Sunday November 10th 2019

It was a very quiet morning. The residents of the RV park seem to be very slow getting started this morning. The usual walkers weren’t passing by and I didn’t see any vehicles go my either. The only real noise around this morning was the steady parade of aircraft leaving the Las Vegas valley. One of the primary traffic patterns for planes leaving McCarran Airport has the eastbound jets crossing the valley a little north of here. Landing traffic from the east cross the valley well south of here. Both are visible, but only the departing traffic north of here can be heard. There are a lot of planes coming and going from McCarran.

I got caught by the football watching bug this morning. The Chiefs vs Titans game grabbed and held my attention right down to the final missed field goal as time ran out. The guy down the street with the Kansas City Chiefs flag must have been disappointed. I escaped from footballs grasp after the game, but can’t say I did anything exciting. For the most part, I drove around the area without any particular destination.

I was back at my RV home around 4PM as it was starting to get dark. I had time for a walk around the park before darkness set in. The early sunset is still hard to get used to after a week on standard time. It seems like only a few days since it was still light at 8PM or later. There seems to be a long time inside the RV with the curtains down watching TV and listening to the occasional mystery noise from outside. I need to get back in the mode of being out after dark.

Saturday November 9th 2019

Today was a very low excitement day. Following the trend of late, breakfast dragged on toward the noon hour. I had the college football game on the TV while reading various things on my tablet.

After the first game of the day I went out for a drive. Other than a quick stop in a store or two it was an uneventful trip complete with a couple of U-turns to avoid entering gated communities. Sometimes the roads you think go through to the next major street surprise you.

Today’s most active event was grilling a pork chop for lunch followed by my usual walk around the RV park.

Friday November 8th 2019

I woke up this morning with a stuffy nose and sneezing issues. While I don’t have any identified allergies, it sure acts like a reaction to something as opposed to a cold. It has hung around all day just enough to be annoying. Other than that it was a good day with temperatures in the high seventies.

My focus today was investigating a maintenance issue in my RV home. It looks like one of my overhead cabinets wants to fall off the wall. Over a year ago I saw some separation between the cabinet and the ceiling. Initially I wasn’t sure if it was a new situation or a manufacturing defect that I hadn’t notice before. I’ve kept watch on it ever since. A few months ago I became sure it was an issue that needed to be addressed, but it still wasn’t getting any worse. Since I’ve been here, not even moving, the gap between the cabinet and the ceiling has gotten wider.

Today, my first step was to empty the cabinets. They were not overloaded. The weight of the stuff I took out was only a few pounds. My next step was to remove a false side panel to look for fasteners that might be loose. That was easier written then accomplished. After a bit of a struggle and digging through my basement storage for the correct tools I got the panel off. I can’t figure out how the cabinet is held up. I’ll look at it some more over the weekend after some research and pondering. If I can’t figure it out I’ll either call the factory next week or look for a knowledgeable RV repair place. In the meantime, I’ve got the cabinet braced against falling for piece of mind.

Today’s exercise was a couple of walks around the RV park. It continues to be more or less full. There are a few empty sites, but they all seem to fill up in a day or two. The flower pictures are from the bushes and trees near the office.

Thursday November 7th 2019

I took another trip to the Clark County Wetlands Park today. The weather is still beautiful, so I wanted to get in another walk before it gets a little cooler and windy in the weeks to come. Today I spent my time along the Las Vegas Wash.

The Las Vegas Wash is the primary water flow out of the Las Vegas valley. Historically, it carried spring water and rain runoff from the valley to the Colorado River east of the valley. Now it also carries all of the water used, but not expended in the valley into Lake Mead. The Clark County Wetlands park is along the side of the current wash down stream from the treatment plant. A clear rock lined channel has been created for the wash to flow through. Serious erosion and flooding were prevalent before dams and channels were developed. The wetlands park still gets water from the wash and can flood during big rain events in the valley. The area along the main channel has lots of debris from flood events. Somehow it just adds an urban quality to the park and wash.

I saw lots of birds and people today. The standout bird was a big white Great Egret and the standout people were a group of school kids on an outing. Listening to a park volunteer trying to explain that the orange fish in one of the ponds was because someone released a little goldfish from a home aquarium was amusing. The kids seem to think it meant someone flushed the fish down the toilet rather than directly into the pond.

Overall I probably walked about two miles over the course of two hours. I spent a lot of time on the pedestrian bridge over the wash watching the birds and the white water. On the way back to the car I paused at every little water hole to see what I could see. For the most part the ponds were quiet.

Wednesday November 6th 2019

Today started earlier than I appreciated. My neighbors decided to get ready for departure at 6:30 this morning. The combination of the motorhome engine starting and a conversation that I couldn’t really hear in a language I didn’t recognize had me wide awake. By 7AM they had departed, and I tried to get back to sleep, but I was still up around 8AM. They may have returned after dark tonight. At least there is a similar size and shape of motorhome without a towed car on the next site tonight.

I didn’t get a quick start to the day despite being up at a reasonable hour. Coffee, breakfast, internet reading and TV kept my attention for about three hours. After a couple of laps around the RV park for my morning exercise, I got started with a few chores around the RV. I dumped the holding tanks so I can take a few more showers without worrying about filling the tanks. From a schedule perspective, I try to dump the tanks once a week, but it has been almost two weeks.

I also wanted to change the water filter today, but the “new” filter I planed to use was actually a lightly used old filter. I think I kept it as an emergency replacement until I bought a new backup the last time I replaced the filter. Since I’m in an area with plenty of places to buy a good new filter, I decided to continue with the current filter until I can buy two new filters. I know it needs a change because the flow rate at the taps is low. A trip to Lowes or Home Depot is in my future.

It is only the end of the first week of November and Christmas decorating has started. Yesterday, I noticed Christmas ribbons and a couple of decorated Christmas trees at Walmart. Today I noticed that they have started to decorate the Mine Falls Indoor Park at Sam’s Town Casino. The trees have all been rapped in white lights and fake snow has been added in appropriate places. I know from previous years that a lot more will be added. Their official lighting ceremony isn’t until the day before Thanksgiving.

The casino got an entertainment donation today. Wednesday’s are senior day, so I showed up in hopes of winning something either on a machine or in the senior drawing. I didn’t win anything, but I did pick up my free breakfast buffet voucher for tomorrow morning. Provided I get up early enough and remember I’ll use it.

Tuesday November 5th 2019

Today was a day to get caught up with some of life’s necessary tasks. Chief among those was restocking my food supply.

I do most of my shopping at Walmart for the consistency and familiarity at different stores across the country. As is often the case when I visit a Walmart I notice the differences while appreciating the similarities. At the Walmart less than a mile from my RV home, the security measures are the most obvious difference. In the main part of the store any small item of value is in a locked case. I was looking for batteries and found them all in a locked display case. Finding someone to open the case before I lost interest in the purchase proved impossible. I’m sure if I stood around and looked suspicious someone would see me on all the surveillance cameras. I think they had as many “eyes in the sky” as the casinos.

In the grocery section of the store there are subtle differences. While you can find the familiar products, the quantity on display seems to be smaller. Additional space seems to be allocated to snacks and candy as well as ethnic foods. Last time I was here for the winter I started shopping at other Walmarts. I don’t recall why, but I think I’ll be shopping at the stores further away from home this winter as well.

Back at the RV park I got a new neighbor on my door side this afternoon. Ever since my first neighbor left on Saturday I’ve had a different neighbor each night. Each has had a defining characteristic. The first motorhome had a dead starting battery and needed assistance to get started. The owner of the fifth wheel trailer that occupied the site last night wasn’t very good at backing up. It took the driver several attempts to get properly aligned. The driver, his wife and the RV park courtesy patrol attendant assisting in parking all remained calm. I got the impression that multiple attempts backing the trailer up are the norm for the couple. Tonight’s motorhome got backed in fine even though they don’t seem to speak English. I hope a longer term resident for the site next door shows up soon.

Monday November 4th 2019

All of my clocks are now set correctly, but it doesn’t fix the long dark nights. It was dark shortly after 4:30 in the afternoon. Time to adjust to doing some things at night.

I found an advertisement for a sale at Camping World in the RV Park office this morning. There are a few items that I need for the RV. A well stocked Camping World is a good place to shop, but maybe not buy supplies. The sale might make it a good place to actually buy stuff. I drove out to the Camping World in Henderson this afternoon. The store was well stock as I remembered, but I still left with lots of ideas and no purchases. I will probably return during my stay in the area, but for now I’ll buy what I need from Walmart or possibly Amazon.

On my way home I stopped at the Clark County Wetlands park for some exercise and a wildlife fix. Today’s wildlife was the usual complement of water fowl, some fish, a couple of turtles and a Great Blue Heron. The Heron was standing on a rock across the pond from the observation platform. I didn’t see it at first, but it may have moved just enough to get my attention. I hung around for fifteen to twenty minutes taking pictures of the big bird hoping to see it take off in flight. It was perfectly happy posing for my pictures and pretending to be a statue. Eventually I moved on content with my pictures of the statuesque bird.

There was some turnover at the RV park today, but more and more of the new arrivals are here for the long term. I’m sure the courtesy patrol that parks all the new arrivals will be happy when the turnover slows down. They have a complicated task escorting big RVs down the narrow streets. There primary job is to make sure everyone parks within the boundaries of their site. The RVs are close enough together without neighbors encroaching on nearby sites.

Sunday November 3rd 2019

The weather was not part of today’s story. It was a nice warm day appropriate for the season and the location.

Today’s primary influence was just as ordinary as the weather. It was time. The change back to standard time caused more confusion than I normally experience. I was questioning the accuracy of every clock I looked at until I wasn’t. The last clock, in my car, I forgot to distrust and it needs to be manually changed. My confusion started early with the clock in my bedroom. When the new clock read 7:28AM, I wasn’t sure if I could believe it. It’s supposed to change automatically, but I don’t recall it switching to Daylight Savings time on its own. Seven thirty was too early to get up so I decided to ignore it. Later in the day I discovered that it had not changed back to standard time. The clock was set to a time zone somewhere in Asia. Time zones turned out to be a recurring theme. One of my TVs thought it was in Arizona so it didn’t change and the satellite receiver was also set strange. Luckily, my cell phone took a charge overnight and gave me the correct time.

I set the microwave and the battery clock on my table to the correct time. Then I checked all of the devices that were supposed to adjust themselves. They had about a seventy five percent success rate. When it’s time to switch back to Daylight Savings Time, I’ll be in Arizona, so all the automatic changes will probably be confused again. Traveling through different time zones with different rules about daylight savings time requires attention. With states like Florida, Oregon and Washington requesting the Federal Government to stay on Daylight Savings Time year round and some of the New England states wanting to be in the Atlantic Time Zone, keeping track of the correct time may get harder.

While writing this blog entry, I’ve discovered two more incorrect clocks. The battery clock I turned back this morning, got set back an extra hour by my fat fingers and the timer for the lamp on the table wasn’t changed. The lights just went out.

Saturday November 2nd 2019

Today’s temperature was up a few more degrees. It was warm enough to leave my sweatshirt at home. Some people were even back in shorts today, maybe tomorrow for me if the trend continues. The high temperature was in the low seventies.

I didn’t get sucked into the college football games on TV this morning. Instead I went out in search of various things and experiences. The first challenge was putting gas in the tank. I found two types of gas stations; ones that had long lines and ones that were empty. The empty ones were at least twenty cents a gallon more expensive. I finally found a station with an available pump that wasn’t at the top end of the price spectrum. It was only $3.26 a gallon. I should have topped off the tank before I left Pahrump. Gas was about ten cents a gallon cheaper in Nye county. I’m guessing there is a higher tax here in Clark county.

While I was out I stopped for another long walk in the Clark County Wetlands Park. I wasn’t surprised to find it busier on a weekend day. It wasn’t crowded, just noisier. Voices from other visitors to the park carried across the park. I didn’t see many other people, but the sounds got in the way of enjoying the park. If I wasn’t familiar with the environment during the week, the weekend noise level probably would not have bothered me. I’ll do my walking during the week from now on.

I walked through a different area of the park today. There are two bigger ponds in this area, but I saw fewer birds in this area. The tall grasses are the big feature in this area. Many of blades are over eight feet high. The ones in the water provide shelter for the water birds. The tall grasses on land are the source for lots of mysterious noises. Animal life of some form is using the grasses for shelter. There are a few areas that look like small animal paths. I even saw several piles of scat on the walkways, but no actual animals.

Back at the RV park I have new neighbors. Judging by the amount of “stuff” they’ve unpacked and set up, these people are probably here for a longer time. I haven’t seen or met them yet.

Friday November 1st 2019

The improving weather trend continued. The temperature reached the low seventies today. It was almost normal for the day. The forecast continues to call for improving weather conditions.

As I begin my second week of my winter stay in Las Vegas, I thought it was about time I made a pilgrimage to the strip. Specifically, I wanted to see the fall display at the Bellagio Conservatory. My plan was to get there early before all the crowds gathered, but my cell phone had other ideas. It’s getting old and the battery and power connector are getting cantankerous. It didn’t take a charge overnight, so the minute I touched it this morning it shutdown with a “dead” battery. It took a couple of hours after I reset the power cable connection.

I arrived at the strip shortly after noon. It’s about twenty minutes from my RV home. The crowds were heavy. Not only had many of weekenders from California already arrived, but it is a fight weekend. People wanting to see the fights at the MGM Grand Garden arena on Saturday night were adding to the crowds.

This year’s fall theme at the Bellagio is a little different. The display includes tigers, elephants, monkeys and a litter of foxes all decorated in colorful flowers. It seems to be a Fall in India theme. Many of the flower covered animals had some small animations. One tiger moved his head and another had an animated tail. It was a very pretty display, but taking pictures was difficult because of all the people clustered around the exhibit.

After getting a few pictures, I continued to walk through a few of the casinos on the strip. It has been over twenty months since I was last in town, so I actually saw a few new things. The Monte Carlo completed its transition into the Park MGM casino with a whole new set of restaurants near the strip where there used to be fountains. A new pedestrian bridge across the strip in front of the Park MGM will open soon.

After lunch in the food court area of the New York New York casino, I completed a loop back to Planet Hollywood and the Miracle Mile Shopping area. That is one of the only free parking garages in that area of the strip. I returned to my RV home through the heavy afternoon traffic.