Nevada

October 2, 2011
Reno RV Park, Reno, Nevada

Dan has never been to Reno so we decided to stay here for a week to give him a chance to play poker in the casino.  It’s actually nicer in this town than it was when I was last here as a child with my parents.  Even though one of the locals assured me that Reno is one of the hardest hit by bad economy, I guess I don’t see it.  The infrastructure looks good here.  The streets are newly paved, shopping centers look new.  Everything is clean.  We’re going to stay here a week.

Sometimes our traveling days are spent doing the most mundane things.  Just because we are traveling doesn’t mean we still don’t need to clean the trailer or truck, wash laundry, or shop for groceries or sundry items.  Today for instance.  On my list to buy was ibuprofen, allergy medication, jewelry cleaner, udo’s oil, a smoke detector, some makeup, some boards to buoy up the sagging shelves in the bathroom and some small shower rods to use as braces in the bathroom closet—like in the refrigerator.  When we are moving, these braces keep things from rolling around, and keep cupboard doors from flying open.

Nevada has been a delight in many ways.  The hot, red, dry landscape dotted with bits of plants and scrub brush.  The wide open, uninhabited spaces.  Warm, desert weather. Blue skies.  Nevada has more hills and mountains than any other state.  There is a lot of mining history here.  Since the economy collapsed, the small towns in Nevada are especially affected.  There is a lot of squalor and poverty in these little towns.  Mina had to be one of the worst towns.  Goldfield was also a slum town.

We also learned that because of the economy, there aren’t as many gas stations as there used to be and we’ve had to be careful to gas up whenever we can.  A lot of the little towns on the map that we hoped to be able to gas up in, have defunct stations and there are often no services for hundreds of miles.

Nevada has a strong industrial-military complex and there is lots of evidence of this as you drive through.  Nevada has large test sites and Nellis Air Force Base is prominent next to Las Vegas.

Brothels are also subtly present.  It’s surprising to see these housed in mobile homes in-between towns and many of them are quite ugly.  Some have big, cheesy signs advertising Girls!  Nude Dancers!  Gentleman’s Club! And others are fortified fortresses.  The signs are kind of cheesy—Shady Lady, Wildcat Ranch, Playmate Ranch were a few I saw.  I can only hope the girls in them are there because they choose to be and not being forced into the business, and that they are safe and healthy.

As soon as I entered the state of Nevada, I started sneezing.  It’s the first sign of allergies I’ve had in years.  I wonder if it will stop when I leave this state.

Took a drive to Virginia City one day, then Carson City after that.  I had forgotten that Carson City is the capitol of Nevada and I enjoyed visiting it.  It’s a pretty town.  Here we saw the cheapest petrol advertised--$3.47 per gallon.  Dan wanted to eat Chinese food so we plugged in the GPS and it took us first to a restaurant that is no longer there, and the second one was closed that day.  Third time was a charm and we found just the kind of restaurant we were looking for and it was delicious.

The Truckee River plays an important role in this area of Nevada.  It’s long and quite pretty in some spots.

We liked the town of Beatty, situated almost halfway between Tonopah and Las Vegas.  It is small but nice, with a candy/nut factory and RV park.  It also has the requisite brothel just a few miles outside of the town, which you pass as you drive through.  I think it was called Angel Ranch or Angel Lady or something like that.

One of the off-putting sights is all the litter along Nevada’s highways.  You don’t always see it as you are speeding past but stop to take photos, and you notice it all around—broken beer bottles, mainly.  There must be a lot of drunk drivers on the roads here.

 

10/11/11

Main Street Station Casino RV Park, Las Vegas, Nevada
3 day stay = $48.00
Arrived in Las Vegas.  We know that a lot of the casinos have RV parking cheap so we found one in the old section.  Main Street Station is only $16 per night with full hook-ups.  We stayed here 3 days.  We found that it was little more than a parking lot and some of the other people there were creepy.  The bathrooms were a deal-breaker.  There was no private place to dress and the showers had flimsy curtains that had clear plastic from the chest up.  They weren’t that clean and the water was cold.  Plus some smart-ass young woman lit up a cigarette in there on her way out and left a trail of stinky smoke for us to breathe.  After the first day I showered in my own trailer bathroom.

After 1 day here, our son Joe and his wife Stacee showed up at our doorstep to surprise us.  We were thrilled and spent 3 days running around with them.  We had a good time but were exhausted by the time they left.

We enjoyed the strip with them.  We saw the shows on the Fremont and saw what we thought was Alice Cooper, only later to discover it was an impersonator.  We went to the Bellagio and toured their indoor garden and saw their water fountain show.  Ate a meal at the Harley Davidson Café.  Spiderman yakked with us and tapped us for photos because Joe was wearing a Superman shirt.  He had a coffee can strapped to his waste to collect his tips!  Stacee had her picture taken with “Elvis” and he was really cute.

10/15/11

The Hitchin’ Post RV Park, North Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, Nevada
1 month at $481.00 plus electrical
This morning we moved to our semi-permanent park.  We were only going to stay 2 weeks but found the monthly rate so much cheaper.  We’ve run low on funds so decided to stay put until Dan’s next pension check comes in 2 weeks.  We don’t mind.  We have no schedule so can do what we like.  It’s petrol that costs so much.  The truck which pulls the trailer gets 8 miles to the gallon so it’s easy to run out of funds before the end of the month.  We stayed a long time in Oregon and spent a lot of money there.  We wanted to get out of there before the winter snow sets in so at least we made it this far.

Our park is very nice but we are quickly learning that no place is perfect.  We got a large, corner lot near the bathrooms, showers, Laundromat and pool and we have no neighbor on the other side of us too close.  The weather is warm with clear skies.  People are nice.  The facilities are clean.  The downside is we are across from the dog park and the smell of dog poop often wafts through our window.  Sitting outside is pleasant except for the flies which are so pesky I’m going to buy a fly strip or something to help curb this.  The red ants are also out there and I had to sprinkle salt everywhere as a deterrent.  I was afraid they would crawl up my legs while sitting out there. 

Ahhhh!  Lovely nature!

We are so near Nellis Air Force Base that the jets scream overhead all day long.  They are so piercingly loud that it feels like we’re under attack.  It starts off as a low rumble and quickly escalates.  It feels much like an earthquake.

However, the morning Reville is quite nice.  It sounds every morning at 6:00 a.m. 

The dry, dusty weather has also kicked up my dormant allergies and I’ve had to take an allergy pill every morning since entering the state of Nevada.

The western U.S. is so vast that we’ve already traveled 3000 miles but have only made it to Las Vegas.  This is very different than the east coast where one can travel 3 states in just a couple of hours.

Wild Burros roam freely on the Nevada range in Mineral County.  The area is named The Marietta Wild Burro Range and there are about 100 burros who live here.  The closest town is Mina but it’s one of the worst towns in terms of poverty and squalor.

I would have liked to see more of the state of Nevada, especially the Native American lands but there doesn’t seem to be many gas stations in those vast areas.  This is where a motorcycle would definitely come in handy.

Learning to cook in this trailer is a challenge.  It’s just so small.  The refrigerator is very tiny so we can’t stock up on much and have to go to the store at least 2-3 times per week.  But I’ve managed to make a turkey dinner using stove-top stuffing and canned turkey that I had on hand.  I made several steak dinners, as Dan barbequed the meat outside and with leftovers have made Steak Salad and other things.  I buy chicken already prepared and shred it and use the meat for a variety of dishes.  I’m learning to cook vegetables in the microwave.  We eat a lot of sandwiches and canned soup.  It’s not so bad.  Dan is very helpful and sometimes he’ll cook breakfast for us and often he’ll do the dishes after I have cooked.  It’s nice to work as a team.

10/25/11

We continue on in Las Vegas with 2 more weeks to go before we leave.  We like it here.  And due to very little money, we’ve stayed close to home instead of venturing out much.  We go to the market, gas up the truck and visit the library.  But it’s kind of nice, this down-time.  I’m getting caught up on my journal, I do my daily chores, do laundry every couple of days, cook.  I read, write, watch tv or movies.  Enjoy the pool and sunshine.   Everything is quite nice.  Next week after pay-day, we’ll probably be gone all day every day, seeing the sights. 

Last Sunday, we visited the Bahai Temple and it was quite nice.  Beautiful architecture, nice people, interesting religion.  The message was on music and the importance of it in life.  I liked that very much.  Next on the list is maybe visiting the Zen Center.  The Bahai faith is a renegade religion from the Middle East.  Most of the people in the faith are immigrants from Iran and the neighboring countries.  They speak their native language, Farsi, and English of course.  I like their religion very much but could never become one of them.  They are very anti-gay and feel being gay is a sin.  I’m not looking for a religion that narrow or old-fashioned in its thinking.

10/28/11

Things are still quiet around here. Stayed home all day yesterday but went to Barnes & Noble last night for a special type of notebook, and we read magazines and enjoyed a latte in their cafe.  Played Cribbage at the table. Had a nice time. Felt good to get out of here for a little while.

The movie theatre is in the same shopping center and there are a couple of movies we want to see next week. The Ides of March and I see the new Planet of the Apes is still playing. It's already gone from most theaters.  I noticed in one of those free rag newspapers that there is a cheap theater somewhere here in Vegas where all movies are only $1.50 and on Tuesdays all seats are $1.00. That's odd. My only experience with cheap movies like that is the theaters are sticky, the a/c doesn't work, the film constantly breaks, it smells like old tennis shoes in there and is located in a crime-ridden neighborhood. I hope this one is different if we decide to go.

Dan and I are talking about maybe staying in Vegas another month but it's just talk at this point. I like big cities and there is much I'd like to see and do. But who knows. We'll probably just leave and head south like we planned. I just hope we don't run into hurricanes, tornadoes, dust storms, and snow.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Still in Las Vegas but are leaving tomorrow.  Our 1 month here has literally flown by.  Part of the plan of traveling this way is that I wanted time to write and so much of my mornings are spent at the computer doing exactly that.

The weather turned cold about a week ago, in keeping with the new season.  It’s about 60ºF at peak time during the day but drops to about 40ºF at night.  We use up one propane tank every 2 weeks.  Propane is what we use to run the heater, and we also cook with it, and our hot water heater and refrigerator are also partially powered by propane.  We have two 7 gallon propane tanks on the trailer and they each cost about $25 to fill. 

When one lives in a regular house where the city provides utilities, you don’t have to think of things like this.  But living on the road, you have to manage your own utilities, and that includes propane.  Everything has to be budgeted for.

I wish I could say we played hard in Las Vegas but the truth is, we tired of the casinos very quickly.  We just aren’t big gamblers.  I actually have no interest in gambling and Dan only likes to play poker.  But he’s way too conservative to play for big money with the risk of losing it all.  So he doesn’t go out to play very often.  Dan doesn’t play the slot machines at all.  He calls them one-armed bandits!

We also can’t stand the smell of cigarettes and smoke in the casinos.  Some of the newer casinos have good air filtering systems and they even pump out some sort of chemical air freshener but still I can’t stand it.

We went to a movie the other night and saw Take Shelter.  It was rather interesting.  It’s about a man who begins to have terrifying dreams and nightmares of impending disaster.  He begins to enlarge and build a storm shelter in the back yard and becomes obsessed by it.  He’s afraid he is losing his mind but at the end, a disaster does indeed, occur.

The movie theater is housed in a casino, as many of them are here, so it’s impossible to completely get away from the gaming or the cigarette smoke.

We went to a late night supper at Denney’s and didn’t realize until we stepped inside that it was also located in the back of a very small casino. It had its own entrance so we were fooled until we stepped in. And every machine was busy with some zombie playing and losing their money.  Where do people get the money to come here and throw it all away?  Anyway, we could barely enjoy our cheap supper special because it smelled of stale cigarette smoke so bad in there.  We couldn’t wait to get home and shower and wash our hair.  Las Vegas must be the lung cancer capitol of the world.

They actually do have several medical centers and cancer research hospitals here.  How appropriate.

The only nice thing about it was that we sat across from 2 Danish couples and we enjoyed chatting with them.  They were very interesting.  They were very proud of the big Chevrolet convertible they rented—they even took a photo of it on their phone to show us.  That was the big draw for them to come to the U.S.  The big cars were the ticket.  They told us that petrol is $10 per gallon in Denmark so most people do not drive and if they do, the cars are very tiny and cost 3 times what we pay for ours.  Amazing.  So, the big thrust for their vacation here is to rent a car, and drive around on our “cheap” gas!

Las Vegas has a lot of things to do besides the gaming.  They have nice parks.  Red Rock Canyon is a natural preserve and is located just a few miles from town.  There is a visitor center and a scenic drive.  There are bathrooms and picnic areas.  It is quite beautiful.  There are a lot of trails for hiking and rock-climbing is a big attraction.  The ranger told us the beautiful red rock formations are actually ancient sand dunes and that this area used to be the Malibu of the ancient world.