our next destination, Fallon, Nevada. The trip was about 130 miles, most of which was on freeway, Interstate 80. After a quick fuel stop we headed out and arrived in Fallon about 1:00 p.m. We have been through Fallon several times on previous trips, but we have never stopped here. We are looking forward to seeing the town and the surrounding desert and doing some caching. Fallon is about the same size as Winnemucca, about 7,500 population, but there is a large Naval Air Station here. NAS Fallon is the home of the Top Gun squadron, famous from the Tom Cruise movie. Top Gun used to be at NAS Mirimar near San Diego until 1999 when it was transferred to the Marine Corps and renamed Marine Corp Air Station Mirimar.

We found a spot in the RV park at the Bonanza Casino, right on the main street of town. It is really just a parking lot with utilities, but it is only $15 a night, which is a bargain for full hookups. After getting set up we headed out for a late lunch/early dinner. The AAA book had recommended a Mexican restaurant in town called La Fiesta, so we went there. It is a fairly small, very nice place with good service. They had a big menu and the food was outstanding. I know that a lot of our friends who read this blog travel and may find themselves in Fallon, Nevada one day, so I would highly recommend La Fiesta, on Center Street just off Maine. We were going to visit the casino after getting back to the coach, but we got lazy and just stayed in the rest of the day and evening.

Monday, August 30th we left the coach after lunch for some adventures in the Northern Nevada desert. A few days prior to our arrival at Fallon I was doing some research on the town on the Internet and I came across some references to a place called “Project Shoal” which was about 30 miles Southeast of the town. It seems that on October 26, 1963 government conducted an underground test of a 12 Kiloton nuclear device at this place. This test was one of just a handful of domestic nuclear tests that were conducted off of the primary test sites in New Mexico and Southern Nevada. The Project Shoal test was supposed to help scientists become more adept at telling the difference between an underground nuclear explosion and a natural earthquake. One has to remember that this was in the heart of the Cold War and detecting nuclear testing by other countries was a primary concern. They chose the site near Fallon for its deep granite geographical characteristics.

The device was placed about 1,200 feet down in a sealed shaft and detonated. According to the literature, there was no ground breach and no release of radiation. Because the site was not on an established government reservation, and there was radiation danger, the site was reopened for public access in the 1970's. The only restriction is that digging at the site is prohibited. They also drilled a few test wells in the area surrounding the site to monitor any transient radiation in ground water. According to one of the stories I read, echo testing of the site has shown that the blast created a 170 foot glass “bubble” under the ground.

Several of the articles I read provided the GPS coordinates for the site and one contained very detailed directions to the site. It also said that the final five miles were on good gravel road, so there was easy access to the site. Having grown up during the Cold War and remembering all the fears of the “atomic bomb”, I thought it would be way cool to visit this site. The weather was great, the temperatures were to be only in the 70's - a perfect day for desert exploring. We set out from Fallon and headed East on U.S. 50, called the “loneliest highway” because when you leave Fallon and head East it is over 100 miles before the next town. We drove 28 miles East on Highway 50 and then about 5 miles South on State Route 31. As we were driving South on Highway 31 we could see a large amount of military equipment, old tanks and trucks, airplane carcasses, and other hardware, stored in the desert on the East side of the highway. My research had told me that this was one of the bombing ranges for NAS Fallon. The equipment is used for targets out on the range.

After about five miles we came upon a good gravel road, just as promised, which headed straight West up into the hills. The road wove up through a narrow canyon, known as Ground Zero Canyon, and into a shallow valley at the top of a range of mountains. We ended up driving about eight miles West before coming upon the Project Shoal site. There were actually two sites because the bomb was placed by digging a vertical shaft down about 1,200 feet and then a horizontal shaft was dug West about another 2,000 feet. The bomb was placed at the end of the horizontal shaft which was then sealed. This was how they kept the bomb from rupturing the surface through the vertical shaft. Our first visit was at the site of the vertical shaft. To someone who just happened upon the site, without the benefit of knowing what it was ahead of time, it would look like an old mine site. There were two concrete pads, one which was right over the top of the vertical shaft and one that served as a foundation for a test equipment shack. There were also a couple of steel structures in the ground around the shaft site which appeared to have been parts of the original derrick that was over the vertical shaft and used for drilling th hole and lowing the bomb. We spent a few minutes looking around and taking some pictures, including the two of us standing on the slab which sealed the vertical shaft. We also found the geocache that was hidden at this site, our first for the Fallon area.

We then went over to the site of the actual explosion. The only reason you can find this site at all is that there is a marble monument placed describing Project Shoal. The monument appears brand new and you can see the remains of an old concrete monument lying nearby. The articles I read talked about the “rubble of a monument” but didn’t mention the new one, so it must be very recent. It was here that we were actually standing only a little over a thousand feet from where a nuclear bomb was detonated. Pretty awesome! Of course, I was a junior in high school when it happened, but it is still a part of my history.

After our visit to the site we started to drive back out the canyon road and we heard jet planes and bomb blasts in the distance. We also saw a couple of military helicopters flying around the area. When we came out of the canyon we could see the bombing range and saw that there was bombing practice going on. We watched the planes and helicopters for a while, although they were a little too far off to see real well or get pictures. We then geocached our way back to Fallon, finding a total of ten caches. Several of the caches were in the area of giant dry lake bed from which salt is now mined. We also found the remains of an old brothel that had burned down. You could see the remains of three double wide trailers, the standard housing for most Nevada brothels, and the remains of many, many box springs.

When we got back to Fallon we stopped at the Fallon Elks Lodge for a visit. This is our first time at this lodge. It is a fairly large old stone building right in the middle of downtown. The lodge is small, only about 226 members. There weren’t too many people in the bar, but the bartender was very friendly and we had a nice chat. It turns out that he retired and moved to Fallon only about five years ago from Lodi, California. On a lark we ask him if he knew our friends, Andy and Fern Leonardini who live there, and he did! What a small world. We first met Andy and Fern in Palm Desert, California where they have a winter house, but we have visited them in Lodi as well. What a small world! We had a couple of drinks and got our lodge pin before heading back to the coach. When we got back to the coach we decided to go into the casino for a little while. We didn’t win anything, but had some fun. We then went to the casino coffee shop for dinner. After dinner we went back to the coach and relaxed after our exciting day in the desert.

Tuesday, August 31st we left the coach after lunch to do some local urban caching. We found that there were a lot of caches right in Fallon and we had our best single day total of finds ever - twenty one finds with no DNF’s!! Yea us! Most of the caches were fairly typical, small container and not too difficult, although there were a couple that had us stumped for a few minutes. One of the reasons we like urban caching, besides not having to walk across the desert for a half mile for a find, is that the caches tend to be very close together, usually a few tenths of a mile. You don’t have to use a lot of time going from cache to cache. Among the finds were two virtual caches (no physical container) which are worthy of mention. One was located just behind the Fallon City Hall. Shortly after 9/11/2001 some of the City leaders contacted New York City and made arrangements to obtain a small piece of steel from the World Trade Center to use in a memorial. They now have that piece of twisted I-beam as part of a 9-11 memorial. It was one of the most touching memorials we have seen, even though it is very simple. The I-Beam is incased in a pile of burned bricks depicting the fallen towers. Brought tears to both our eyes. The second great virtual in town was located near the Churchill County Museum in Fallon. The building was an old Safeway store and is huge. The museum board has done a magnificent job of gathering artifacts and creating displays that show the history of Churchill County from the Native Americans all the way to the current. We spent over an hour in the museum looking at all the displays and tableaus. We both agreed that it was the best local history museum we have ever been to, and it is free to get in. They do ask for a two dollar per person donation, but it is not mandatory. We paid it and it was well worth the price. If you are ever in Fallon, you need to see these two sites.

We also made a stop at a local pawn shop in downtown Fallon. I went in there originally to see if they had a camera tripod. I want to have a tripod for taking night shots at the Albuquerque Balloon Fest in October and really didn’t want to pay full price for something I won’t use much. They didn’t have a tripod, but we did look around and found a couple of other things. They had an eight inch LCD picture frame, which normally sells for about $60 at Walmart, for $14. It didn’t have a power cable, so I asked them if they would take $10 and they did. Jackie has also been wanting a small digital camera to carry in her purse and they had several. We settled on a 10 megapixel GE pocket camera with all the bells and whistles that they had marked for $69. I offered $50 and they took it also. This camera sells for over $120 in the stores. The camera works great and I was able to download the owner’s manual from the Internet after we got back to the coach. The power supply from our old, much smaller digital frame fit the new one perfectly and IT works well also. Our old frame had started to fail and had a white line running though the screen. We found some really good bargains! Still need a tripod though. After our caching and errands we finally headed back to the coach and chilled the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, September 1st is an anniversary day for us. This was the 12th Anniversary of our being together. September 1, 1998 was the day I moved from Arizona to Indio, California and started my life with Jackie. We had originally planned to leave Fallon today and drive South to Hawthorne, Nevada, our next stop on our way to Pahrump. However, after waking up and thinking about it I decided that there was no pressing need to leave today, it would only mean cutting our stay in Hawthorne from three days to two. Since Hawthorne is a much smaller town, we wouldn’t be missing much. I went over to the casino and extended our stay one night and we spent most of the day just relaxing around the house. Around 5:00 p.m. we went out to one of the other casinos in town, The Stockman Casino, to do a little light gambling and have a nice anniversary dinner. The AAA book had said that the steakhouse in the Stockman Casino was very good. We didn’t do much good at gaming, but did go into the steakhouse for dinner. I had a very nice Porterhouse and Jackie had lamb, which she loves. Because we had mentioned our anniversary when we went into the restaurant, they also bought us each dessert with dinner. We were having a great dinner when all of a sudden Jackie showed me one of her front teeth had broken. Eight or ten years ago she had veneers put on her front teeth and one of them cracked and came off, leaving her with quite a gap in her front teeth. Needless to say, she was very upset, especially since we were going to Las Vegas in a few days to meet a woman that she hadn’t seen since her high school days. I told her that we would work something out and take care of things. We asked the waiter if he knew of any dentists in town but he lived about 30 miles outside of town. However, the hostess, Cathy, was born and raised in Fallon and gave us two recommendations. We headed home for the rest of the night with Jackie still very upset and worried.

Thursday, September 2nd Jackie called the first dentist on the list at 8:00 a.m. and was told that they just couldn’t get her in. When she asked the girl about any other dentists in town she gave her the same name as Cathy’s second recommendation, a Doctor Ferguson. Jackie called his office and they told her to come in at 9:30 a.m. and they would try to take care of her. We took quick showers and headed over to the dentist’s office, which was only a few blocks down the street. Jackie filled out the papers and went in. About two hours later she came out with a very nice temporary cap on the tooth that looks as good as the original. You can’t tell anything had happened. They stressed that it was only a temporary fix, she would have to get a permanent crown at some point, but Jackie was very happy to have her smile back. And the total cost was only $180, which I thought was quite reasonable. If anyone should find themselves in need of emergency dentistry in Fallon, Nevada, we can highly recommend Dr. Jason Ferguson! Since it was almost afternoon, we decided to just stay in Fallon for one more night, do our laundry, and then get ready to do a two day run to Las Vegas.

Friday morning we got up and started packing the coach up for travel early. We were out of the parking lot by 8:45 a.m. and headed South on U.S. 95 towards the town of Mina. We are going a little over one hundred miles and want to be off the road early because it is going to be hot today in the desert, close to 100 degrees. I don’t like running across the desert in the high heat, you have to watch the engine temps too closely. We arrived in Mina (Population 261) just before 11:00 a.m. and checked into the Sunrise Valley RV Park. This is the only park in town, in fact, the only park between Hawthorne to the North and Tonopah to the South. We were only going to be here for one night, so we set up but didn’t put out any of the knick knacks in the coach. We want to be up and out early again tomorrow to avoid the heat. We didn’t even unhook the car, so we just stayed in for the rest of the day.

Saturday, September 4th was another early travel day. We planned on going about 160 miles from Mina, Nevada, South to Beatty, Nevada. Again, the weather forecast is calling for temperatures in the low 100's in the Nevada desert, so we want to be in Beatty before afternoon. We got out of Mina about 8:45 a.m. and were in Beatty at exactly noon. We checked into the Beatty RV park, which fortunately has 50 amp electric so we can run our air conditioners, and got settled in for the day. We didn’t unhook the car since we didn’t plan on any sightseeing. We are leaving early in the morning for Las Vegas.

Sunday we were up early yet again and on the road to Las Vegas by 8:30. The weather said temperatures in the 100's again, so we wanted to be in and set up before it got too hot. We had 125 miles to drive and figured about two and a half hours. We arrived at Arizona Charlie’s Casino and RV Park on Boulder Highway about 11:00 a.m. This is the first time we have stayed at this park. It is fairly new, quite large, and nice. Full hookups for $28 a night. We got parked and set up and then took our showers and got cleaned up. We had delayed our normal morning preparations so we could get on the road earlier. After getting cleaned up and having some lunch we headed out for a quick Costco run. Finally, low prices for liquor again. Yea! We loaded up on supplies and went back to the coach and unloaded. I took the car down for a badly needed wash and then we waited for my brother Russ and his wife Zen to come over. Regular readers will remember that Russ lives in Vegas and works at the Golden Nugget, downtown, as a craps pit boss.

Russ and Zen made it over about 3:00 and we had a great time catching up. We had not seen each other for almost a year. We looked at old pictures and talked about family and friends. Russ’s daughter Raquel graduated high school this past spring and she was on a trip back East, so we didn’t get to see her. Russ’s son, Russ the Third, was in training with the Army as a combat medic. For the first time in many years Russ had no kids around the house. After talking for a long while we walked over to the casino for dinner. We ate in the coffee shop and the food was pretty good. They had a nice menu and good portions. After dinner we went back to the coach and visited some more until they left about 10:00 p.m. We will be going up to Pahrump, about 60 miles West of Vegas in a couple days and will be there for three weeks, so I hope that Russ and Zen come up to see us again while we are in the area. We got them interested in geocaching last year when we were here and they have gone crazy for it. They are up over 900 caches now! Another of our geocaching success stories.

Monday, September 6th, Labor Day! Around 11:00 a.m. our expected visitors arrived at the coach. Today was the day that Jackie would reunite with an old high school friend and was the reason that we modified our plans with this stop in Las Vegas. To fill in the story, about two years ago Jackie was contacted by someone from the 1959 graduating class of Dorsey High School in Los Angeles regarding an upcoming 50 year reunion. This was Jackie’s school and her graduation year. The reunion would be in the summer of 2009, which was when we were going to be in Alaska, so we knew we wouldn’t be able to attend the event. However, Jackie did respond to the reunion committee with basic information, including her email address.

She didn’t hear too much more about the reunion until about six months ago when she got an email from a woman named Jeanne Foote, who’s maiden name was Harris. She had attended the reunion and saw Jackie’s name and email in the reunion book. It turns out that they were good friends during Jackie’s senior year at Dorsey. She and Jeanne had a running correspondence through emails until just about a month ago when they discovered that we would both be in the Las Vegas area at the same time. Jeanne and her husband Le Roy were going to be in Las Vegas over Labor Day weekend for a wedding and we were just arriving for our stay in Pahrump. We revised our traveling plans slightly to include a two night stay in Vegas so Jackie and Jeanne could finally get together.

Jeanne and Le Roy were very nice people and she and Jackie had a great time talking for hours about old times, old friends and acquaintances, and Jeanne’s experience at the reunion. It turns out that Le Roy and I have some commonalities too. He graduated from West High School in Phoenix, Arizona. West was one of the Phoenix Union High School District school’s, as was Maryvale, the school I graduated from. He graduated several years before I did and left Phoenix to go in the Army after graduation. He never went back to Phoenix and actually lived there a few years before my parents moved there from Wisconsin. He was an employee of the U.S. Geodesic Survey administration, the folks who monitor earthquakes among other things. His specialty was seismographs. He and Jeanne lived in Las Vegas for a while during the 60's nuclear testing activities and he took care of the seismographs at the test range. I told him about our recent visit to Project Sloan up near Fallon, but he was not involved in that test, even though it was intended to mimic an earthquake.

After several hours of visiting we decided we were hungry so we all walked over to the casino for a late lunch/early dinner. We had a good lunch and more conversation before returning to the coach to talk some more. About 4:30 the Foote’s left because they had some family members they had to meet for dinner. Jackie was very happy with the visit and was glad to be able to catch up with her old friend. Unfortunately, we got wrapped up in the visit and completely forgot to take any pictures! We spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the coach.

Tuesday, September 7th we left Arizona Charlies RV park about 9:30 and started the 60 mile drive to Pahrump, our “home” of record. The first 20 miles were through the middle of town and, as expected, the traffic on the freeways was terrible. In addition, it was raining, more of a drizzle really, but still wet and nasty. The good thing is that it wasn’t hot, so we didn’t have to worry too much about overheating on the long grade out of Las Vegas towards Pahrump. To get to Pahrump you have to go up over a 5,000 foot plus pass in the foothills of Mt. Charleston. We finally arrived in Pahrump just before noon and got checked in and settled. We are going to be here for three weeks - the longest we have lighted in one place for a long time, since Silent Valley in March. It took a while to get settled because I put a lot more stuff out for a long stay, but we did get settled in time to go down to the UPS store to get our mail in person. Machelle, one of the managers, was very happy to see us and we had a nice visit with her. The girls at the store are very helpful to us over the course of the year as we get our mail forwarded to us. We then headed home to relax for the rest of the day.

With our arrival “home” I will close this episode of our travel story. We look forward to our stay here and will publish all those details at the end of our stay. Until the next time, stay safe, be happy, and enjoy everything life has to offer. We do!