Boulder City, NV to Congress, AZ

Before leaving the Boulder City Elks this morning I called the Nevada DOT and found out that our RV was to heavy to cross the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge between the hours of 8am and 5pm while they were were working on it.  It was after 7am when I got through, so we packed in a rush and were on the road by 7:30am.  The photos didn’t turn out too well with the glare of the sun in the windows, but here goes anyway.

In this photo we’re approaching the bridge.

And in this one, we’re crossing the bridge and we didn’t get any kind of a view at all.

We continued about 12 miles into Arizona and stopped at a viewpoint where I got this photo.  The water visible in the photo is actually a part of Mohave Lake.

We continued our drive and stopped for the day a little before noon at the Escapee’s North Ranch campground in Congress, AZ.  We plan on an early start in the morning and will complete our trip to the house in Arizona City.  We will be there for a couple of weeks getting the trailer unloaded and doing some work in the house before we drive to our property in Texas.

Ely, NV to Boulder City, NV

We left the Prospector’s Casino RV Park this morning and continued our journey south.  Ken was able to get some nice photos as we went through the White River Canyon on Hwy 93.

As we approached I-15 going south on Hwy 93 and before we were able to turn into Love’s for our fuel stop, we had to stop while construction workers had a crawler hoe cross the highway.  They threw tires onto the highway so that the roadbed wouldn’t get damaged and it actually went pretty quickly.

Going through Las Vegas only got worse.  After taking on fuel, we followed our GPS instructions to take us to the Highway to Boulder City.  Had we been there a couple of minutes earlier, we probably wouldn’t have had any problems.  However, as luck would have it the police were blocking off all entrances to the highway.  After about 45 extra minutes of maneuvering around Las Vegas we finally made it to our destination at the Boulder City Elks lodge.  Our planned route for tomorrow may also be changed as it seems we may not be allowed over the new Hoover Dam bypass bridge due to weight restrictions.  So we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Jackpot, NV to Ely, NV

I didn’t get any photos again today.  It was a much needed shorter day of travel.  We left Jackpot around 10am this morning and our first stop was to take on fuel in Wells, NV at the Flying J.  From there we continued south on Hwy 93 taking a short break for lunch about 70 miles before arriving at Ely.  We are spending the night in the RV park at the Prospector’s Casino with full hookups for $16.65 including tax.  With overnight temperatures in the 30’s it will be nice to have electric heat as needed and I was also able to catch up a little bit on the laundry.  Before dinner we went over to the casino to use our two free margarita coupons we received with the payment for our RV site.  I played the machines for a while and was able to win $25…not bad!  Tomorrow we will be headed to the Elks in Las Vegas.

 

Pendleton, OR to Jackpot, NV

We put in over 400 miles today after leaving Pendleton, OR at about 9:00am this morning.  We changed time zones to Mountain Time in southern Oregon.  We stopped for lunch at the rest area about 1.5 miles into Idaho and stopped again at mile 29 to take on fuel.  This was pretty much my view for the day….boring!

We were both getting pretty tired of driving by the time we got to a rest area west of Jerome, Idaho and decided to start looking for places to camp.  That option did not work out, and we continued on to Jackpot, Nevada where we are  boondocking for the night in a designated free camping area at Barton’s Casino.  After getting parked, we walked across Hwy 93 to have dinner at their casino and I played the machine long enough to pay for our dinner.  We have both decided that  tomorrow will be a shorter day and that we will probably get a later start and will be aiming for Ely, NV.

Our Winter Travel Has Started

After close to 6 weeks at the Spokane Elks, our winter travels have begun.  This morning we hitched up the cargo trailer to the motorhome and I prepared to follow in the pickup.  We stored the RV host supplies in the basement and turned in the cash fund to the office, said our goodbyes and were on the road.  I had planned to get a photo of our vehicles before leaving the Elks, but got sidetracked.  But, here we are sitting where we stopped for lunch north of Pasco, WA at a produce store we stop at whenever we travel through this area.  The livestock truck is not a part of our travel group!

After lunch, we continued on our way and stopped at the Wildhorse Casino where we’re dry camping for the night about 5 miles north of Pendleton, Oregon.  Tomorrow we’re planning on stopping somewhere near Boise, Idaho.

Loading the Cargo Trailer

For the last couple of weeks we’ve been getting the cargo trailer loaded for our trip south.  We first parked it beside Ron’s (Ken’s brother) hanger at Felts Field.

The heaviest items to load were some wood cabinets that we will use for storage in the garage in Arizona.  We removed all of the drawers before taking them out to the trailer, then put the drawers back into the cabinets.

A few days later, we got all of the stuff we had stored at Ron’s house.  That filled the back of the pickup in addition to the back seat.  Then it was time to transfer all of that stuff to the cargo trailer.

Ken had been busy rearranging the load to even things out and managed to put his back out again.  We had planned on leaving Spokane on Tuesday, but we are now holding off until Friday to give Ken’s back some time to get better.

I just finished another inexpensive Kindle book today and highly recommend it if you’re into mystery and detective type books.  The Abbey by Chris Culver is only $.99 on Amazon and can be purchased through the following link.

Lakeside Homecoming Halftime Events

The halftime activities for Lakeside High School’s homecoming included floats (shopping carts) decorated by each class.  Here they are:

Freshmen

Sophmores

Juniors

Seniors

Each class elected a homecoming prince and princess.  This photo is the freshmen class royalty.  The missing prince is our grandson Dominique who apparently didn’t get the cue to be there for halftime.

Sophmore prince and princess

Junior prince and princess

Senior prince and princess

And finally the homecoming king and queen.  Demetrius was in the running for king, but his best friend Jake got the honor.

Lakeside Homecoming Week–Wednesday Night

Lakeside High School continued homecoming week with volleyball games for the boys competing against each class.  This photo is from Dominique’s (dark shirt) game.  Demetrius (in the blue man group costume( is in the right background.

Demetrius played his volleyball game in costume for a portion of the game.

Demetrius with his girlfriend Kaylee.

Dominique with his girlfriend Hayley on his right and other members of his class.

Lakeside Homecoming Week–Dominique’s Football Game

Here are a couple of photo’s from Dominique’s (#14) football game during homecoming week at Lakeside High School.

Bruce and Nena Visit Us at Spokane Elks

We first met Bruce and Nena at the Newmar factory in Nappannee, Indiana.  When we found out that they were in the process of buying property on the Clark Fork River in Montana and were nearby, we invited them to stop by the Spokane Elks for a few days for a visit.  Nena and I went for walks around the neighborhood a couple of days, and we had a very nice weather day for sightseeing in Coeur d’Alene.  We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant then walked the boardwalk down at the Coeur d’Alene Resort.  After that we drove along the old highway and walked the hill at Higgins Point.

Nena

Ken and Nena by statue at Higgins Point.

Bruce and Ken

We had a great visit and hopefully our paths will cross again this winter.