Las Vegas in the rear view mirror

I spent the last few days parked in the backyard of a member of my camping club "Boondockers Welcome" in Las Vegas. Nothing like a free place to stay. He even had electric, water and sewer hook ups. While in Vegas I had to stop by the location of two of Vegas' TV shows, Gold & Silver Pawn Shop and Counts Customs. Photos for proof. Here are a couple of pics from inside the car museum I didn't do any gambling so no casino pics. Sorry, I decided to keep my hard earned money myself. :-) Maggie joined my my last night in Vegas and the next morning we drove to Boulder City; a little south of Vegas. We're camped in Lake Mead National Recreation Area now. Yesterday we did a kayak trip on the Colorado River. We were supposed to put in just below Hoover Dam but the driver of our van was not on the allowed entry list so we couldn't put in there. The government highly controls who get near the dam. We all had to buy permits and get checked out. Anyway, we ended up putting in about 12 miles down river. We ended up paddling 6 miles. Here are a few pics. The first is from inside, looking out of a cave we found. The second is the back of Maggie's head as we're paddling on the river. Here's a pic of us stopping for lunch Here are a few other pics from our trip. If you look close you can see my friend Dave standing on the left end of that catwalk. He climbed up the side of the cliff to get there. The catwalk was put there so someone could measure the height and flow of the river.

Couple Days in Pahrump, NV

No pictures with this post; sorry. I spend the last few days in a small town about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. While there I made a couple of minor improvements to my camping trailer 1) installed an electric jack (I got tired of cranking it up and down) 2) installed a second "house" battery. This way I can camp more than a couple of days without plugging into electricity. The guy I stayed with helped me with all my work. He was great. While here I did go somewhere I had never been before. In Nevada prostitution is legal and brothels are everywhere. I asked the guy that helped me if I could take him to dinner to pay him back for all his effort. He said yes. He wanted to go to a brothel where they served food. So, we had a good meal that not only filled our belly but our eyes too. And that was all: I promise. :-) I'm in Las Vegas now. More to come.

Post Script - Death Valley

I found a couple of pictures after my last post that I thought were worthy of sharing. I told you that I did a lot of 4 wheeling going up to old mines and thought I'd share a couple pics. The first one is my truck just outside the entrance to a mine. If you look just above my truck bed you can see the mine entrance. The second photo looks inside the mine. It went back a long way. It's only about 5 ft tall. Can you imagine working in those conditions all day; or even worse, digging the mine shaft itself. Here's a typical minor's cabin. Lastly, this pic shows what the typical Death Valley floor looks like; ROCKs, lots of rocks. This is what makes hiking so challenging here. Every step you take is on rocks. If you decide to come here, make sure you bring some good hiking boots.

Finally Leaving Death Valley

I'll be leaving Death Valley tomorrow and headed for Pahrump, Nevada. I'll be staying with one of my camping club "Boondockers" members there so I'll get a couple of days free camping. Yea! I plan on doing some upgrades to my trailer while there. I'm putting on an electric jack so I don't have to crank the tongue up and down to load and level the trailer. I'm also going to put a second battery on it so I can camp without electricity longer than a couple of days without the batter running down. I'm really looking forward to washing my truck. It's sooo dirty from off-roading. Yuk. Super Walmart is also calling me. I need groceries and other stuff. Oh, and gas in Death Valley ranges from $2.81 - 3.49 for regular depending on which station you go to. Pahrump has gas for $2.17 ;-) Here are the last pics of Death Valley. The first one is of one of the sand dunes nearby and the others are of Ubehebe Crater; it's a very large hole in the ground. We walked around the rim of it; 1 1/2 miles. Thank goodness it was fairly level. If you look at the last photo, way across the rim you'll see a parking lot with vehicles. It's a long way across.

Still in Death Valley hiking and climbing rocks

Been in Death Valley 3 weeks now. The weather is gradually getting warmer. We've been hiking a day and something else a day. Something not so stressful. A couple of days ago I wanted to not hike so we decided to drive up one of the remote canyons not too far from the campground. After about 5 miles of dusty dirt road it turned to river wash; lots of rocks of various sizes. It was slow going in my new truck but we did fine. It was pretty bumpy though. The day before yesterday we went on a hike that was supposed to be 3.5 miles one way. Well according to Dave's GPS it was 4.5 miles each way. When you add a couple of diversions to climb an interesting rock or explore a cave we walked 9.5 miles. Half was uphill and the other half down. The entire way we walked on large gravel that tended to roll under your feet. By the time we got back to the trailers, 6.5 hours later, I was beat. Yesterday it was 86 and I went swimming in the pool again :-). Oh, and I assembled my BBQ grill that came with my trailer and grilled some chicken for dinner; yum. That was the hardest thing I did all day. Check out some more interesting pics I took the last few days. Looking at the first one, can you see what looks like a dinosaur backbone and rib cage? Here's Freddy checking out the terrain. He said that one of the small caves above him looked like it might be a good place for him to take a nap. The second pic is me going up to take a look. After taking a look I told him that I didn't think he could make it up there so we decided to keep going. :) Check out the different colors on this boulder we ran across. Really, I think I ran over it with the truck. Look at the lines on the mountain in the next pic. Check out how curvy they are. It's amazing how these things were formed and how they look now. If you look closely, you can see me in the distance 3/4 of the way up the rock face. I made it to the top. My buddy Dave is below me. He promised to break my fall if I slipped. Yeah! Here's a funny scene we came upon while starting a hike. The sign is intended to keep cars out but these two ladies apparently decided to obey all posted signs. This is a typical stop sign for me. The wall goes straight up, has no hand or foot holds and is slippery. That's it for now. More to come later. Gary

Well I've been here in Death Valley CA for 2 weeks now. The weather is cool at night 40's and has been upper 60's during the days but it's getting warmer. Today I think we were in the mid to upper 70's. It was so warm in fact that I went swimming. I changed locations today and I'm camping at a resort and they let us use their pool. :-) They're saying that next week we'll be in the 80's. Below I've got some photos of the mountains where I was staying. As you can see, the colors and textures change like crazy. This next one is called the Red Cathedral. Here are a few pics of us on some of the trails. Here's a pic of my friend Dave about to go down a small rock wall. There are a lot of ups and downs here. The second one is Dave & Carla on top of one of the ridges we climbed. The last one is of a person flying a kite. The wind was blowing pretty good that day and it was perfect for kite flying. Made me want to be a kid again. It's nice to have electricity again. I haven't had it the last two weeks. I've got all my things plugged in and charging; razor, phone, laptop, etc. And, I can use my microwave (yeah). The first thing I did once I was plugged in again was vacuum. It needed it. I'm trying to be a good / clean camper. ;-) Well, that's it for now. Y'all take care.