Hele On with Joe and Dawn: 2020

We start another RV journey, a different one this time. We ordered our new RV back in February and is now ready for pick up at Sherman RV in Mississippi. The Covid-19 pandemic is in full swing and this is not the best time to travel. However, we need to make this trip and pick up our new RV. Who knows how bad this pandemic will get and who knows for how long?

On this trip it's the two of us, my brother David, his son Kawika, and my brother in law Michael. Michael and my sister bought our Bounder so this will be a good opportunity for him to learn the ins and outs of RVing.

June 23

We flew into LAX and drove to Las Vegas. We feel this is the best way because of Covid. Right now there are no non-stop flights to Las Vegas, everything connects.

We're staying at Las Vegas RV Resort for a couple of nights to get the RV ready for our great adventure.

June 25 Las Vegas - Albuquerque, NM 550 miles

Michael's 1st drive

We have a long day ahead of us so we left very early. Joe and Michael switched off driving to Albuquerque. This is Michael's first time in the RV so he was kind of nervous.

We made a stop at Walnut Canyon National Monument in Arizona.The Island Trail that goes down into the canyon was closed due to Covid but we could stretch our legs on the Rim trail. Its a nice paved trail that has amazing views of the canyon where you can see the structures built into the walls. It's hard to imagine what it took to build these amazing cliff dwellings.

Sunset in New Mexico

We continued our drive to Route 66 RV Resort in Albuquerque. $45 per night for full hook ups. We've stayed here before and love the pool. When we drove in, we were told the pool is closed due to Covid. So bummed. I think this is going to be happening throughout this trip. Still a very nice park.

3 Amigos always planning something

June 27 Albuquerque, NM - Foss, OK 459 miles

Got an early start today, another long drive. We stopped at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM but closed due to Covid. We named David, Michael, and Kawika the 3 amigos. They like to drink.... a lot! They drank so much last night, they slept most of the way to Oklahoma.

We pulled into Elk City/Clinton KOA around 4pm. Decent park but they charged us $58. Extra $10 because we had 4 in our party. We actually have 5 traveling but when I made the reservation I put in 4 people. Wasn't aware of the extra charge. Doesn't make sense to charge us extra, there's nothing special about this park. Also, the pool was closed. We normally don't stay at KOA's. Now I remember why. This is our first trip to Oklahoma.

Short hike with Kawika to Clinton Lake at sunset

June 28 Foss, OK - Lakeview , AR 424 miles 9 hours

Another long day of driving. Joe wasn't too happy about veering off I-40 and driving to Lakeview, Arkansas. I'm glad we did, so worth it! This campground is really, really nice. We're at Lakeview Park and this is an Army Corps of Engineers park (COE) and is very well maintained. We're in site B18 and we cans see the Bull Shoals Lake through the trees. Sites are big and spread apart with water and electricity. There is a dump station which we can use on the way out. Bathrooms with showers are very clean and got air conditioning. We're here for two nights. I reserved online a few weeks ago. Sites are $22 per night.

Beautiful sunset

This evening as we were sitting outside eating, we noticed fireflies right behind our site. We've never seen fireflies. We couldn't get enough of them, we were amazed.

June 29 Bull Shoals Lake

The 3 amigos came up with an idea to rent a pontoon today. 25' pontoon for 4 hours cost $250.00. We reserved one from 2-6pm. We had some time to do some cleaning and everybody went to work. We got the RV looking good inside and out.

We took a drive to the visitors center where we had a nice view of Bull Shoals Dam. The Dam was started in June 1947 and completed in July 1951. The Dam stretches 2,256 feet across the White River and is 256 feet tall.

Then we went to pick up the pontoon. Turned out to be very nice, we cruised all over.

Bull Shoals Lake is huge. Over 820 miles of shoreline with 48,195 surface acres of clean, clear, blue water. We even went over the state line into Missouri. Pontooning on the Ozarks was a great time for all of us.

June 30 Lakeview, AR - Tupelo, MS 321 miles 7 hours

We made our way to Tombigbee State Park in Mississippi. Not that great of a park, small campground around 20 spaces. The road to the park was very narrow with a lot of curves. We had to take it slow. $51.36 for two nights, full hook-ups.

This was our last ride in our Bounder. We pick up our new RV tomorrow.

My sticker collection

July 1

We picked up our new RV today. So nice, we're stoked! We got a custom ordered 2020 Tiffin Allegro Red 33A. We had an appointment for 9am and it took pretty much all day to get things done.

Joe and I have been searching for an RV upgrade for a little while now. We knew what we wanted and we could not find the perfect one at all the RV dealerships we went to. Joe finally made the decision to custom order one from Sherman RV. We found that doing it this way is a lot cheaper than going shopping at the RV dealerships. We feel we got a very good deal for what we got. The only negative is the stupid Covid limiting us to what we can do.

The Tiffin factory is located in Red Bay, Alabama, about an hours drive from Sherman RV. Tiffin offers a factory tour that we were looking forward to. You can go on the floor and watch how RV's are built. We're definitely planning to come back to this area next year.

We spent the night at Sherman RV. If we have any questions about the new rig we can ask them tomorrow.

July 2 Tupelo, MS - Hot Springs, AR 285 miles 6 hours

We found a couple of minor problems with the RV and one of the workers, Travis helped us out. We need to come back before the warranty expires because we have a major problem with the auto leveling and one of the slides are not working right. But still, we're so happy with our new purchase. We can't believe we were able to swing something like this. We feel very fortunate.

We drove to Hot Springs, Arkansas and stayed at Catherine's Landing. This is a very expensive campground, $312.00 for 3 nights. It's a pretty nice park but it's 4th of July weekend and this place is packed. Lots of families with a lot of boating equipment. The wifi really sucks and hardly any phone signal. The pool is open but very busy. We're not going there because of Covid. The weather sucks too....very, very muggy. We're staying here because when I was making plans for this trip, I had a hard time finding a park over the 4th of July weekend. So here we are.

We have sites next to each other so once we got hooked up everybody helped move our things from the Bounder to the Tiffin.

The old Bounder and the new Tiffin

July 3 Hot Springs National Park

Today we took a drive to Hot Springs National Park. This park is made up of the famous Bathhouse Row, along with scenic drives, hiking trails, and hot springs bubbling up from the ground.

We walked part of Bathhouse Row then took the scenic mountain drive.

Stuffed!

On the way back, we made a stop at Walmart and did some grocery shopping. We bought a lot of stuff. Two wagons full of everything. Filled up the back of the Kia with things also on our laps.

In the afternoon, the 3 amigos went zip lining. It was $65 for 10 lines. They said was fun but it was super hot and muggy. They also had to climb up each platform so was kind of tiring. David and Michael had a good workout.

July 4 Hiking at Hot Springs National Park

Today is our 34th wedding anniversary. How time flies!

Kawika, Joe, and I went on a hike this morning at Hot Springs National Park. We drove all the way to the top and hiked Goat Rock Trail. Not too long, about 2 miles. We got there shortly after 8am and the weather was pretty good. We hiked to an overlook and the view was awesome. On our return it got very muggy. It's a good thing we went early.

We enjoyed watching some fireworks from our campsite.

Happy 4th of July and Happy Anniversary to us!

July 5 Hot Springs, AR - Checotah, OK 220 miles 5 hours

We had a nice drive today to Lake Eufaula State Park in Checotah, Oklahoma. We got full hookups in Dogwood Campground for $38.00. This campground is real nice. There are a couple of swimming beaches but when Kawika and I went to check it out it wasn't good. The water was very warm and very dirty.

July 6 Checotah, OK - Amarillo, TX 377 miles 7 hours 30 minutes

We had a long drive today, all the way to Amarillo, Texas. It's just an overnight stop so we're camping in the Walmart parking lot on Coulter Street. Pretty busy area and Walmart closed at 830pm. I think they got special hours because of Covid.

July 7 Amarillo, TX - Albuquerque, NM 300 miles 5 hours

Sunsets are amazing

We went back to Route 66 RV Resort in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The pool is still closed because of Covid but the casino is open. I gambled a little and Joe got us sandwiches at Stadium 66. This is just an overnight stop. We should have saved some money and camped in the casino parking lot.

July 8 Albuquerque, NM - Verde Valley, AZ 358 miles 6 hours 30 minutes

The guys watching TV while Kawika chefs it up

We drove to Verde Ranch RV Resort in Arizona. We'll be staying here for 4 nights. It'll give us 3 full days to explore the area. The normal rate is $38 per night but they take Passport America up to 6 nights. Our 4 nights here cost us $86.24. They were very accommodating. They even let Michael get the discount. Very, very nice here but because of Covid some things are closed. The pool is open, that's the main thing because its so hot. But open only from 10am - 6pm. There's a nice big pool, 2 hot tubs, and a splash pad.

July 9 Slide Rock State Park

We got up early this morning and drove to Slide Rock State Park. It's a pretty good drive, about 45 minutes away. The gates open at 7am and we made sure we were there because this park is very popular and gets very busy. We hiked into the canyon a little ways, very beautiful. We found a pond that looked very inviting.

Michael, Joe, and I went down the slide while David and Kawika laughed their asses off. We all jumped off the rocks a couple of times, good fun. The water is very cold but it felt good because it was getting pretty warm. After a while, it got very crowded so we decided to leave. It was only 930am so we drove to Tuzigoot National Monument and walked around the park.

David & Kawika

So much fun

Tuzigoot National Monument preserves a 2 to 3 story pueblo ruin on the summit of a limestone and sandstone ridge just east of Clarkdale, AZ, 120 feet above the Verde River floodplain.

By the time we were done with this park it was getting pretty hot. Today's temperature went over 100 degrees so when we went back to the RV park we went straight to the pool to cool off.

July 10 Hiking in Sedona

Kawika, Joe, and I went on a beautiful hike this morning. We left early, around 430am and drove into Sedona. It was quite a drive, by the time we got to the Devil's Bridge Trailhead parking lot it was about 515am.

Going out on this bridge was scary!

The hike was rated moderate but the last quarter mile or so it got pretty strenuous for us. Lots of rock climbing up steep stairs. But the end was worth it. The hike was about 4 miles and it was good we went early because the parking lot was full when we were done. People were parking kind of far along side the road. This is a very popular hike, glad we came early. It got pretty hot towards the end of the hike another 100 degree day.

Beautiful scenery all around us

July 11 Another hike in Sedona

Kawika and I got up early to watch the sunrise. We left at 420am and drove to the Airport Loop Trailhead. The scenery was amazing. We just went a little ways and watched the sun come up. Then we continued the loop. It was supposed to be a 3.2 mile hike but I know we went over 4 miles. The first half was very scenic. The other half not as much. This trail is very rocky and towards the end it got very hot.

Bell Rock

Afterwards, we stopped at Bell Rock to take some pictures. Again the temperature was crazy, another 100 plus degrees. It's so beautiful here, I wish the weather was cooler so we could do more hikes. This was Kawika's first trip to Sedona, he really enjoyed the hikes.

July 12 Verde Valley, AZ - Las Vegas RV Resort, NV 300 miles 5 hours 30 minutes

Very, very hot here in Las Vegas. We left Verde Valley very early this morning and had a very long drive. Joe wanted to leave early because the winds were going to pick up today.

We're at Las Vegas RV Resort for 4 nights. This resort is off Nellis in Las Vegas and we really like it here. It's an adults only resort and cost about $35 per night. It's so hot, you can't do much. The temperature today went to about 118 degrees. Lucky the pool is open until 10pm every night.

Tiffin & Bounder parked right next to the pool

July 14 Goodbye to the 3 Amigos

We spent the last couple of days getting things organized in our new RV. Michael, David, and Kawika will be leaving today because they fly out early tomorrow morning. They spent the day getting the Bounder ready to be put in storage.

Joe and I had a really good time with Michael, David, and Kawika. Michael got a chance to learn a lot about the Bounder that he bought with my sister, Dana. We're so glad they could accompany us to pick up our new rig.

July 16 Las Vegas RV Resort - McWilliams Campground 56 miles

We drove up to Mount Charleston today to escape the heat in Las Vegas. It's been well over 100 degrees everyday since we got back. The temperature is about 30 degrees lower. McWilliams campground is located in the Spring Mountain National Recreation Area, just 50 miles from downtown Las Vegas. There were no sites available online so we took a chance and hoped that we could get a first come, first serve site. When we got there, the only one that we fit in was a double site so it cost us $50.00. This campground is all dry camping, no hookups. They also don't have a dump station.

This campground is real nice. Spaced out enough with lots of bathrooms and water spigots around. Very beautiful in all the pines, views of the mountains, and fresh cool air.

July 17

We moved to site #28 this morning. It's a single site so $25 per night. We paid for 4 nights. We walked a lot around the campground today. This campground is on a mountain so lots of hills to climb.

Site #28 was perfect

There are wild horses in the area. Sometimes they come into our campground, so beautiful.

July 19 Bristlecone Trail

We've been doing a lot of walking around the campground every morning. Such a good workout.

This morning we got up early and hiked the Upper Bristlecone Trail. The trail head is right past the ski resort. The hike was rated moderate. First mile or so was pretty exhausting, uphill and rocky. But very pretty hiking through the forest with lot of shade. We just had to watch where we were stepping and had to look out for the bikers. Lots of mountain bikers passing.

When we started at 7am it was under 60 degrees. We took about 2 hours and went over 3 miles.When you get to the top you can continue to the Lower Bristlecone Trail or turn around. We wanted to continue but you end up at a different parking lot so we just turned around. This is a very heavily used trail, I'm glad we started early.

July 21 McWilliams Campground - Pahrump 76 miles 1 hour 40 minutes

It was so nice in the mountains. We wanted to see how our new rig would hold up with dry camping because we have 3 solar panels and had to learn how everything worked. We found that we had to run the generator for a couple of hours everyday to recharge the batteries. Probably because we were watching TV with our dish satellite. We stayed 5 nights and we had enough water and room in our tanks to stay another 1-2 more nights. This was a good test for us.

We love the pools here

Today we drove from Mount Charleston to Pahrump. Back to hot, hot weather. We're staying at Nevada Treasue RV Resort. We haven't been here in a while. The last time we were here the ladies at check-in was kind of rude and they had weird rules for using Passport America.

This time our check-in went very smoothly. An older lady, very friendly. They now accept Passport America for the first 2 days. So with the discount, our garden site was $27.25 per day. Pretty nice, but next time I'll ask for a deluxe site at $44 closer to the pool. They also got good weekly and monthly rates.

We ended up staying for 2 nights. We really love the pools here. The hot tub was closed because of Covid but cooling off in the pool was good enough.

July 23 Pahrump - Las Vegas RV Resort 125 miles 1 hour 50 minutes

We're back at Las Vegas RV Resort for a few days. Still adjusting to the new rig. I keep moving things around. Trying to find the best way to store things and set up house.

When Joe went to hook up the water, he realized he left the water regulator in Pahrump at the last park. I gave them a call to check if it was still there. Yes, it's there so we'll take a drive tomorrow.

July 24

Today is Joe's 59th birthday, such an old man! We took a drive out to Pahrump to pick up the water regulator he forgot. It's quite a drive, took us all day. While in Pahrump, we went to Home Depot to buy some insulation because it's so hot in the RV. Should help with the inside temperature.

July 28 Las Vegas RV Resort - Warm Springs RV Storage, Henderson, NV 6 miles

We've spent the last few days organizing and reorganizing things in the new rig. We put up the insulation and it really helped with the temperature. Spent a lot of mornings walking the campground and a lot of time cooling off in the pool.

We put the RV in storage and checked into Sunset Station. We'll spend the night here and catch a flight home early tomorrow morning. There are no non-stops to Hawaii so we're on United Airlines, Las Vegas - San Francisco - Honolulu. Once we get home we need to quarantine for 14 days.

Another awesome RV adventure comes to an end. This one was a little different. We hardly ever travel in the summer because it's so hot. We made the exception this time because of our new RV. We're so fortunate that David, Michael, and Kawika was willing to make this trip with us. It was much easier with moving our things over. Everywhere we went, it was hot. Despite the Covid-19 Pandemic, we tried to be as safe as possible and still managed to have a good time.

We'll really miss our Bounder, but glad it's still in the family.

We traveled in our Bounder for 10 years and put 38,589 miles on it.