25. Apr, 2016

25. Apr, 2016

SUNDAY 04-05-08 

This morning we woke to yet another hot sunny day in Death Valley. Sadly we had to get ready to leave and be away by 11:00. We shall miss this spot; it’s amazing that somewhere so hot and barren can be so beautiful. 

I popped out with the road atlas and had a chat with our new neighbour about his proposed route out of the Valley. I advised him about the route out on Hwy190 westward to Lone Pine and our experiences when we used that route after our last visit here. He was very grateful for the advice but felt he had no real alternative route. We gave them a thought a couple of hours after they had left, maybe it should have been a prayer. 

Following a discussion with the lady in the gift shop we decided to opt for the route out via Death Valley Junction. We’re glad we did as it was a more direct route to Las Vegas and also gave us the opportunity to stop at Zabriskie Point on the way out. 

Later we passed through a place called Pahrump, another oddity. We hadn’t seen any sign of civilisation for miles and miles before we arrived there, in fact some miles beforehand in Amargosa Valley The Chef had commented that this place must be pretty bad because NOBODY lived there, and yet there it was, Pahrump Main Street and its shopping mall, right there, to our minds, in the middle of nowhere, yet it was a really good shopping mall, with a Wal-Mart Supercentre, Albertson’s supermarket, and a number of other national chains, where so many folk had appeared from - I’ve no idea. Later we learned that Pahrump thrives having the closest legal brothels to Las Vegas and Michael Jackson bought a house in the area, so just a nice normal kind of place to pass through I suppose. 

We decided to stop there and stock up; this would save us having to brave the roads around Las Vegas to find a Wal-Mart and restock as drivers there aren’t exactly RV friendly. I even got a good result at Wal-Mart with a refund on my mains adaptor the staff in the Palm Springs branch had sold me instead of a 12v version. The lady at Customer Services was very impressed that we had just come from Death Valley and had loved it; she told us she had grown up in Lone Star and left there only 6 years ago, so we got a full refund no problem. I commend Wal-Mart for their refund policy, they could have been really tricky about it, especially as it was a different store in a different state and I had trashed the blister packaging. I also bought Super-Gazebo, big brother of Wimpy-Gazebo. We decided to buy just the basic frame and roof section to see how we got on with it before adding the optional net or cotton sides. On the way back to the RV I did show him what a dumpster looked like – just as a little motivater. 

We arrived in the Las Vegas area early evening and to kill some time looked around several shops at a shopping mall down the road before parking ourselves outside the Las Vegas RV complex www.lasvegasrv.com just before sunset. We are due here first thing tomorrow morning for minor repairs. We got settled down for the evening and decided it was time I tested the generator as it had not been used since we began the trip apart from a troublesome successful test start some weeks ago. We try and make do without the generator otherwise you can get sloppy about how you use your energy. 

I eventually remembered how to prime it and then bingo - she fired up. This success warranted a spell with the air conditioning on to cool the interior of the vehicle ready for a comfortable night, and we even watched a bit of American television, though once the air-con was turned off we both agreed American television didn’t warrant the petrol the generator was burning, so off it went. The alarm clock was set for 06:30 and we turned in. 

LOCATION TONIGHT: Outside Las Vegas RV, 13175 Las Vegas Blvd NV (GPS: N35.949993 W115.177243)

25. Apr, 2016

25. Apr, 2016

25. Apr, 2016