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Friday, September 22, 2017

Alamo, Nevada to Laughlin, Nevada and Las Vegas is under construction again…or still!

Friday morning and we are ready to hit the road. 

Yesterday was a quiet day…except for the wind!  I did a little shopping at the grocery store right next to the park.  It is an amazing store for such a small town and it has darn near anything you would want at pretty reasonable prices.  It did not have beer and neither did the gas station next door.  I would guess it might have something to do with the very large Morman church just down the road.  Not a problem we just drove back up the road to Alamo to the Shell station where they did sell beer. 

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Pretty and green as we leave town.  Only about 200 miles to go today and we didn’t have to leave early.

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You can see water off to the right and it is part of the Paranagat wildlife reserve.

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A wide open straight stretch of road and there is some wind but….it’s a tail wind!  Lots of traffic in both directions today.

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Look at that rock.  Beautiful to me.

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Even the creosote bush is green here.  The mountains are a bit hazy…mabe a little smoke.

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This is the large Love’s station that we always fuel up at before heading into Las Vegas, it is right at the junction of 93 and I15.  We have adopted a new plan.  Even though we don’t take on much fuel we are now pulling into the large truck fuel bays.  In the past we have wiggled into the pumps that everyone gets fuel from and it is much too hard on the axles and tires of the 5th wheel.   It is tight and crowded at these types of pumps and there is always the possibility of damage.  I went inside and they have no problem with us fueling up I just have to preauthorize before Eric pumps.

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Coming into the north end of Las Vegas.  We both hate going through Vegas as it is quite often congested and the traffic is moving at high speed.

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Closer in and….construction.

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We have been squeezed down to two lanes and it is tight and a problem when people flood on from the on ramps as there is no way to move over.   More people, more housing and more roads!

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Here we are getting closer to exit 42 where we will head south towards Laughlin.  As you get close you have to stay in the left lane as the right lane goes to Reno.  There is also the problem with people not letting you in if you have to change lanes.  Very agressive unmannerly drivers in Vegas.

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Made it through and the northbound traffic is backed up due to an accident.   Not much of a surprize considering how people drive.  They bob and weave and are constantly changing lanes at high speed.  We stay in the middle lane and….don’t move.

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The traffic is backed up for miles.

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We are at the very south end of Vegas and….more construction here too.  It appears they are changing the accesses here.

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We are getting close to where we make a right turn onto 95 south.  At this point there are no signs and we are uncertain as to what has been changed.

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We should be turning right up there somewhere.

At this point things went sour!   The only sign where we were supposed to turn said….” Casino Access” and nothing else so we went by.  Well….that was it.  No mention of Laughlin, Searchlight or 95 south.  Sigh!!!!   So now we we’re heading into Bullhead City.  We could go through and continue onto Laughlin on 93 through Kingman but…we don’t want to go that way.  So we made a right turn at the first light hoping to find a place to turn around.  We ended up at the municipal airport and stopped in their little parking lot for a pit stop and and a look at our mapping program.  Back up the hill, left turn at the light onto 93 and then an exit onto 95 south which has not been changed at this point.  So…be careful where you have to exit south to 95.

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Heading down over the wide open flats before heading up to Searchlight.  There is “no” wind today and that makes us very happy.  They are building another road that crosses 95 out this way and have an overpass over the highway.  It is called highway 11.  I wonder what they will have planned for next year. 

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Heading up and there isn’t much traffic here….just the way we like it.

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Lots of Joshua trees here.

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The flag hangs limp in Searchlight.  Goody!

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Parked at the rest stop about 1 mile north of the turnoff to Laughlin.   Lunch time.

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Heading down to Laughlin and with Searchlight at 3500 ft and Laughlin at 550 ft it is a long road down. 

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Off we go.

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Twists and turns as we work our way down.

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Laughlin is up ahead and we’ll stay at the Riverside RV park as usual.  It is across the street from the the large casino you see on the left of the picture.  Cheap and quiet at this time of year.

We were parked and set up by about 2:30 and there is no one around us.  One small glitch though as the motor that extends our jacks quit as we were almost finished leveling the rig.   Great!  Hopefully it’s only a fuse.  Eric got out the hand crank and raised us a bit more but it was a hard go.  The gravel site we are on dips down to the road so it’s a long lift to get us level. 

Warm and not too breezy yet.  

A nice evening with a few beers and a Jay’s game.  We beat the Yankees 8 to 1.   They’re at the top and we’re at the bottom so that always feels good. 

There is a “Roddin on the river” car show on right now across the street so maybe we’ll have a look tomorrow.  Lots of street rods and old cars. 

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the heads up about that turn on 95. Just driving the car this past April we got turned around several times in Vegas.

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