Day 2 -- Lone Pine, California to Pahrump, Nevada -- 215 miles

Today's drive was one of the very nicest we've had in all our coast-to-coast motor home miles, which at last count totals over twenty thousand. And even though last night in Lone Pine, California, treated us to quite a torrential downpour, this morning turned out to be as sunny and pleasant as you could want with huge banks of fluffy clouds marching across the bright blue sky overhead.

Our plan this morning was to backtrack two or three miles, north towards Lone Pine, and then take California Routes 136 and 190 east to the entrance to Death Valley. We've found in the past that when you want to drive to Las Vegas it's far more interesting and exciting to drive Hwy 395 from Carson City, through the beautiful eastern California valleys and mountains, then cut through Death Valley before catching Nevada's Hwy 95 and following it south.

Our aim for the day, which we only decided last night, was to pay another visit to one of our favorite RV resorts located in Pahrump, Nevada. In days gone by Pahrump was just a wide spot in the road with not much to draw anyone's attention. But now it has become the new "in" place to live evidently, as there are miles of new homes and shops.

Our destination in Pahrump was the Wine Ridge RV Resort which we discovered on our 2014 motor home adventure. Wine Ridge is just the most immaculent park you'll see in your travels. There are just oodles of well-kept pull-though and back-in sites, as well as 30 or 40 cabins if you just happen to be traveling by car or motorbike. There is a huge swimming pool and adjacent hot tub, a club house for things like ice cream socials and pancake breakfasts, and a firepit with surrounding comfortable chairs where you can gather after dark to discuss your adventures.

But the best part about Wine Ridge is the restaurant on the property where they serve just the most scrumptious food imaginable along with wine from grapes grown right on the property. Tonight, after our usual cocktails on the small patio next to the rig, and a leisurely walk around the grounds, we had dinner in the restaurant that is located just a five minute walk from our front door. After an appetizer of simply the finest crab cakes I think we've ever encountered, we ordered filet for Concetta and blackened Mahi-Mahi for me. Oh man, was it good.

The whole drive from Lone Pine to Pahrump turned out to be about 215 miles, a little further than we like to travel in one day, but we made lots of stops to take photos as those wonderful cloud formations overhead just kept luring us out of the truck to grab a shot.

It was simply a perfect day for wandering and sight-seeing and picture-taking. We were hoping for a lot more wild flowers because of all the rain and were a little disappointed that we saw a much smaller scattering than we expected. Still, if we got out of the RV and wandered off into the desert we invariably found tiny orange and yellow flowers to enjoy. I even found some cactus flowers blooming.

The major point of interest that we found today was the historic site of the Harmony Borax Works just north of the Furance Creek area. Most likely everyone has at one time or another used Borax. But what is it? I copied the next couple of paragraphs from the site www.desertusa.com

"The value of borax has been known since ancient times. Explorer Marco Polo brought borax back with him from Mongolia, where it had been20 Mule Team Borax used for centuries in the manufacture of stain-resistant porcelain glazes. In modern times, the versatile mineral has been used in the preparation of medicated bandages, antiseptic solutions, cosmetics and enamel. It has traditionally been prized as a cleansing agent. It is used in the coatings of playing cards and most glazed papers. Although Death Valley was reputed to contain every mineral that made California famous (gold, silver, copper and lead), it was the unromantic borax that propelled the valley into prominence."

"Borax’s history in Death Valley goes back seven million years, to a time when volcanic activity and flash flooding hammer the land surface. Heavy rains washed large volumes of mud and silt into lakes, forming thick siltstone beds. Volcanic eruptions blew ash into the lakes; these, too, formed layers on the lake bottom. The ash deposits contained boron, a principal element in borate crystals. Ash deposits continued to build up. Over time, evaporation concentrated what had been lakes into a salty solution from which Death Valley's borate deposits crystallized."

Of course I became aware of Borax when I was just a few years old as I watched "The Old Ranger" on television. Are you old enough to remember the Old Ranger and Death Valley Days? Here's what Wiki has to say about one of my very favorite TV shows that ran from 1952 to 1970, part of the time with Ronald Regan as host. For some reason I couldn't get the link to show up so you'll have to type it in or copy and paste:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Days

Yup, the historic site had the old twenty-mule-team wagons on display along with the remnants of the borax processing equipment. We had fun prowling the grounds and shooting the weathered old wagons.

So there you have it. The sun was shining. The cool desert air was intoxicating. There seemed to be very little traffic to contend with, which is always nice when you're driving a 31-foot rig that takes awhile to climb hills. We enjoyed a bit of natural history. A bit of western history. And we ended the evening being very well fed. And tomorrow? Well at this point I don't even know which way we'll be heading for sure. We plan on deciding at breakfast. Chances are we'll end up in Utah or Colorado or, well, who knows? But I promise to let you know tomorrow -- if the creeks don't rise.

Until then, I wish you happy traveling.

Day 1 -- Motoring south on Hwy 395 to Lone Pine -- 228 miles

Today was as uneventful as yesterday was incredibly stressful. Though the sky was overcast and gloomy all the way from our starting point in Carson City to our afternoon destination at the Boulder Creek RV park south of Lone Pine, California, we enjoyed the ride nonetheless. Why not? It was just so restful without anything to do but motor along and chat. Of course this morning I had to perform a half dozen tasks like turning off the furnace, stopping the incoming natural gas at the meter, and crawling underneath the house to shut off the incoming water. But that was nothing. We had a leisurely breakfast, after which we transferred a few more items from the house fridge to the RV fridge just to make sure there wasn't the tiniest space left not already occupied by something. Did the breakfast dishes. Took out the trash. Then gathered up reading glasses, and reading books, and whatever last minutes things occurred to us, then it was down the road. Nothing to it.

But yesterday, that was different.

Yesterday I went about doing all those last minute things one must do on a RV before hitting the road. I filled the water tank. I checked the tires. I triple-checked all the lockers AGAIN just to make sure I hadn't left anything out. I took the wheel covers off and stowed them in the garage. Shouldn't need them for awhile. I took the front windshield cover off and stowed it in the rig. Might need that if we stopped longer then a day or so. Checked the propane tank. Mounted my map of the United States in the rear window. This map comes with little stickers so you can peel them off and apply to the map as you visit each state. I made sure everything we wanted in the cab was in place, from sun glasses to water bottles and a dozen other "necessities."

And then I decided to hook up a hose to the water inlet just to make sure there was enough water in the water heater so I could test the unit while we were still in a place where we could get it fixed if need be. Well, after the hose was connected, complete with pressure regulator, I checked to make sure water wasn't showing up where it shouldn't. When no water appeared to be skirting out anywhere I lit off the water heater and heard it come to life. "Nice," I thought to myself. "Sounds like it's working."

That's when I glanced toward the passageway between the kitchen and the bedroom/bath area and noted with a great deal of alarm that a rather large-sized puddle was forming. "What the..." I said as I dashed over to the hallway and sloshed right into a rather large body of water. Fording the stream I peered into the bathroom just in time to see water squirting everywhere from somewhere behind the toilet.

Naturally I dashed back to the patio faucet and cut off the water flow and then called to Concetta to find me a bunch of old towels so I could sop up the flood before it did any permanent damage. Once we had sopped up most of the water I set about determining just what had gone wrong. Being a landlord for the last 35 years I'm used to toilet problems, but I had never worked on a RV toilet before and had no idea just what to do. But as most grease monkeys know, you can always tell a lot by disassembling something, which is just what I did. Before long I had parts strewn everywhere, had lost the requisite amount of skin, and had determined that a crack had formed in the incoming plastic fitting onto which the water supply line normally attached.

Let's see, just hours to go before zero hour and I had to scare up what might prove to be a one-of-a-kind plastic gizmo off a six-year-old rig in Carson City, Nevada, where RV supply houses don't exactly take up three pages in the phone book. But ever hopeful, I threw the plastic gizmo into the car and dashed into town, stopping at the closest RV place. A couple of others are much further away. There, with a hopeful smile, I held out my plastic gizmo to the technician and said, "I don't suppose you have one of these?"

"Dometic?" he asked.

"Ah," I said semi intelligently. "Maybe."

I handed him the gizmo and he disappeared into the bowels of the back shop where he remained for some minutes. He finally appeared with a plastic bag in his hand and held the two parts up to see if they matched. It was pretty much impossible to tell. So he opened the bag and took out the new part and then held them up. They were a pretty good match, though the tiny triangles of plastic that held the unit to the toilet didn't look the same.

Before I could question the different mounting pieces the technician explained that the old triangles had been changed to make the gizmo more removable should one care to do that. I could see how the new part might be easier to remove. Getting the darn gizmo off the toilet had involved about twenty minutes of struggling, as I balanced a pocket knife and screwdriver and held my mouth just right.

"These are kinda pricey," the technician said, looking at me with a sort of sheepish grin.

I had been planning on buying two or even three of the gizmos so I could carry spares and not have to be in a panic to find one. "Oh," I said, wondering if they were like eight or nine bucks apiece which I certainly would be happy to pay. "How much is that?"

"Sixty bucks with the tax," he answered.

"Ah....I'll take one," I said, wondering how many gizmos I could probably get for that much money on Amazon or Ebay. "Sure glad you have them."

Before another hour had gone by the gizmo was attached to the toilet, the toilet and hoses were re-installed, the remainder of the water cleaned up, and I was happy, or as happy as anyone could be who was out sixty dollars for a part worth a few dollars.

So now, here we are in Lone Pine, California. Outside it's raining so enthusiastically that the nearby dirt road has already turned to mud. Still, it's warm and dry in the rig and everything is pretty darn right with the world. We've had our afternoon cocktails, our walk around the resort, and now we're looking forward to a nice quiet evening, providing the rig doesn't float away with the tide or something. And for dinner? Well, we're having stuffed pasta shells made with tomato sauce from the veggie garden last summer when it was pumping out millions of the little red gems. Wonderful!

So until tomorrow, we bid you happy traveling.