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. 

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

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

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.

Look at that rock.  Beautiful to me.

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

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.

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.

Closer in and….construction.

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!

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.

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.

The traffic is backed up for miles.

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

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.

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.

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. 

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

Lots of Joshua trees here.

The flag hangs limp in Searchlight.  Goody!

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

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

Off we go.

Twists and turns as we work our way down.

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. 

Jackpot Nevada to Alamo, Nevada…..a reasonably good day.

We were up early today as we had a long way to go, 345 miles.  The weather is changing and we want to be lower down where it’s warmer.

On the road at 7:30 am and it’s 4C.  At least it’s sunny.

No matter where you look there are spectacular rock formations.

Jackpot to Wells and it’s windy.  Coming from the southwest and blowing us around a bit.  Going to be a whole lot windier tomorrow.  The National Weather Service has a wind warning out from 11am to 11pm Thursday and we’ll stay put in Alamo.  We are never in a hurry unless we are running from the weather.

Lots of deer in this area and they have built tunnels and overpasses like this one for them to migrate over the highway. 

South of Wells and 132 miles to go to Ely.

We love the Great Basin with it’s wide open meadows and distant mountains.  Makes you feel really small.

Just north of Ely is McGill…..the town with the really slanted street.

We picked up fuel in Ely and are just heading out of town.

Construction.  We had three stops between Wells and Ely with waits of 15 or 20 minutes and now there are more.

Two of the first stops were a bit confusing as nothing much was happening.  A bit of line painting and that’s all.  One of the great irritations were the rumble strips which aren’t good for any vehicle and drivers went around them if they could. 

We are down from the summit here and the waits weren’t too long.  It’s a good thing we left early because we lost about an hour with construction stops.  The drive is usually quiet from Jackpot to Alamo but today it was quite congested because the traffic kept getting bunched up at the construction stops.

Coming through Lund  and there is lots of farming equipment for sale.  This whole area is farmed and it is beautiful and green.

Looks a bit smokey up ahead.  There are fires over to the west in the Elko/Winnemucca district and since the wind is coming from that direction I guess that’s why we are seeing smoke.  We’ve been plagued by smoke since we left home.  Maybe tomorrow’s wind will blow it away!

Coming into the White River Canyon.

I can never resist a picture here.

So into the Picketts RV park in Alamo.  A decent stop even with the barking dogs and refrigeration trucks running all night.  It’s warm and sunny at 29C but it will cool off a bit tomorrow.  We’d planned to stay up high where it was cooler but now it’s cooler everywhere.

This is Thursday morning and most everyone has hit the road.  I hope they know there’s a wind warning for southern Nevada!

P.S. ….we didn’t blow a tire yesterday.

New tires on Monday and off to Jackpot, Nevada on Tuesday

Monday morning Eric was off to Ontario to get two new tires for the 5th wheel.  He bought two Sailun 14ply trailer tires with steel belted side walls and put them on the middle axle.  I managed to get the laundry done and tidy up the rig and we’re ready to go.  It was a pretty evening.

Tuesday morning and the wind that blew most of the night has calmed down.  RVers hate wind!  Only 245 miles to go today.

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Heading up the long hill to Ontario and it looks pretty stormy up ahead.  There are a lot of systems moving through and the weather is quite unsettled. 

Coming through Boise.  They have finally finished all the road construction and everything moves smoothly now.  4 and 5 lanes of traffic so there is plenty of room for everyone.

Out of Boise and heading south.  A bit showery and tons of trucks.  We are only moving at 60mph and they are allowed to do 70 and the cars can do 80 so everyone is passing us.  Not a problem except lots of the trucks don’t really have the power to go faster so they struggle by.

Off the interstate onto old highway 30 at Bliss. Two lanes and much quieter and prettier.

Lots of farming here and it’s really green.

The rock formations are amazing. 

And the rocks….well they are everywhere.  Some farmers have cleared them out but it’s a huge job to farm this land.

The stretch of highway from Bliss to Twin Falls is called the Thousand Springs scenic byway and it has many springs you can see as you drive along.  The rock is volcanic and the rainwater seeps through until it hits an impervious layer and it then travels out to the cliffs and forms numerous beautiful waterfalls. 

Beautiful old buildings.

Hagerman has many lovely old buildings.

Buhl is where we always stop for fuel and lunch.  I thought this sign was a self proclaimed award but it turns out it’s actually true.  Buhl has many rainbow trout hatcheries and produces most of the trout sold in the USA and it’s processing plant is the largest in the world.  Who knew!

Heading down 95 south towards Jackpot and it’s actually sunny.  Not very warm at only 13C.  We made it the 250 miles to Jackpot today and we didn’t even blow a tire.  Eric thinks it might be accidental curb damage from making right turns.  He is always hugely careful but sometimes a bump can’t be helped.  All the blow outs have been on the right hand side. 

There is a cold front moving in and by late Wednesday night there will likely be snow at higher elevations.  If all our ducks are in a row and the tires stay on our rig we should be in Ash Springs which is at 3500 ft. and presently 30C.  It will cool off there by Friday and we will move on to Laughlin which will have cooled off enough not to cook us to death.  Wish us luck!

Coulee City, Wa to Jatfish Junction,Or…and another tire disaster

So….first off Friday in Coulee City.  A little drive, some fuel and groceries and that was it.

Saturday morning we were up early as we had a long drive ahead of us.  340 miles so we were on the road just after 8am.

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Coming down from Dry Falls and you can’t see much for the smoke.

A little better here but not much.

We had no wind, no rain, and an uneventfull drive until….

this!   We’d pulled off the highway just short of our destination after following the GPS’s instructions and had ended up in Huntington,Oregon instead of Catfish Junction.  After some directions from a local we started to backtrack to the freeway and continue on to Catfish Junction and you guessed it…..pop and we’d blown another tire.  Luckily this one was at slow speed and we managed to limp down a very long hill and into a State Park where it was flat and on pavement.  Out with the jack, the spare and the duct tape for the piece that had blown off the side of the 5th wheel.  Eric had spent a lot of time repairing this side after our last blown tire last spring on our way home.  Why this continues to happen is a complete mystery and why is it always on the passenger side which is the light side of the 5th wheel.  The Harley is loaded on the driver’s side.  We changed from trailor tires to light truck tires…hasn’t helped.  Lots of tread left, no visible separation, not hot, properly inflated?????  Since owning this from brand new 10 of the 12 special trailer tires have separated, one was blown and now two of four light truck tires have blown.  Through all our driving life we have never blown a tire on a vehicle. What the hell.  So we’ll stay here for a few days and …..buy more tires.  There doesn’t seem to be a solution to our misery other than getting rid of the 5th wheel.  We’ve looked at motorhomes and have found a few we liked but they had issues with leaking roofs.  Eric has spent countless hours upgrading everything in the RV and it suits us to a T….if we could just keep tires on it.  It wouldn’t be such a big deal if a blown tire didn’t take the side of the rig off each time.  I know we aren’t the only ones with this problem but I think we have had more issues with tires than most.  What to do…..what to do?

Today a trip into Weiser and then Ontario to pick up parts for the RV and scope out tire shops for tomorrow.

Weiser (pronounced Weezer) is a pretty old town.

Old, old buildings and lots under reconstruction.  Quiet as a mouse today as this is bible country.  Not much open on a Sunday.

So a trip into Ontario (about 30 miles away) to the WalMart and then home for lunch.  Eric will take the opposing tire on the same axle off and buy two new tires.  Not sure if we’ll buy more later before we head into Mexico but I’ll leave that to Eric. 

We had a nice evening after our distastrous end to the day and today is bright and sunny.  It is supposed to cloud over and rain for the next three days and we’d hoped to get ahead of it and carry on to Jackpot today.  We still have two weeks before we fly home on Oct 2nd. 

The best laid plans of mice and men aft go awry!