Thursday January 11th 2018

Another day and another task in preparation for departure is complete. A little after ten this morning Jeff from American Mobile Lube arrived at my site ready to preform the routine oil change on the rig. I used the same company last April while I was here. It isn’t cheap, but it’s a whole lot easier than finding a place that will do the service on a gas motorhome that I can easily get to. Many places that service diesel motorhomes won’t touch a gas model and car service areas aren’t setup for something as big as a motorhome. The only real alternative is to do it yourself. I have the tools and supplies, but as long as a mobile service is available I’ll use them.

During the rest of the day I focused on other tasks I need or want to complete before I hit the road next week. Inside the RV I started putting some of the cooking utensils and appliances I’ve had out during the last couple of months away. For example, the slow cooker has been stored in front of the drivers seat between uses. It’s storage spot for travel is under the kitchen sink behind a few other things.

Another sunset pictures from my walks around the RV park. It is interesting to observe the change in time and location of the setting sun as the days go by.

I also worked on locking in a few stops on my trip east. I’ve made reservations for all of the multiple night stays except San Antonio TX. The place I want to stay in San Antonio requires a phone call to book. My first attempt at calling resulted in a ringing phone that wasn’t picked up before I gave up. I tend to think if they’re too busy to answer the phone they’re too busy to have the patience to take a reservation without making mistakes. The one time last year that I had trouble with a reservation I attribute the problem to an overworked person on the phone. I’ll try the San Antonio RV park again tomorrow and maybe make some of the reservations for the one night stops. Although for the one night stops it is less important to have reservations this far ahead.

The important reservation was for four nights in the Baton Rouge area. That reservation is for the period that spans Mardi Gras. I don’t expect to attend any of the events. The last parade is before I get to town. I just want to make sure there is a place to stay.

Wednesday January 10th 2018

The weather is back to above average. The sun was bright in the sky, the temperature was in the mid sixties and the wind was only a gentle breeze. I got back into the swing of an active life.

I’m now in my final week here in Las Vegas. I move east to Arizona next Wednesday. My first reservation is for three nights on the Colorado River about 175 miles away. Over the last couple of days I’ve finalized the general location and duration of my stops going east. I’ll spend about a week east of Tuscon Arizona followed by a few days in Las Cruces New Mexico. A couple of more days on the road and I’ll spend a week in San Antonio Texas. The last long stop before Florida on the eastbound trip will be in the Baton Rouge Louisiana area. Tomorrow and Friday I’ll lock in reservations. So far all I’ve done is confirmed that there are spaces available at RV resorts in the area. The cheaper alternatives will take a phone call or two to confirm.

This is a Chinese Lantern not a sculpture of a jelly fish. Las Vegas is starting to decorate for the Chinese New Year; the year of the dog.

Today I got back on track with the errands and shopping that I’ve planned to do while in Las Vegas. With the kids back in school after the holidays, the stores are a little more user friendly. I also stopped in at Sam’s Town for the last “Young at Hearts” day during my stay in town. I put in enough play on the slot machines to get the “free” dinner buffet. Tonight I focused on the Italian part of the buffet. The spaghetti with Italian sausage, peppers and onions was pretty good for a buffet. Desert was a slice of Apple pie and a couple of cookies.

Tuesday January 9th 2018

Today was the second rainy day in Las Vegas after one hundred and sixteen days without rain. Yesterday was the warm up event. Today was the main event. Over an inch and half of rain fell in the valley.

View down the RV park road during the mid day let up. Note all of the standing water.

Picture of the heavy rain during the afternoon session.  Picture taken out my window. 

The heavy rain started around five or six this morning. It continued raining hard until nine thirty or ten. We got a brief reprieve during the late morning, but it started up strong again shortly afternoon. I was surprised to see the sun breaking through on the western horizon shortly before sunset. Taking advantage of the let up, I took a walk around the RV park. It was still raining lightly, but there was a rainbow to the northeast and a nice setting sun to the west.

Sunset to the west.

Rainbow to the northeast.

Once again I stayed at home. There weren’t as many accidents reported today. Instead, the news outlets were reporting street flooding and rescues from flooded washes. Even the flat roads in the RV park had a lot of standing water. During my late afternoon walk I had to skirt around several two or three inch deep puddles. The smaller ones I had to walk through. The sun is forecast to return tomorrow along with low sixties temperatures. Hopefully, the sun will help motivate me to get active.

Monday January 8th 2018

I woke up this morning to the sound of pattering on the roof. After a record 116 days without rain in Las Vegas, the tide turned. It was raining. A gentle light rain fell intermittently throughout the day. With no wind to move the water the rain fell straight down. Any areas protected by an overhang were not impacted.

It was enough rain to turn the local roads into slip and slides. The local news was reporting fender benders all over town. Not only do people forget how to drive in rain, but the long accumulation of oil, tar and rubber buildup on the roads gets activated by the rain. Concern about this was a contributing factor to my staying home all day. I didn’t have any place I had to be and the rain had a depressing impact far greater than a cloudy day. My last full-on rainy day was last June in Butte Montana.

After raining off and on for a few hours the rain still hadn’t spread under my car.

Tonight and tomorrow the rain is forecast to increase in intensity. There is a winter storm warning out. More than twelve inches of snow is expected at altitudes above seven thousand feet. Las Vegas is only around two thousand feet so it isn’t going to snow here. The last significant snow in Las Vegas was in December of 2008. Today’s high temperature and tomorrows forecast is in the mid fifties. By late tomorrow the wet weather is expected to move on to the east.

Most of my day was spent with the TV and the Internet. I continued to research my travel plans for the year. I’m trying to find better places to stay. This year I usually took the easy way out and found a commercial campground at the last minute. To stay in the more interesting and secluded public parks I need to plan and act well ahead of time. I prefer being in nature to being in a dense packed RV parks.

I didn’t even get a walk around the RV park into today’s activities. The rain picked up during both of my attempts. I gave a little thought to getting the rain gear out, but it was only a little thought.

Sunday January 7th 2018

Yesterday’s clouds were gone this morning. The sun was high in the sky warming the air into the mid sixties. It was a very comfortable day.

I spent the day watching football and getting various chores done. By the end of the second quarter of the second game, I’d had enough football for the day. I packed up the laundry and supplies and drove to the laundry facility. The facility is less than a couple hundred feet from my RV as the crow flies, but actual walking distance is much longer. I need the car to get the laundry and supplies there and back in one trip. To me that’s a justifiable use of the car. I can’t say the same thing about some of my neighbors that use their cars to take a bag of trash to the dumpster three or four hundred feet away. It seems to be normal in campgrounds to see cars going by with white plastic bags of trash on their roofs.

My Pork Chop for lunch cooking on my new grill.

The laundry was very busy today. I had to wait a few minutes for a washing machine and even longer for a dryer. On another day I might not have waited. Today I had already had lunch and didn’t have any other plans so I waited. While I waited I was entertained by a fifth wheel trailer arriving and getting setup. I don’t think the folks arriving were new to RVing, but they sure weren’t very well practiced at setting up. They had a fancy heated water hose that was a couple of feet to short to span the necessary distance. The couple debated how to make the connection. While the guy dug through storage bins for another hose, the woman Googled for the nearest Walmart. Since it was less than a mile away she volunteered to go get another hose. It wasn’t an argument or even a loud discussion, but clearly they had different ideas on how to solve the problem. Their next puzzle was hooking up to the sewer. They didn’t have a single sewer hose long enough. Finding the right combination of hoses and connectors was another challenge. Once these two connections were completed they continued with their setup by putting down the stabilizers and opening the slide outs.

While I was waiting for the clothes to dry the woman returned from Walmart with the hose she purchased. She bought a long yellow garden hose. Usually RVs are connected with “Drinking Water Safe” hoses. Basically these are hoses that do not give off chemicals into the water. I’m not sure how important this is in the larger scheme of things. It certainly didn’t phase either of these people. They hooked it up and started using it without even flushing it first.

Lunch today was a Pork Chop cooked on my new grill. I continue to enjoy using this grill. It not only cooked the chop quickly, it also gave the meat some good grill marks. The cast iron grill heats up quickly and retains heat well for a good sear. Cleanup is similar to a well seasoned cast iron frying pan.

… and the sun sets on another day.

Saturday January 6th 2018

The great weather of the past few days has moved on. In its place is OK weather. It was cloudy all day and the temperature stayed in the low sixties.

Between watching basketball and football on TV, I made a major provisioning run to the nearby Walmart. I’ve been avoiding the stores since a few days before Christmas. My cupboards weren’t empty, but the cookies, crackers and snacks were all gone. In addition to replacing the items I’ve consumed over the last couple of weeks, I’ve started to stock up for my trip east. There will be a few stops long enough for grocery shopping, but there will also be a number of one and two night that won’t allow time for shopping. I’ll make one more grocery run here in Las Vegas before I depart in a week and a half.

To keep my time away from the TV sports broadcasts short, I went to the nearby Walmart. It’s only about a half a mile away, but it isn’t the best in the area. The Walmart about five miles away is much better. This store had many empty shelves with stock in the aisles waiting to be loaded onto the shelves. I didn’t see any staff working in the aisles, but there were plenty of cashiers at the checkouts. The worst part of today’s shopping experience was loading all of the groceries into the car and then carrying them into the motorhome. In their desire for speed the cashiers, there were two, seemed to put only one or two items in each gray plastic bag. I had more than twenty of them. Thank goodness this isn’t California where I’d have to pay for each bag. I only need to remember to dispose of these in a proper recycle bucket.

So far I haven’t discovered anything that I forgot to purchase. Since I don’t use a list, even when I remember to create one, I usually forget something. During the second NFL playoff game I have almost finished off some of the snacks I bought. It’s a never ending cycle.

The day’s cloud cover is visible in the setting sun.

The RV park is once again showing signs of being full. It looks like all of the after Christmas snowbirds have arrived. The early January departures don’t seem to have started yet. I know of a couple of RVs that are pulling out next week and others that are leaving the following week with me. I know that my site is booked soon after I leave so I imagine the park will continue to be full for the next couple of months.

Friday January 5th 2018

Today’s weather was another beautiful day in the mid sixties. The local TV stations must be getting bored with the great weather. They’ve been covering the east coast weather on every news cast. It seems like every channel has a different story for each newscast on the “Bomb Cyclone” and deep freeze on the east coast. It’s pretty comical to here the anchors try and pronounce some of the community names with record snow falls and to explain what windchill below zero is like. Clearly they have no practical experience.

I’m glad I’m not in the New England weather. I miss watching the snow fall and the clean white snow clinging to branches and structures. I don’t miss driving in the snow, clearing it from the walks and driveway or the cold temperatures.

The weather here is finally forecast to change.  After 114 days and counting there is rain in the forecast for next week.  The record period without measurable precipitation is supposed to end on Tuesday with rain in the valley and snow in the mountains.

I got it in my head to take the Sam’s Town shuttle to the Las Vegas strip this afternoon. The only problem is I had the wrong idea of the departure time. I missed the shuttle by half an hour. The next one was four hours later. Since I didn’t want to drive to the strip on a Friday afternoon, I’ll go to the strip another day. Instead I contributed a few more bucks to the casino’s bottom line.

Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall Atrium with the Mystic Falls Park.

Thursday January 4th 2018

The weather was brighter and warmer today. It got up to the high sixties after a cool start in the forties. I was really feeling the cold this morning. I ran the furnace and the heat pump to bring the inside temperature up to the comfort level as quickly as possible. My nose was running and I felt general lousy. Once the RV warmed up I improved rapidly. It doesn’t take much change in temperature or humidity to start my nose running again, but I’m doing fine.

I stayed at home and generally took it easy today. If a cold is trying to get a hold of me, I’m going to fight it from the start. Fighting a cold seemed like a good reason to make a beef stew. So I spent the late morning loading up the slow cooker and the late afternoon finishing up the process with the carrots and potatoes. It served its purpose well. My insides were warmed up well.

My second sunset picture of the year.

The only problem with cooking is it produces dirty dishes. The limited space for food preparation and cleanup means that I use the same space for many things. I have to transition from cooking to cleaning mode before doing dishes. The cover on the second sink bowl used for food preparation needs to be removed and the stove needs to cool off enough so I can put the cover over the burners. I need the stove space to hold the freshly washed dishes. The end result is I haven’t done the dishes yet, but need to before I go to bed tonight. As soon as I publish this blog entry I’ll have my hands in hot water.

Besides watching the Weather Channel coverage of the east coast storm, I worked on my travel planning some more. For some reason allocating five and a half weeks to get back to Florida is simultaneously to much time and to little time. If I only had a week, I’d just drive three hundred miles or so every day, but once you allocate more time, you have to decide what you want to visit. Some areas need more time than others to do a stop justice. The question I’m trying to answer is which places to visit on this repositioning trip and which places should I reserve for a longer stay. In the back of my mind continues to be the need to be flexible to deal with weather and other unexpected issues. I have more options scratched out on calendars than I have decisions at this point.

Today’s exercise was restricted to the RV park. I made several loops around the park including one at sunset. When I don’t have a good picture to include in the blog, I go in search of sunset pictures. One good thing is the sun is setting later every day.

Wednesday January 3rd 2018

It was another cloudy day. The only difference was the clouds were a little higher and thinner allowing a filtered version of sunlight to reach the ground. The daytime temperature continues to be great in the mid sixties. At night the temperature gets down into the low forties. At that temperature, I’m not running heat overnight so it is very chilly in the morning. A good bowl of oatmeal warms my insides while the inside of the rig comes up to temperature.

Sam’s Town Casino Laser and Fountain Show.

‘

I wasn’t really motivated to do much today either. The cloudy conditions didn’t do a lot to raise my energy level. If I was on the east cost today I’d really be in a state of mild depression. I stumbled on the Weather Channels coverage of the big east coast storm. They were doing a pretty good job of hyping the storm and trying to scare everyone in its path to stay indoors. I do not miss snow storms in the northeast.

After two days of staying home, I had to get out for a little while today. It was “Young at Heart” day at the Sam’s Town Casino. The euphemism for senior day has a few advantages that make it less costly to spend some time in the casino. For a little money through the machine, I get entries in a drawing for cash, a greater than normal amount of slot points and a free dinner buffet.

‘

‘

Tonight’s buffet had better choices than the Christmas day buffet. The buffet featured carved turkey, beef, fried chicken, backed chicken and a reasonable selection of vegetables. The salad bar, Asian section and desert bar even seemed to be more complete than for the Christmas day buffet. Hey! I didn’t have to cook it.

‘

‘

All traces of the recently completed holidays are gone from the casino. The Christmas decorations and promotion advertisements are all down and put away. The holiday version of the fountain and laser show is gone. The regular show is back on the schedule. I caught the 6PM show on my way out of the casino. Overall I had a few hours away from the RV, got a good meal that I didn’t have to prepare and only spent a few bucks in the slot machines. It was a good time.

Tuesday January 2nd 2018

Today started with a heavy cloud cover. If I were in another atea of the country I’d say it was about to rain. Here in Las Vegas it just meant a cloudy day. It has been 110 days since there has been any measurable rain here in the valley. That’s a new record. The forecast actual admits to the possibility of rain this weekend. At the end of the day the sun broke through in the western sky.

Selection of palm trees around the RV park laundry.

The weather has a big influence on my energy level. The cloudy start to the day caused me to role over and sleep for another hour or so. Once I did get up I was moving at a snails pace most of the day. I never got my energy level up high enough to leave the RV park. Instead I worked on a continuation of yesterday’s cleanup tasks and did some more travel planning.

I have the start and end of my trip back to Florida laid out. The middle is proving a little more challenging. The first couple of weeks of February are proving difficult to lock in. The Mardi Gras celebration is in full swing during that period in the area I need to travel through. East Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and coastal Alabama have parades and parties leading up to February 13th. I would like to spend a few days in the area, but it may prove difficult based on a sample size of one. I tried to make reservations at one place and was informed I was several months too late. Based on the delivery of the response, I don’t want to stay there anyway.

I’m going to keep looking at my options. The worst case will mean moving through that area quickly with only one night stays. I have reservations from the middle of February through the first week of April at various places. I’m assuming that Florida will be a little easier to find places to stay after the middle of April. Easter on April first means many snowbirds will have already headed north. I plan to head north on the west side of the Appalachians at the end of April or the beginning of May. I’m looking at stops in Chattanooga and Nashville Tennessee then moving through Kentucky into Indiana. Many of the campgrounds in the north don’t start taking reservations until the staff gets back from warmer places.

While I was exploring all of my immediate travel plans, I also put some research into next winter. I plan to stay in Florida next winter. Given the popularity of the location, now is not too soon to start thinking about reservations. I need to decide if I’m going to stay in one place for several months or move around every couple of weeks. Staying in one place for multiple months probably means the center of the state. It’s a cheaper location and it has more options for day trips. I need to decide before too long, the reservation window for the state parks is 11 months. Some of the more popular state parks are already booked for the first two weeks of December.

The late day sun on the west side of the mountain to the east of the park. The sky to the east behind the mountain is still thickly cloud covered.