Thoughts on elevation blocks

If you've read this blog in the past you know that one of the first things I found out I had to do was come up with a way to elevate the RV when we encountered camp sites which weren't exactly level. On previous trips I discovered that though my "single wheel" ramps worked well for the front wheels, if I had to elevate the dual rear wheels I had to put both of the single ramps in the rear. If I still had to elevate the front I was out of luck. So, before this trip I built a somewhat smaller ramp just for the dualies. Though the next time I do one I'd design it slightly differently, the pictured unit has worked well and I have needed it about half the time this trip. Here's a shot of the new ramp.

As you can see, I attached a galvanized garage door handle from my junk drawer to the end to make it easier to move the heavy wooden unit around. Someday I'd like to come up with some sort of lighter material to build the ramps from, but the RV is pretty heavy and you need something substantial on which to elevate it. I've seen other RVs using some sort of plastic material that looks a lot like giant Lego blocks, but they always appear to be partially crushed to me. I've also seen a lot of RV guys who don't bother to elevate at all, which makes me a little nervous in that the fridge needs to be level most of the time.

The bottom photo is of a single ramp which I constructed from a piece of pressure-treated 2x8 fir. The handle on this ramp is of brass from the junk drawer, which is a little nicer than the galvanized handle.

Relaxing our way through days 9, 10, and 11

Sorry there's not much to report. We've just been hanging out with relatives -- eating, drinking, and planning the next leg of our trip. Tomorrow we're going to be back on the road, headed more or less east. As always we'll be trying to stay off the interstate highways and exploring the lesser-traveled byways. Right now we're in Care Free, Arizona, and tomorrow we intend to head for the Petrified Forest area on Route 40 (old Route 66) around Holbrook, Arizona. Mapquest wanted us to head back up Route 17 toward Route 40, then going east on 40. But we'll be going a more direct route from Carefree, though we have to dip down a bit toward Scottsdale before we head northeast along routes 60 and 77.

Last night Concetta's nephew, Marc, and wife, Nancy, surprised us with an absolutely wonderful dinner near here at a place called the "Spotted Donkey." Don't let the name fool you, the food was crazy good. I had a dish called Pescado Veracruz, which was fish and Spanish rice. Others in the party had the fish tacos. One member, evidently not into Mexican food, had the meatloaf and potatoes. But before you say WHAT? let me tell you that it was done Mexican style with peppers and such and he said it was marvelous. If you find yourself in the Scottsdale area, look up the Spotted Donkey, you won't be disappointed.

After dinner nephew Marc and Nancy then had a further surprise for us -- a real life, bull riding, rodeo. Now I hadn't been to a rodeo since Moses was a pup. Concetta had never been. So, we didn't know what to expect. Long story short, we had a great time. There were so many cowboys strutting around with their sweat-stained cowboy hats and big-buckled levis I would have sworn that Nevada must be missing most of their supply. I don't think I'd ever seen bull riding and let me just say that you couldn't pay me enough money to stand next to one of those critters let alone put my butt on top of one. The best guy lasted a total of 11 seconds or so. The least experienced (or lucky) guy got knocked off as the bull cleared the chute.

Then the fun stuff started. They gathered up a dozen kids three to four years old and put them atop sheep. You would have died laughing.

Only one kid stayed on longer than a second or two, and this boy hung on so tight that he slowly revolved from on top to underneath the sheep as the critter ran around the ring. The rodeo clowns finally had to pry him off when the sheep quit running as he didn't want to let go. Naturally he got the prize for the evening.

Sorry that there's no photos. When we left Marc and Nancy's house I didn't realize that we were going to be running into any photo ops that evening.

So, see you tomorrow. We'll be staying (if everything goes right) in the KOA in Holbrook so we should have WiFi. Right now we have to get ready for the next meal which is scheduled to be a gigantic barbecue event for more than 25 people from around the neighborhood. They're having cheese cake for desert so I don't want to miss it.

Ciao for now.

Day Eight - Life in the SLOW lane

Today, Concetta and her sister, Phyllis, and Phyllis' boyfriend, Collin, and I spent the day just hanging out at sister Phyllis' son, Marc's house near Rock Creek, Arizona. While Marc and his wife, Nancy, hit the highways early on their way to their jobs, the sisters spent a big chunk of the day by the pool reading while I and Colin hung out in the dining room trying to tell each other progressive more grandiose lies, tall tails, and intricate designs for curing all the world's ills. In between times I tried to get the blog caught up. Plans had been briefly circulated for a auto trip back up the highway to Sedona, but as nap time came on, the plans were dropped. Now we're planning on just doing more kicking back, maybe a barbecue, maybe a local shopping trip down to the town of Rock Creek. All of this is fine with me. After 1,200 miles on the road behind the wheel I can do with a short spell of vegetative status. I even had time to start my new book, "House of Rain," by Craig Childs, which is subtitled "Tracking a Vanished Civilization across the American Southwest" and revolves around the history of the prehistoric Anasazi. Great stuff. Reads like a novel. Photo left is Concetta enjoying her time by the pool.

Day Seven - Kanab, Utah to Grand Canyon, Arizona

Day seven of our adventure found us in Kanab, Utah, and headed for the Phoenix area. Since we couldn't get there in one day we just HAD to feed our Grand Canyon addiction by stopping on the south rim for the night. Initially we thought that no one would be visiting the Canyon this early in the season since temps were still ranging below freezing there at night. But just in case, while still in Kanab, we took the extra step of calling ahead to "Trailer Village" to see if we needed a reservation. Good thinking! When I got the reservation clerk on the line he told me that it was a good thing we called since there was only ONE spot left. Good grief! "Yes," I said. "We'll take it." Of course there was probably more room in the primitive camping area if it had come to that, which is much prettier but lacks water, sewer, and electricity. Arriving in camp around 2:00 p.m. I hurriedly got the RV on the ramps to level it and then we dashed off to see what we could see of the canyon in the afternoon light. I'll probably put more of the photos on Facebook, but here's one of Concetta and me on the south rim. I stopped a couple of Japanese students to take the shot and gave them an "Arigatou" when they handed the camera back. They got a big kick out of that and insisted through hand motions that we reciprocate and take their photo, too. Having had a Japanese roommate at one time I knew what to say. What they said in response went over my head, but oh well.

The best thing about visiting the Grand Canyon, other than the awesome magnificence of the geology, is the way the park has worked hard to cater to the visitor. Buses circulate throughout the entire south rim area and you can catch a ride to wherever you'd like to go and you won't have to wait more than 15 minutes for the next bus to stop. The next best thing about the park is the visitors themselves. They literally come from everywhere around world, from the far east to the Mediterranean countries; from the Scandinavian countries to South American countries.

After walking all afternoon along the south rim we arrived at the Geology Museum where I purchased yet another book on natural vegetation. I've been trying to find a way to identify the "weeds" along the roadside as we take our walks or do a roadside stop with the motorhome. On this trip I finally learned what a "Creosote Bush" looks like since there were so many in the Valley of Fire. But still there's lots of other plants that I don't know. Most of the books seem prone to identify the prettiest plants but the "uglier" plants go undiscussed. I have found a couple of books on native plants and how they were used by the native Americans, which is pretty fascinating.

We got back to the RV just about dark, but since I didn't have to set up the water and sewer due to the impending, overnight freezing conditions, my work for the day was done. The next morning it was so cold I had to set up the sewer line to be pumped and washed out then dash back inside to warm up a bit. Then I'd go back out for a few more minutes of work. The temperature gauge in the front locker was registering 35.7 degrees, which meant in the outside air it was probably at least five degree colder than that.

At left, by the way, is a Creosote Bush which grow in profusion all over the southwest.

Here's some info on the Creosote Bush: "Creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), sometimes called greasewood, is a large shrub found in most of Arizona’s counties. Creosote bush grows at elevations of 5,000 feet or lower and occupies thousands of square miles of Arizona’s Sonoran desert. It is also common in the Mohave Desert in California, Nevada, and southern Utah as well as the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico, west Texas, and Mexico. Locally, creosote bush grows on valley bottoms and benches in and around the Verde Valley." This website will elaborate: http://ag.arizona.edu/yavapai/anr/hort/byg/archive/creosote.html

Day Six - Mesquite, Nevada to Kanab, Utah

Day six found us driving north out of Mesquite into Utah before dropping south toward Kanab. Not much to see on Interstate 15, but once past St. George, and we exited onto Utah route 59, we came across the most wonderful setting for our noontime lunch break. Nestled on the edge of a resident's property in the town of Tocquerville, we found this cute little log cabin. Though no one was around to ask, if I had to guess I'd have to say that the cabin is an earlier rendition of the family's larger house. You can see that it's made of traditional hand hewn logs with the corners squared off to mesh with the log on the adjacent wall.

Day Five - Valley of Fire to Mesquite

On day five we didn't connect with the the RV park that we had intended. It wasn't really our fault. When we called the woman at the park she said she couldn't give us GPS coordinates because we'd end up in the wrong place. Well, the verbal directions she gave us sent us off in the wrong direction which, ultimately, caused us to stumble over the RV parking lot for a local casino called the Casa Blanca. Since I was in no mood to try and sort out this puzzle, we just went ahead and registered at the Casa Blanca, which turned out to be affordable. Only thing was, the RV parking area had no WiFi. They invited us to come hang out in the Casino lounge and use the free WiFi there, but we declined. We found out later that the original RV park was really nice, and much more upscale than where we ended up, and probably would have had WiFi in every palm tree. But sometimes it's just a whole lot easier to not try and swim upstream when the Fates are insistent on having their way.

So, it turned out that the lack of WiFi didn't matter much anyway because our friends, Frank and Patti Adams, who live in Mesquite, volunteered to take us to lunch at a local golf course as well as treat us to a backyard barbecue dinner at their place (this is the view from their patio). I was able to upload the previous two days events while at their house, but didn't end up with sufficient time to actually write anything about the day's events since our party lasted into the late evening.

Before arriving at Mesquite Concetta and I did take time to visit the Lost City Museum in Overton, Nevada, and spent a wonderful couple of hours visiting with the ghosts of ancient Puebloan Indians. We saw some really fantastic basketry, pottery, and other related everyday items from local tribes.

The photo at left is the Lost City Museum near Overton. I had never visited the museum before, but the last time Concetta was there, which was about 40 years ago or more, it was a tiny, two room affair. Now, they have a new building of about 2000 square feet and some expertly done displays of native American basketry, weaving, and other antiquities. I was very impressed with their efforts and recommend a visit when next you're in the area.

Day four – the Valley of Fire Visitor Center

Did you know that there are 300,000,000 bugs on planet earth for every one of us humans? Neither did I. Concetta and I learned that bit of trivia when we hiked to the Valley of Fire Visitor Center this morning after breakfast. I say “hiked” because the Center isn’t located here where our RV is parked. No, it’s about three miles from here by a narrow, two-lane road, flanked by millions of acres of desert.

When we first decided to stay here at the “Atlatl” campsite, we thought the Visitor Center WAS here. But that turned out to not be true. Yesterday, when we strolled to the far end of our camping area to see the native America pictographs, I caught sight of a park ranger in the pictograph parking area and dashed over to ask him. “Can you tell me how far away the Visitor Center is,” I asked. “Sure,” he said. “I’d say a couple of miles or so.” “Ah,” I said. “Is it okay to walk there?” He looked at me for a long moment and said, “Nobody really ever does that.” I told him thanks a lot and stepped back from his truck so he could continue on with his ranger duties. Guess we’ll be the first, I thought.

So it was that right after breakfast this morning, while the air was still long-sleeves cool and a gentle breeze was wafting over the desert playa, Concetta and I set off with our tiny backpack full of water bottles and energy bars to see if we might get to the Center and back before any afternoon heat might set in.

As it turned out, I started doubting our sanity about twenty minutes into the hike. As we left the confines of the camping area, reached the highway and kept walking, we rounded a bend in the road and discovered that the whole valley dropped away to the east so that we could see EVERY sign of civilization that could be seen from that vantage point. Trouble was there were no signs of civilization. Just a yellow-striped ribbon of asphalt that meandered listlessly in the brilliant morning sun, here and there disappearing from sight as it dipped into arroyos and climbed back out again, clear to the horizon. Occasionally a tiny automobile could be seen moving toward us, serving as some indication that life other than the two of us could be found out there among the creosote bushes and low-growing sage.

“Come on,” Concetta said. “We can make it.” “Make it where?” I asked. “I don’t see a Visitor Center anywhere.” “Has to be out there,” she said. “The ranger told you two miles.” And so we continued hiking. I found myself hoping that the ranger wasn’t someone they had just hired the previous week.

As fate would have it, we had hiked about a mile or more when we started seeing cars leave the main road and venture toward the sandstone cliffs on the north side of the valley. We couldn’t see any structures, but the distance from us to the turnout seemed to be about a mile and so lent some credence to the ranger’s sense of distance. “I bet that’s the turnoff to the Visitor Center,” I told Concetta.

And so it turned out to be. Before we had even walked that last mile, we saw the sandstone-colored building nestled close against the sandstone cliffs. It blended so well with the environment that you just knew that was the architect’s intent. Our only surprise at that point was the sign at the base of the visitor center driveway. “Visitor Center,” it said. “One half mile.” That bit of information added to my suspicion that, counting the walk to the main highway from our camp, and the walk from the main highway to the Center, the total walking distance was closer to three miles than two.

One of the first things we did at the Visitor Center was watch a video on the bugs of planet Earth. That’s where I learned the 300,000,000-to-one bit of etymological trivia. And that’s where I was momentarily catapulted back to my childhood. Let me explain. When I was a kid my dad raised horses. He and mom had, at one time, been horse-riding people. Once my brother and I arrived on the scene, their horse riding days were largely over. But Dad still kept them around for quite some time after that. My big complaint about the horses in those days was the fact that they always took precedence over the humans. No matter where we were, and how much fun we might be having, at some mid-afternoon hour Dad would rise and say, “Well, it’s time to start home so I can feed the horses.” I wasn’t very old when I vowed that I would NEVER own any pets of any kind who would control my life the way the horses controlled Dad’s.

Today, while Concetta and I were sitting in the movie theater watching a myriad of termites building a structure equivalent to a human structure two miles high, a youngster about seven years old ventured into the auditorium and dropped down in a seat. He had only sat there for perhaps two minutes, obviously lost in the sights and sounds of the bug world, when in marched “Dad” who said to junior, “Come on, the dog’s in the car.” With the greatest reluctance and several backward glances at the screen, junior finally rose and exited. Wow! I thought. There’s my childhood in microcosm. Did that insensitive dad have any realization of what he’d just done? I doubt it. Had he just thwarted what might have been the child’s only exposure to that particular fascinating topic? Possibly. Had I just witnessed a parent who didn’t have clue what was important in this world. Emphatically! A pox on that guy.

I expected the three mile return trip under the noonday sun to be just this side of exhausting, what with the tired feet and the increased temperature. But in reality I had more fun coming back than I did going out. I spent my time (when we weren’t dogging cars) looking for prime examples of the various rock types in the valley that were big enough to be representative but small enough to carry around in a pocket. That combined with photographing the various indigenous plants kept me occupied the whole walk back.

Only one event begs inclusion here that I haven’t mentioned, and it happened on BOTH legs of our journey. Much as I related a couple of days ago when the military jet flew by us at eye level as we enjoyed the view from the rim of Death Valley, today we belatedly looked up just in time to see a glaringly chartreuse Lamborghini go rumbling by us as looking so out of place that we might have been imagining it. Then, as we trekked back up the desert highway in the opposite direction that same Lamborghini sailed past again. We couldn’t have been more surprised if Marty McFly’s Delorean had dropped out of the sky and stopped to ask us for directions.

Now, back at our wonderful bastion of serenity and cool air (it’s only 77 in the coach right now with the windows open), Concetta is out on the lanai reading and I’m, well, you know what I’m doing. Until next time, keep on traveling!

Day 3 on the road – Pahrump to Valley of Fire

Lessons in life are always hard to take, no matter how much we need to experience them. In my case, you simply can’t live over six decades on the planet without, at some point, coming to that conclusion. Hopefully, as you get older, you take those lesson-learning episodes in stride and keep on keeping on, hopefully a bit more savvy as you go forward.

Such has been my experience with the retailer I call Wally World, that bastion of cut rate sales most other people know as Walmart. In the beginning I regarded Wally World as so overtly predatory in its marketing practices, so unmindful of the irreparable damage they were doing to main street America, that I simply refused to patronize the place under any circumstances

So it was Friday morning we found ourselves at the Pahrump Valley Walmart where the parking is commodious and the greeters are friendly, if somewhat ancient. Doing our part for the economy, we bought everything from two sets of towels we forgot to bring as a laundry-day backup to the first set we did remember to bring, to our favorite yogurt and orange juice. Of course the reason that we chose Walmart instead of Honest Eddie’s Main Street Grocery was because I needed a special RV fitting for our sewer hose that allows one to hook a garden hose to the non-exit end of the hose and flush it out with water before you pack it for travel. I had already looked for that special item at each of the campground stores we had explored since we left home, but we had so far been unsuccessful. We also scored a plastic bin into which I intended to put our constant companion, a case of Arrowhead water.

Later, as we stood in the “20 items or less” line and listened to the glitter-gulch showgirl turned senior citizen retail clerk chat about washing her dog to the fascinated, and obviously flirty, male customer ahead of us, I gazed around the sales floor and, perhaps for the first time, realized that we simply would not be able to function on the road without Wally World. Walton’s brainchild may be responsible for turning 10,000 American main streets into the world’s finest source of used brick, but we had quietly abandoned our Quixotic quest for retail morality and joined the vast herd of deal seekers looking to provision yet another cross-country adventure.

Our shopping concluded, and once again on the road, we set our course south for the thriving desert metropolis of Las Vegas. As Pahrump receded in our mirrors, we sat back to enjoy some truly fabulous desert scenery along route 160. I think it was John C. Fremont who was the first non-native American to see the willow-choked springs and sandy valley that came to be called Las Vegas. He’d certainly recognize the vast stretches of sage and sand flanked by multi-colored sandstone cliffs that still adorn route 160 into the southern border of Las Vegas. The vistas are, I’m sure, just as breathtaking as they were over nearly 170 years ago.

But that’s where the similarity to historic southern Nevada ends. Once we reached Las Vegas proper and transitioned from route 160 to route 15 into the heart of the city, the drive turned from one of desert quietude to one of mass pandemonium. All of a sudden it was everyman for himself, or so it seemed. The wonderful, leisurely two-lane desert road suddenly became ten lanes of suicide bombers bent on somehow, some way getting to wherever they were going before they actually left. It reminded me ever so much of those scenes in the movie, The Fifth Element, where Bruce Willis is “driving” a cab that can go in literally ANY direction in three dimensions. Cars are coming at him in so many directions and so fast that you consider it a major miracle when he doesn’t hit much of anything. Well, that was us today.

I seldom push the RV over 60 mph, partially out of respect for a gracefully aging, 18 year old machine, and partially because I want to be able to enjoy the scenery and not get to where I’m going too fast. Unless we have reservations for some reason, most days we don’t care if we get anywhere at all. So being hemmed in by an entire flotilla of Kamikaze cars going seventy-five and eighty is exhilarating at best and downright terrifying at worst.

Still, we managed to get all the way through the worst of Las Vegas traffic without incident and were soon once more motoring at a more serene tempo. When it got close to noon I picked a likely off-ramp exclaiming that the business operating near the ramp looked like they had a nice level area to park the RV and far enough from the freeway to lessen the noise. It wasn’t until we were halfway through lunch that Concetta informed me that I had picked the entrance to the local landfill for my midday culinary event. I shrugged, “the landscaping is nice.” I said, and we went on eating.

Our destination for the afternoon stop was the Valley of Fire State Park. Having lived in southern Nevada for over a decade, Concetta had been to Valley of Fire before and had often told me about the incredible rock formations to be found there. Still, as we approached the park gate and made ready to pay our entrance fee, I could hardly believe the celebration of geology that lay before us. It was just downright awesome. Later, when we had snagged the only full-hookup campsite left in the park and had put down our temporary roots, we took off on foot to see as much of the 250 million year old sandstone deposits as we could in the fading afternoon light. Wow! What a humbling experience. Everywhere I turned the camera lay absolutely stunning orange rock formations flanked by a brilliant blue sky and white fleecy clouds. It was like a box of crayons on steroids. I just couldn’t get enough of the place. Back at the RV we spent the balance of the afternoon watching the sun set, sipping a bit of Vodka and cranberry juice, and chatting about adventures past, present, and future. What a day!

Tomorrow we’re setting out on foot to the Visitor Center which, the ranger told me, lies about two miles from here. “Watch for cars,” the ranger said, tapping his radar unit. “They don’t always obey the speed limits.” Dang, I thought, when you’re keeping company with 250,000,000 year old rocks, what exactly is their hurry?