Moving Day To Pahrump, Nevada

                                                       Wednesday 3/21/2012

This morning, we were packing up before we left and I remembered I had not taken pictures of the pool. I told Joe I would be back and went down to take them. Normally I wouldn't bother, but the pool was unusual, so I wanted to get pictures of it. It sits below the Club House. This picture shows the jacuzzi.

From the jacuzzi, you can go to the men or women restrooms and showers.

This picture shows the jacuzzi to the right and the pool to the left.

The pool wraps around this wall and make a complete circle, with nice views of the park.

Joe said he was going to miss his bedroom window. He watches TV in the bedroom, because I am doing dishes and watching TV in our living room. He also goes to bed earlier than me, so if I go into the bedroom to watch TV, I get booted out of the room any way. I didn't get to enjoy the bedroom views as much as he did.

So we got hooked up and headed down to cross the river below and to the road out in the distance. I forgot to mention in my previous blog that Ridgeview RV Resort is a ROD resort, so we stayed free here also. With our membership, if we stay 2 weeks at a ROD resort, we are to be out of the system for a week before we can go back into a ROD resort. When we booked this park, the register books us, and then realized we were coming from a 2 week stay at another ROD resort. We were new at all of this stuff, so we didn't have all the rules straight. She went a head and let us stay since she had us booked. Joe said that up to this point 1/4 of our membership is now paid for. Our membership is a Life time membership.

Here we are on Hwy. 163 west in Nevada, on the road in the previous picture.

Bullhead City's elevation is 540 ft., so we started our ascent out of the river valley.

By the time we reached the top we had climbed 15 feet short of 3000 ft.

The road went back down for awhile,

Then we turned on Hwy. 95 north toward Las Vegas.

Then we plateaued at 2500 ft. for a while.

We stopped at the town of Searchlight, population of  539, for lunch and some gas. By the time we got here we were at 3,547 feet elevation. This picture is looking down from the parking lot toward Lake Mohave from the Nevada side. The other resort on Lake Mohave is accessed from Searchlight on Hwy. 164.. This resort is the Cottonwood Cove Resort. US Senator Harry Reid is from Searchlight. We were down to just under 1/4 tank of fuel so we decided to play it safe and buy 15 gallons even though the price was at $4.31, the highest we have ever paid. We had seen on the internet that gas would be cheaper in Pahrump where we will stop next.

At the gas station there is a Terrible's Casino and a McDonald's. We decided to have lunch at McDonald's, our favorite fast food place.

This is a picture of Searchlight as we left town. The town consist of one block of businesses.

After leaving Searchlight we saw a lot of Joshua Trees in this area.

Off to the northwest, we could see a snow capped mountain. Joe had me check the map to figure out which mountain it might be. I told him I thought it was Spring Mountain, just NW of Las Vegas.

When we got close to the outskirts of Las Vegas, Joe notice police cars blocking all the side roads.

After we had passed about 10 of them I took this picture.

As we got into the city we saw them on mediums everywhere.

We wondered if they were all out looking for a particular car trying to leave town. 

We got this close to the strip, but we visited Las Vegas two years ago about this time of year, and we have other adventures to explore so we waved hello and goodbye to the strip as we passed by.

From 95, we took I-515 to I-215, then to Windmill Lane, to Blue Diamond Rd. and finally to Hwy. 160.

The elevation was at 2,001ft. when we left Las Vegas.

We didn't realize we were going to have to climb again to get to Pahrump, NV. Good thing we played it safe and got that extra gas.

At 3,800 I start to see more Joshua Trees.

Snow capped mountains.

Up, up, and up, until we reach

5,097.1 feet.

We entered into the Spring Mountain National Recreational Area. When we saw those snow capped mountains earlier that day, we didn't know we were going to have to climb into that area.

Getting close to those snow capped mountains.

We get to 5,416.6 ft.

then we head back down. Joe saw some mountain goats along the side of the road, while I was photographing something else. I turned to see more on the side of the mountain, but too late for pictures.

Now the snow capped mountains are to the east of us.

The city of Pahrump, NV is just ahead and sits at 2,697 ft. With the price of gas so high and the ups and downs we did today, we spent some green stuff! Joe is enjoying the way our new Nest takes the mountains. It doesn't just fly up, but it does not feel like it is straining to make it to the top.

Pahrump is just west of Las Vegas. It is the town that is circled with an x on it.

We pulled into the RV Super Store just off Hwy 160 on Dandelion St. for a pit stop.

We parked and Joe went inside to check about an appointment we had made a couple of weeks prior for a lube, oil and filter change for the next day. He was gone for a very long time. When he came back, he told me that the service men had just been laid off the day before. They didn't seem to know about our appointment. Then Joe notice Joel Laf 10 AM on a board. He said, "Well my name is right up there on the board". They said they would have to call around and see if any of their service techs would want to come in and do the job. They said they were having very hard economical times right now and had to lay off the service crew. Sounded very fishy to us.

They told us we could park in the back; like we were told over the phone when we originally made the appointment. Those are motor homes for sale; our view from our new front yard for the night.

There we sat for the night. They did have electricity for us to plug into, so we would not have to use our generator. There was one other guy on the other side of the 5th wheel who was waiting for a part, and was also spending the night.

This is a picture of us at the back of the building.

The store is closed and the gate is locked for the night. We were given a code if we would leave for dinner and needed to get back in. We didn't, and stayed home to cooked like we always do.