Back to Las Vegas

Oct 01    Cathedral Gorge State Park - Las Vegas      184 miles     3 hours 15 minutes

We're on our way back to Las Vegas a little early because Jan has a conference that starts tomorrow. Our first stop was In-N-Out in Henderson. Good timing, late lunch for us. This was Jan's first time eating here, she really enjoyed it.

Lunch at In-N-Out

We checked in at Las Vegas RV Resort. This is our first time here. Very nice park. It's an "adults only" park...even better. The rate is $32.77 per night, no weekly rate. Facilities are very nice, especially the pool and the hot tub. Laundry is cheap $1.50 wash and $1.00 dry.

We took Jan & Joel to Bally's this afternoon. It was real nice cruising with them these past few days. Was great to show them what RV life is all about. We all had a lot of fun.

Our site for the next few days

Inviting pool

Hot tub anyone?

Oct 02

We got up this morning and saw the morning news on tv...horrific, devastating news. A gunman rained bullets on a crowd at a concert. He was in a suite at Mandalay Bay which overlooked the venue. During Jason Aldean's performance he just opened fire. So far 58 confirmed dead, over 500 injured. I heard a lot of sirens last night and wondered....what the hell is going on?? So, so sad.

Oct 03 - 07  Las Vegas

We spent the next few days in Vegas doing maintenance on the RV, doing our morning walks around the rv park, and meeting up with friends. Umiya Sushi with Jan and Joel, Winky and Dean for lunch at 808 HMP, Grand Lux at Venetian dinner with Jan and Joel, lunch at Sweet Tomatoes with Vickie, lunch at Tata's Asian Grill with Jan and Joel, dinner with Vickie and Randy at Angry Butcher in Sam's Town. That's a lot of eating out! No wonder we can't lose weight!

Umiya Sushi with Jan & Joel

Lunch with Vickie at Sweet Tomatoes

Dinner at Angry Butcher with the Holts

Oct 08   Las Vegas RV Resort - Main Street Station RV Park    18 miles     45 minutes

We woke up early this morning and went to Walmart to do some shopping. When I got up my back was a little sore and after shopping at Walmart I could barely walk. We moved to Main Street, I took some motrin and muscle relaxers and tried to rest.

By dinner, I felt a little better so we met Winky and Leslie for dinner at Vino's located in The Cannery. This is one of our favorite italian restaurants. Joe had veal with marsala and I had shrimp scampi.....soooo good. My back was hurting by the time we got home but was worth it!

Oct 11      Las Vegas - Pahrump     104 miles     2 hours 30 minutes

Hot tub at Lakeside RV

Miki came in late last night to hang out with us for a week. We're taking Miki out to the desert to do some exploring. We drove out to Pahrump to stay for a few days at Lakeside Casino RV. We haven't stayed here in a while so just wanted to check it out. They honor Passport America so $20.00 per night. We'll be here for 3 nights. It's still pretty nice, there's a pool and hot tub that's open so we'll make use of that.

Oct 12     Spring Mountain Ranch & Red Rock Canyon

We drove out to Spring Mountain Ranch State Park this morning. Established in 1876 there's a lot of rich history here. We took the tour of the ranch house and did a short hike up the mountain. The temperature was perfect and we got to enjoy great views of the surrounding area. The grounds were very well kept and very clean. Admission was $7 because we have Nevada plates on our Kia.

Miki was in the mood for Olive Garden for lunch. We checked and found there was one in Summerlin, so off we went.

On the way back to Pahrump we drove through Red Rock Canyon. Very scenic drive, Joe and I did some hikes here a couple of years ago but no time for hikes today.

Oct 13   Death Valley

We spent the day at Death Valley. Took us over an hour to drive there from Pahrump. Joe and I have been here a couple of times and still enjoy the scenery and wanted to share this with Miki. We did the normal stops; Zabriskie Point, Harmony Borax Works, Badwater Salt Flat, and drove the 9-mile scenic loop through Artist Drive. Took us all day....we were exhausted.

Zabriskie Point

Harmony Borax Works

Artist Drive

Beautiful colors

Badwater Salt Flat

Oct 14    Pahrump - Las Vegas     72 miles    2 hours

Back to Las Vegas RV Resort for the next 2 nights. Miki was glad to get out of the desert, she rather see water.  Next time we'll go to Zion and do some hikes there.



After getting settled at Las Vegas RV Resort, Miki and I went to Sunset Station to put in a football bet and do a little gambling. She did pretty good on blackjack and I got lucky on the megabucks machine....so we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in Henderson. Lunch was at Cafe Rio Mexican Grill. Very very, good place to eat, we'll be back.

Ono sushi

This evening we went to Blue Fin Sushi for all you can eat sushi. $25 per person and believe me, we got our monies worth! Our nephew Kawika met us there, he and Miki enjoyed 3 bottles of Sake.

Miki & Kawika enjoying sake

Dessert

Oct 17    Las Vegas

We're staying at Sunset Station, got lucky with some comps. We spent the last few days cleaning the RV and putting it in storage until our next trip. Of course, we did more shopping for Christmas and enjoyed eating out. Miki leaves this afternoon, so nice to spend some time with her.


Oct 18   Time to go home

We leave late tonight so we went to the RV to do some final cleaning and put the Kia in storage. We like staying at Sunset Station because it's close to where we store our car and RV. After storing the car we walk back to the hotel, about a mile and a half. We always manage to stop at In-N-Out on the way back.

RV storage

Kia storage

Our flight is at 2 a.m. so we checked out of our hotel room at about 1130 p.m. and went out to catch a cab. There were no cabs around. We had to call two times and finally grabbed a cab that was dropping off some people at the casino. Then he took a longer route. Next time we'll use lyft.


IN CLOSING........another awesome trip has come to an end. We got to explore eastern California and enjoyed highway 395. Our first visit to Boise, Idaho was amazing. We got to share our RV experience with our friends Jan and Joel, traveling from Boise back to Las Vegas via Ely, Great Basin National Park, and Cathedral Gorge State Park. We put 1,857 miles on our RV and have memories to last a lifetime. 

Ely, Great Basin Nat'l Park, Cathedral Gorge

Sep 28     Miracle Hot Springs, ID - Ely, NV     264 miles     6 hours

We had a long day of driving but the scenery was pretty nice. We took a couple of breaks and just took our time. One of the stops were on the Pony Express Trail so they had some exhibits.

We're staying one night at the Prospectors Hotel

Joe got Jan & Joel to help clean the front of the RV

& Casino.

The RV park has full hook ups for $23.00 per night. The casino here is very small with only machines, no table games.

We went to the Nevada Northern Railway Museum. It's a living, breathing, operating historic railroad. We were not able to do the train ride due to our schedule but we did a walking tour of the engine house, main yard and museum. This is an amazing place where you can watch and talk to people who not only knows trains but restore them. We enjoyed our time there.

For dinner we went to Margarita's located inside the casino. It was very, very good. Pretty reasonable with large portions.






Sep 29     Ely - Great Basin National Park     70 miles     2 hours

We drove to Great Basin National Park and we're camping at Lower Lehman Creek Campground. It's dry camping for $12.00 per night. There's only 11 sites here so we got lucky and got one of the last sites. The first site we pulled into was pretty awesome. There was a creek right alongside the site but we couldn't get the RV level. Luckily right across from us, someone left so we moved there.






Great Basin National Park protects the world's oldest living trees, bristlecone pines. In this remote Nevada landscape dark night skies display millions of stars and clear days offer exceptional visibility with views for over 100 miles.

After setting up we took a drive on Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive This drive offers very good views on a very winding mountainous road with no guardrails. Our campground is located at 7000 feet. On this drive, in a few miles we gain 3,400 feet in elevation, showing varied habitats.

The trees highest up in the Snake Range the limber and bristlecone pines, appear between 9,500 and 11,000 feet. Both are hardy, but bristlecone pines are masters of longevity enduring not centuries but millennia. On rocky slopes past Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive's end there are trees 2,000 to 3,000 and more years old.


We attempted to see older trees up to 5,000 years old on the Bristlecone Trail. This trail leads to the Bristlecone Pine Grove. Its a 3 mile hike starting elevation 9,800 feet and elevation gain of 600 feet. There was snow and ice on the ground when we started but we still could make out the trail so we began our hike. As we got further along, it got very icy and slippery. I think we were almost there but had to finally turn around. It was just not safe to go any further. Kind of a bummer but hey...there's always next time and we got a great work out.

Snow & ice all over the trail

Hot chocolate anyone?

Right outside our window

Sep 30   Great Basin National Park - Cathedral Gorge State Park     135 miles  2 hours 30 minutes

On the way out of Great Basin this morning, we stopped at the visitor's center. We were asking about collecting pine nuts and the ranger gave us some valuable information. First of all, she said we were kind of late in the season. This season was kind of slow and next year will be the same. The following year should be a very good year to collect pine nuts. So it seems, every three years is the time to go. Then she told us where to go to buy pine nuts straight from the distributor. So Jan and I took off in the Kia and our husbands drove the rv and waited for us in the area. We went down 6 miles, turned on a dirt road and started looking. There were no signs around so we didn't know where we were going, plus this area was kind of deserted. We actually we to the wrong house but the guy there directed us to the right place. He said look for the smoke in the field.

Burning burlap bags in the field

Unbelievable, we wouldn't have thought or pictured it to be like that. There was a whole family with small kids working in the field. The old man there was very nice. Jan and I both bought 5 pounds each, $9 per pound. We're so happy!

Cathedral Gorge State Park is located in a long, narrow valley in southeastern Nevada, where erosion has carved dramatic and unique patterns in the soft bentonite clay. Great walking trails abound for exploring the cave like formations and cathedral like spires that are a result of geologic processes from tens of millions of years ago.

This park is pretty nice but only got electric and it's $25 per night. When we arrived we paid our $25 then Joel was looking at their website on his phone and found that today, Sept 30th all state parks have free camping. Jan went out to the pay box and dug out our envelope. So free camping, awesome!

We did a three mile hike on Juniper Loop, sidetracked to the Caves which turned out to be a slot canyon. Pretty cool, we had fun trying to fit everywhere.

Beautiful sunset