Heading Home

June 8, we paid to stay two more nights at the AVI Casino/RV Park, then drove Jeep to Searchlight to check out a small RV/Mobile home park that we had spotted while driving by earlier. The park is just west of Searchlight on Nipton Rd and even though it’s mainly a mobile home park, there’s a huge gravel area in front of the mobile home section strictly set up for overnighters, or for those who wish to stay monthly. We couldn’t believe that it was only $20 a night. We quickly said we would be up on the 10th and spend four nights. Plus it was much cooler up there (whew). After visiting with the manager, we headed back to Laughlin via an area that we have wanted to travel for a long time. The route is called “Christmas Tree Pass” and was a fun drive. Even though the road was gravel, it was in great shape and the views were incredible once we hit the summit and made our way down the other side.

The last day we were at AVI (June 9), we did laundry and prepared coach for moving. During the whole six days we were at the AVI, the daytime temperature never got below 106. The highest we had was 112. Both of our air conditioners were going the whole time because the nights never went below 79.

On June 10, we moved coach one hour north to Cree’s Mobile Home Park in Searchlight, NV. They didn’t have a problem with us coming in early, so we were set up and ready to go caching by 9:30 AM. The best part was the temperatures were 10 degrees cooler than Laughlin and Bull Head City. We spent the next four days geocaching around the hills of Searchlight, and further west in the Primm/Jean area.

Monday, June 14, we pulled out of Searchlight and headed for Hawthorne, Nevada. While on the road, we received an email telling us that Jo Hennrich, a close friend and neighbor in Queen Valley, had passed away in her sleep. What an absolute shock!! We had spoken with her the night before we left Queen Valley and she seemed in perfect health. Jo was a beautiful lady and all who knew her will miss her….I know we sure will. Our hearts and prayers are with her husband, John, and her entire family!

Once in Hawthorne, we secured a site at the Whiskey Flats RV Park for two nights. Since we got set up early enough, we took a short drive along the highway around Walker Lake and found some caches, then headed back to the coach for dinner and early to bed.

The next morning, Tuesday the 15th, we headed out for some geocaching on the east side of Walker Lake, then drove west and worked our up the Lucky Boy Pass to Bridgeport Reservoir, Mono Lake, and then south back down to Hawthorne and our coach.  It was a very windy day, but thankfully the sun was out and it was wonderfully cool.  It was so nice to finally be cool after the last couple weeks of high temps.  We were gone all day and we didn’t get back till late and saw the most incredible sunset ever.  High winds were blowing a lot of clouds over us and the setting sun was creating some weird and unusual effects.  The pictures below are only a couple of what Ken took.

The 16th was still extremely windy, so we stuck around the park until close to checkout hoping it would die down.  It never did calm down and we had strong wind with even stronger gusts all the way to Reno/Sparks.  We are about 65 feet long when towing the Jeep, and our coach is 12 feet tall, so we are like a huge sail in the wind.  With the side wind, Ken had to fight it all the way to Reno/Sparks.  We finally got to the Sparks Marina RV Resort about 4 PM, and Ken was pretty tired.   We called Ken’s aunt & uncle and told them we were in town and would see them the next day.

Thursday, Ken worked on the outside of the coach cleaning and I cleaned the inside.  Ken’s aunt & uncle showed up about 1:30 and we had a nice visit before heading over to the Western Village Casino for dinner.

Friday morning, we took a nice walk around Sparks Marina Lake and spent the afternoon with Ken’s aunt Velma & uncle Francis.  At 5:30 we went to dinner at Ken’s Cousins home.  Barry and Gordy have a beautiful home up in the heights above Reno, and we had a great visit while enjoying the view.  Ken also had fun showing off the jewelry he’s made.

Saturday, we had a chance to take a very early morning drive to Pyramid Lake (a few miles north of Sparks).  Since we had to be back for a late breakfast with Ken's aunt & uncle, we didn't stay long at the lake (just up and back).  Yes, we even grabbed a couple very quick caches while up there.

Later, back in Reno, we had a huge breakfast, then spent the rest of the day with Velma & Francis and later had a light dinner at their favorite restaurant.  It was so nice to spend time with them because they are getting on in years and we don't know how much longer we will have them around.

While in Reno/Sparks, the temperatures stayed in the wonderful very high 70s with marvelously cool evenings.  However, the news was reporting a warming trend was coming and the temps were heading for the 90s....thankfully, after we were due to leave.

We are heading for Oregon with plans of staying in the parking area of the Kal-Mo-Ya Casino in Chiloquin, Oregon (north of Klamath Falls). We will end up in Prineville, Oregon on June 23 and stay in the Crook County RV Park until we move the coach down to the Crooked River for 12 wonderful days of "dry" camping with friends and family. We are scheduled to be back in Salem on July 11.

OMG, It is HOT!

Since we were planning on leaving Queen Valley on June 1, I had made arrangements to have our land-line phone put on vacation that day. Well, as it happened, we didn’t leave Queen Valley as expected because we found out on May 28th the part for our refrigerator hadn’t arrived. Because of the holiday weekend, we knew there would be no more deliveries until Tuesday, June 1, so we knew we weren’t going to leave until after that date. Even though we didn’t have the land-line, we still had the Internet and our cells worked when/if we left the park.

We had a great Memorial Day weekend and enjoyed our last of the double digit days by basking in the sun and going out for dinner. I didn’t want to cook inside because of the heat and Ken already had the BBQ cleaned and stored, so if we wanted to eat, we had to go out (grin). We made our last trip to Superior and had our last pizza for the season from one of our favorite places, Edwardo’s. We also went to The Great Wall in Gold Canyon and had a nice meal.

Finally on Tuesday, June 1, we called the service center and yes they had the part. We were up very early on Wednesday, left the park at 7:15 AM, and got to the service center in Apache Junction just as they were opening at 8 AM. They checked us in and after checking the part for our refrigerator, they got really red-faced because that part was not designated for our coach—in fact, they didn’t even have our part because it somehow wasn’t ordered. At least they had our replacement fan for the Air Conditioner unit, so while they were installing that, they called Norcold and special ordered the refrigerator part. We were told it was to be shipped overnight at Norcold’s expense and we could have it installed early Friday morning. We weren’t happy but what else could we do. After the AC fan was replaced we drove back to our site in Queen Valley. Thankfully, I had arranged to have the electric set to be turned off on June 7, so we still had power, just no phone.

Thursday, while waiting to check with the service center, we just hung out around the coach and didn’t do much (too hot). Our park had virtually become a ghost town with just a few residents left. I think out of 32 sites in just our section, there were only four units occupied (that includes us). There were only a few more occupied in the whole park of 200 sites. Sometime before Noon (92 degrees outside), we looked out our front windshield and saw a coyote loping up the road right in front of us. He was headed for the storage unit and looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. He was moving too fast for us to get a camera and take a picture (dang). Anyhow, Ken called the service center that afternoon and found out our part did in fact show up. He made arrangements for us to have our coach there at 8 am on Friday. The temperature on Thursday topped out at 100, but we were hearing the weekend was going to be in the 106-110 range (whew). However, we also heard Laughlin (where we were headed) was going to be 110-115 (yowie).

Friday morning (June 4), we were once again up very early and left the park at 7:30 and had the coach into the service center just as they opened at 8 AM. They confirmed the part was truly ours and quickly set about to install it. Finally, less than 2 hours later the recalled part installed on the refrigerator and we were able to leave Apache Junction. We had a comfortable drive till nearing Needles, CA and the temperature was climbing to 100. I turned the generator on (yes while driving) and then turned on the coach Air Conditioner. Boy did that make a nice difference. We got to the Avi Casino/RV Park at 3:30 and the temperature registered 107 at that time….whew it was hot when we got out of the coach…and we knew it was only going to get hotter (and it did).

Saturday morning, we got up at 4 am and drove Jeep to Searchlight area (1 hour north of Laughlin) and did a “power run” of geocaches. It was 79 when we got up and 109 at 5 PM. We found 101 caches and had to quit about 10 AM because of the heat. Sunday was another day of the same and we were once again back west of Searchlight for 67 more geocaches. We did a lot more walking only to have to give up because of the heat. Both Saturday and Sunday, Ken & I went through at least a gallon of water in a couple hours. They aren’t kidding when they say the heat really saps your strength. Sunday was another hot 109.

Monday, June 7 was going to be a day of rest, but Ken didn’t want to sit around the coach all day, so we took off about 8:30 for Golden Valley which is east of Bullhead City and west of Kingman. We found an area of caches that had been set up like a monopoly board called the Cacheopoly series. It was fun because most of the roads were dirt and sandy washes and very little walking….but it still was hot. We started the run at 11:45 AM (95 degrees) and quit at 1:30 when it hit 101. By the time we got back to the coach, it was 112 degrees. It was so nice to have the AC on and be comfortable through that heat. I have never been in that kind of temperature before and it just suffocates you while scorching the skin right off of you.

We were planning on leaving the Avi RV Park today (June 8) and stopping in Primm, Nevada for a few days. However, we found out the RV park in Primm (south of Las Vegas) isn’t open any longer and we don’t want to go there and be forced to dry camp in this kind of heat….so we opted to stay in Laughlin 2 more days and get some laundry done and do some more off roading. The temperatures aren’t supposed to be going down for the next few days!!

End of May

The month of May is almost over and we’ve now made the decision to leave Queen Valley on June 1. We’ve had fantastic weather and couldn’t bear the thought of leaving any earlier.

The month of May began in the low to mid 80s, then bounced to mid to high 90s, and continued to yo-yo between 80s & 90s till it finally hit 101 on May 21. We only had the one day of 101 because another cooling trend came through and the temps dropped back to the low 80s and high 70s. In fact on May 23 & 24 the temperature only got to 79. The forecasters are saying it won’t hit 100 again until after the Memorial Day holiday……it really has been an amazing May!! Everyone is incredulous with how nice it has been!!

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end! We decided to leave on June 1, not because of the weather, but because of a recall on our refrigerator’s thermal switch unit. It seems Norcold (the maker of our fridge) had several motorhomes go up in flames while their refrigerators were operating on propane, so Norecold put a recall out on those particular models. Turns out our refrigerator is one of the offending models (bummer).

We drove our coach to a service center in Apache Junction (AJ) on May 20, and they said the refrigerator looked great, but needed to order the new part to be installed as per Norcold’s recall requirements. While at the service center, we also had them service our front AC unit because it was making noises. It was determined the “squirrel cage fan” in the front air conditioner unit was out of sync and needed to be replaced. Once we picked a date to have the parts installed (June 1) we decided it would be a good time to make the move and slowly head back to Oregon. We have several stops planned before getting back to Oregon and won’t be home until mid July.

With so many of our park’s residents gone, it has been very quiet. We feel like we are living in a ghost town, and it’s wonderful! We enjoyed these past few weeks by geocaching, rock collecting, visiting friends, dining out, and just enjoying our solitude.

The first and second of May we attended geocache events celebrating “10 years” of geocaching. One was in Mesa and the other was on South Mountain in Phoenix. Both events were well attended with fun activities and as always, lots of food.  

I have had many people ask me what geocaching is:  Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.  Anyone interested can always go to geocaching.com and check it out.

We drove to Tucson the night of May 14 and attended a World Wide Flash Mob Geocaching Event the next morning. That event was our find 6,000. The Flash Mob was only 15 minutes long. and to commemorate it, there was a group picture taken by a member of our group who was controlling the down town web cam from his computer. The picture isn’t really very clear, but the operator of the camera doesn’t have a lot of time to “capture” the picture.

On May 20, we had a special visitor stop and see us. He looks a little like a Golden Eagle, but in reality is much smaller and is called a Harris Hawk. He stayed around for most of the day preening and chattering all the while staying very close to our site. It was fun to see him so close just watching us as we watched him.

As I said earlier, we are pulling out of Queen Valley on June 1 and stopping in Apache Junction to get the parts for the fridge and AC installed. We should be done and on the road by Noon and hopefully in Laughlin early that evening. You ask what we will do there? Well, geocaching of course! We plan on staying in Laughlin for several days, then work our way up to South Vegas and stop again at another casino to do more geocaching. We are not huge casino fans, but like staying at their RV parks when we can.