Day 57 -- Kingman, Arizona to Mesquite, Nevada -- 226 Miles

On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life. There were plants and birds and rocks and things There was sand and hills and rings. The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz And the sky with no clouds. The heat was hot and the ground was dry But the air was full of sound. I've been through the desert on a horse (RV) with no name, It felt good to be out of the rain. In the desert you can remember your name, 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain.

After two days in the desert sun, My skin began to turn red. After three days in the desert fun, I was looking at a river bed. And the story it told of a river that flowed, Made me sad to think it was dead. You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name, It felt good to be out of the rain. In the desert you can remember your name, 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain.

After nine days I let the horse (RV) run free, 'Cause the desert had turned to sea. There were plants and birds and rocks and things, there was sand and hills and rings. The ocean is a desert with it's life underground, And a perfect disguise above. Under the cities lies a heart made of ground, But the humans will give no love. You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name, It felt good to be out of the rain. In the desert you can remember your name, 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain.

Okay, you can tell by now that all we did today is drive. We didn't stop to take photos. We didn't tour any fabulous historic sites. We didn't even stop at a fantastic setting for lunch. All we did is drive mile after mile enjoying the mesmerizing and intoxicating desert southwest.

The desert was incredibly beautiful today, especially in the early morning as the slanted rays of the sun bathed millions of years of geologic layers exposed in the roadcuts that we passed through. Every time that happens, I long for the opportunity to stop and photograph that intriguing spectacle, but alas at 65 miles an hour, with 18-wheelers filling your mirrors, you stand no chance of even slowing down.

By 11:00 a.m. or so we had reached metropolitan Las Vegas with it's tens of thousands of speeding cars and brown hazy air. As you know, Concetta and I religiously avoid ALL big cities whenever humanly possible, but in this case we needed to get to Mesquite, Nevada. When you're coming north on Route 93, you have to go through Las Vegas to get to Interstate 15 along which Mesquite can be found just an hour to the northeast.

Thankfully, traffic was light today in Las Vegas and most of the speeding drivers alloweded our "horse with no name" to transition from lane to lane, and from freeway to freeway with a great deal of patience. We didn't know exactly where we were going, and sometimes had to change our minds as to which lane we needed to travel. But no one honked or flipped us off, and we glided through the heaviest mid-town traffic and back out to the Interstate 15 without any problems at all.

As it approached lunchtime, at least as I define it, I saw an opening in the freeway traffic as we approached a convenient freeway off-ramp. Down the ramp there was a huge hard-packed dirt field of about an acre that was occupied by a guy sitting in a dump truck, an 18-wheeler getting a tire changed, and a rig we described in the U.S. Navy as a "Gedunk Truck," but which today is called simply a "food truck."

"Looks like a perfect place for lunch," I announced as we pulled in beside the 18-wheeler. And so it was. Though the nearby freeway provided ample noise to keep us company, the site was basically level, and we had a very relaxed and comfortable lunch.

When we had nearly finished eating, Concetta said, "Why don't you go see if the food truck sells ice cream. That would give you a few minutes to walk as well."

Deciding that she had a good point, I descended the steps onto the rocky desert floor and walked toward the food truck. I always keep my eyes on the ground as I walk the desert as you never know what sort of useful detritus someone will drop, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This time I was rewarded with a heavy-duty steel, "L-shaped" bracket that I put in my pocket and later transferred to one of the RV lockers.

When I got to the food truck I found a middle-aged Mexican worke eating his lunch, probably the driver of the refuse truck that had pulled into the parking area just before I decided on ice cream. He smiled at me as I walked past him and I smiled and nodded a hello. When I got to the side of the truck I could see right away that I wasn't going to find ice cream, but I went ahead and asked anyway.

"No, senior," the food truck owner said, to my suggestion of ice cream. "Tamales, tacos, cold drinks. No cervezas, I'm sorry to say." He beamed with each and every word and I liked him instantly. After that he launched into a discussion of smoking marijuana (I think), but I told him that smoking would do him no good. This caused him to burst out laughing.

I wanted to try out more of my Spanish on the owner as the expression, que lastima floated through my brain when he said no ice cream. But in the end I just thanked him, clapped him on the arm with a smile, and made my way back to the "horse."

After that interlude it was only a few miles to our intended afternoon destination of the Desert Skies RV Resort. Once we got off the freeway and started toward the camp, we spied a super market and decided to top up our refrigerator stores for the upcoming push north tomorrow toward Carson City. All went well until we started to check out our groceries.

Since we almost always do self-checkout at Walmart, we confidently approached the Smith's Market self-checkout and began to scan all of our items. At Walmart as soon as you fill a big, the system allows you to remove that bag and put it in your cart. Such was NOT the case at Smiths. As soon as Concetta removed the first bag, the system went into apoplexy demanding that we replace the bag before it called security or something.

In her haste to avoid arrest, Concetta grabbed the bag of milk and lettuce and put it back in the bagging area. Immediately after, the bag tipped over and spilled the contents onto the floor followed, which caused various nearby customers to rush to help retrieve the rolling plastic milk bottles. At this point the attendant hustled over and put everything right and tried to explain Smith's arcane and basically stupid system with which we had to adapt.

As careful as we tried to be, in the end the attendant had to basically babysit us through the entire process that should have been as easy as, well, Walmart's. Finally, when we had rung up each and every item I told the machine that I wanted to pay and then I inserted my Visa credit card.

Once again the system did everything but shout "STOP, THIEF," at the top of it's electronic lungs and refused to let us pay. To our embarrassment the attendant had to come over to rescue us again. "What card are you using," she asked.

When I showed her the card with which we intended to pay for our eighty some odd dollars worth of groceries, the attendant said, "Oh, you can't use that here. We don't take those anymore."

I looked at the total on the machine. I thought about how much cash I had as well as what other cards I might have in the rig. For a moment everything went into suspended animation. "Do you have a debit card," the attendant said, bringing me back to the present.

"Yes," I said, relief flooding over me. But then I saw it was also a Visa card, and the vale of doom began to descend once again.

"That's okay," the attendant said. "We do take Visa debit cards. And thus ended one of the most painful shopping episodes that we've encountered on our two months on the road. To Smiths Grocery I say, "YOUR SYSTEM SUCKS! GO COPY WALMART IF YOU'RE NOT BRIGHT ENOUGH TO INVENT YOUR OWN!" Okay, I feel better now, but don't count on my EVER venturing inside another Smiths.

So we are in the Desert Skies RV Resort, humming the tune to The Horse with No Name, and enjoying our afternoon cocktail complete with pretzels and cheese. All the sites are so perfectly neat that they look like an artist's rendering of an RV park and not a real park.

Every individual campsite is completely covered with decorative rose-colored rock where you're expected to park your RV. They give you a giant concrete patio conveniently adjacent. And, by the looks of it, many of the Snowbird-style rigs in the park are still empty as their owners are waiting for cooler temps on the high desert before they return.

The part that intrigues me about this park is that not only do they allow you to be a long-term renter on your individual space, but they allow you to turn you space into a mini "home-away-from home." Take a look at a couple of the lower photos to see what some of these "campsites" look like after several years of continuous habitation. Little by little they grow and grow and grow until they occupy ever single square inch of their campsite.

The other thing that intrigued me was more in the way of interesting flora. The two tree photos are of the "Palo Verde" tree that I never see anywhere but on the southwestern desert. As you can see, it's truly a beautiful tree. The bark is especially wonderful!

So that's it for our day's adventures. Tomorrow we're having an early breakfast with Frank and Patti Adams. Frank is my ex-boss at Nevada's office of Public Safety, and Patti is Concetta's one-time co-worker at the Nevada State Legislature. They live full-time in Mesquite these days and enjoy all the desert has to offer.

When we leave camp tomorrow after our breakfast, we'll be headed northwest up highway 93 toward Tonopah, Nevada. A portion of the route we've chosen out of Mesquite is known as the "Extraterrestrial Highway." Neither of us has ever traveled that famous road, so we're hoping that it will be exciting. Stay tuned.

And when you go looking for extra-terrestrials on those always fascinating two-lane highways, The Happy Wanderers wish you happy travels and exciting adventures.