Thursday, August 30, 2012, Monticello, UT

Thursday, August 30, 2012, Monticello, Utah
Today we are planning to travel to Monticello, UT. We left the Antelope Valley RV Park at 10:15 and crossed the highway to a Sinclair Station for fuel. Since fueling in Reno we have used 76.387 gallons of diesel and driven 476.4 miles through desert and mountains.

Along US-191

To get to Monticello we still traveled most of the way on US-50. US-50 goes through a lot of occupied country, rugged and beautiful in its starkness. US-50 runs concurrent with I-15 for about 15 miles from Holden, UT to Scipio, UT. I have to tell you the Interstate is much rougher than the back roads of US-50. A little past Salina, UT US-50 again runs concurrent with the Interstate again. This time it was I-70. Again the pavement was worse than when it was just US-50. At Crescent Junction we turned off I-70 onto US-191. It was another long stretch of road with very little shoulder. The highway featured passing lanes on every grade, and there were several with some pullouts for slow vehicles.
We passed through Moab. Moab is a bustling center for visiting the National Parks in the area. There are a lot of RV Parks in Moab to choose from. I think we will have to come here sometime for a long period of time. We have been in Canyon Lands National Park years ago on a Raft trip from Green River to Bullfrog at the upper end of Lake Powell, but we have seen it from the top.

The Wison arch south of Moab

We stopped once to photograph Wilson's Arch. We arrived in Monticello and the Mountain View RV Park at about 4:30 PM. There were some clouds in the area but storms never materialized. The park is small, 29 sites plus a few for tents. The pull through sites come with shade trees or without for us satellite TV viewers.
We had leftovers from yesterday's chicken dish, served with salad served on tortillas.

A fallen arch near Wilson Arch

We watched the speakers at the Republican Convention, as we have every night. The optimism and enthusiasm for this country was very uplifting. We can only hope that they defeat Obama and start turning this county around.
I still can't load pictures on my blog. I have sent an e-mail to the site administrators describing the problem. Hopefully they can resolve the problem.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012, Delta, UT

I thought we slept in this morning, until I remembered the time change from PDT to MDT. Of course my first priority was fixing coffee.
I got through my e-mail and tried to post pictures to my last two days blogs, no success on that. I also tried to get my Geocaching profile to load, no success there either. Oh well I'll try again tomorrow.
I don't know why, but I tried the satellite to tune into DirecTV again. When I turned on the KVH switch I heard a couple of thumps and then the regular grinding sound we associate with normal operation. After a short period the picture came on through both receivers. Later an update came through for the rear receiver.
I down loaded several nearby caches and went hunting. I found five before heading back to the RV Park. While I was away there was a download for the front DirecTV receiver that didn't apply properly. After a couple of tries we were successful in applying the update. I still don't know what the earlier problem was.
I downloaded some more caches and went back out. I found eight more.
While out I bought six ears of corn at a roadside stand to go with the chicken Gerri was cooking.
Gerri has been battling with a bill she received from a hospialist who was called in while she was in the rehab hospital. This doctor is not under our insurance so Gerri has now worked her way up to the CEO over Desert Canyon Rehabilitation Hospital and trying to work out a settlement with them. We chose this place because it is covered under our insurance and the hospital should have not called in a doctor out of our network. It was a good day to make phone calls since we were not on the road.

Sunset in Delta, UT

After getting back to the coach I waited for the temperature to cool off a little and hooked up the Jeep in preparation to move tomorrow. While I was hooking up there was another coach leaving. I noticed that one of his tow bars wasn't hooked up. I managed to flag him down before any damage was done. I know how easy it is to make this mistake; I did the same thing last year in Shipshewana. We were both lucky with no serious damage done, only a little metal ground off.
The corn was very good with the chicken Gerri had cooked. The chicken was the best ever. Gerri cooked the corn in the microwave and we tried a trick we had seen on You Tube to get the husk off and leaving none of the silk on the ear. It didn't work but we managed, the corn was very good. Tomatoes and cottage cheese completed the meal.
We watched some TV and put in some computer time before going to bed at 10:30.

 

 

 

Tuesday, August 28, 2012, Delta, UT

Tuesday, August 28, 2012, Delta, UT
We slept until the tractor started going back and forth. The park was redoing the water system. They seemed to be digging across the road I had to leave on. I was prepared to unhook the Jeep before leaving. The owner came by and told me that when I was ready he would make a way for me to leave without unhooking.
We were ready at 10 am and true to his word the owner made a way for us. We left the park at 10:15 en route to Delta, UT via US-50. We didn't make good time, first road construction and seemingly unending curves and grades.

We saw an unusual sign by the road. We have often seen Deer Crossing signs, but this one read "Major Deer Crossing."
US-50 may be lonely in Nevada but it gets lonelier after you cross into Utah. Once we were stopped by the Utah Highway Patrol to let a convoy of OVER WIDE trucks pass. They took up most of both lanes. It was a little tight because there is no shoulder along most of US-50, either in Nevada or Utah. Going east on US-50 past the intersection with US-93 was new territory for our travels. We drove the 229 miles from Eureka to Delta in 6.5 hours.

Sunset in Delta, UT

We stayed at the Antelope Valley RV Park. Arriving at the park at 4:45 PM, we did lose an hour when we crossed into the Mountain Time Zone. The park is in the RPI, Resort Parks International network and only cost us $20.00 for the two nights we plan to stay. We choose a pull through site and I didn't unhook the Jeep, tomorrow will be soon enough for that, maybe a little caching time. During the late afternoon we had some pretty hard rain showers while the sun was shining. For supper we had leftovers from the breakfast at IHOP and from Peg's in Reno.
It wasn't an exciting day, but we enjoyed safe travel on some of the most beautiful scenery God ever created.

Monday, August 27, 2012, Eureka, NV

Monday, August 27, 2012, Eureka, NV

This morning was the first time on this trip that I have set an alarm.  We are meeting friends for breakfast in south Reno and I wanted to get fuel before meeting them.  Ed had suggested this gas station as having the cheapest diesel around Reno.  He was right the diesel was $3.99 a gallon compared to other stations in the area for $4.40+ .  We used a little over 77 gallons for the trip from Las Vegas to Reno.

We got to Peg’s first, Gail and Ed arrived a little later.  We talked for quite awhile, old stories about people we had worked with.  Wow, what a breakfast they serve at Pegs.  Ed had Huevos Rancheros, they were served in a skillet about 12” across.  The rest of us had Hash and eggs, also large portions.  The hash was made with shredded potatoes and slices corn beef with a unique seasoning and a piece of really good cantaloupe.  We spent about an hour and a half over breakfast and left the Reno area at about 11 AM.

Our route today was planned to be east on US-50 through Fernley and Fallon and on through Austin to Eureka.  US-50 is billed as the loneliest road in America.  We did pass two cyclists traveling east and one traveling west.  All were solo and a long way from towns.  There are no towns between Fallon and Austin.  The road goes sharply up to the town of Austin which is at 7400’.  Of course any road that goes up must come down, there was about 10 miles of 6% grade approaching and leaving Austin.  We stopped in Austin to take a few pictures, and arrived at Eureka and the Silver Sky Lodge RV park at 4 PM.

Downtown Austin, NV

Some of our trip was a backtrack along I-580 to I-80 to go east.  The fuel prices and the company at breakfast made the extra 10 miles worth it.  I had downloaded 10 caches in the Fallon area hoping to make one of them my find for Churchill County.  It occurred to me that parking in town might be a problem so I located a cache west of Fallon that had a wide turn out and bagged it.  We didn’t stop in Fallon.  The drive east of Fallon to Eureka was new territory for us.  The last time we were in Eureka we came west from Ely.  Upon reaching Austin we stopped in town for some pictures.  We didn’t get a good one of a city limit sign, no place to pull off the road.

Is Austin the center of Nevada? 

I had also downloaded 10 caches in Eureka to complete Eureka County, thus finishing my quest to find a cache in all 17 Nevada Counties.  As it turned out the first cache we came to was at a rest area 20 miles west of Eureka.  I bagged that one and we continued on into town.  We stopped for some pictures before arriving at the Silver Sky Lodge RV park south of town.  By my calculation I have completed my quest.  But I can’t verify it because the geocaching web site won’t fully load.

Eureka, NV Opera House

Today was a fairly easy drive of 260 miles in 5 hours.  Of course we had no traffic east of Fallon.  The RV park cost $20 for the night.  After the engine cooled down we opened the windows.  The park owner forecast a temperature in the upper 40’s tonight.

Gerri retired to the bedroom and her computer at 9:30.  We still have no DirecTV, I think the dish is shot it just makes a whining noise and doesn’t lock on to any satellites.   My list of repairs for Kevin is growing, looks like we will be going to Quartzsite in January.  I followed Gerri to bed at 10.

Today marks a week since my mother’s death.  She left a large void for such a small person.  I am comforted by the thoughts and prayers of family and friends.  I am also comforted with the knowledge that she can no longer suffer and is in paradise with the other departed saints.

I have done a cache in each Nevada county

Sunday, August 26, 2012, Reno, NV

Sunday, August 26, 2012, Reno, NV

This morning I got a call from Ed Pitchford. Ed is also a LVMPD retiree, he now lives in Verdi, NV. We plan to meet him and Gail Hardy for breakfast before leaving tomorrow for Eureka, NV. Gail was Gerri's supervisor before Gail retired.
At 10am we tuned into the worship services from our home congregation, Oakey Blvd. Church of Christ, via internet.

After services we got ready for the trip to Virginia City. Kathleen and Ian picked us up at 12:15. On the way to Virginia City we stopped and checked out the Smith's Gas station on South Meadows Parkway. Ed had told me they had diesel cheaper than anyone around. They did, $3.99 a gallon and a discount with a Smith's saver card. As a bonus the restaurant we were thinking about going to for breakfast had opened a new location nearby.

Lunch at the Mandarin Garden

We went to Virginia City via Geiger Grade and found easy parking one street uphill from the main street and we then walked around some of the shops before settling on the Mandarin Garden for lunch. We sat on the deck which claimed a hundred mile view. Ian and I had Mongolian Beef and the ladies had Egg Foo Young. My lunch was good but about what was expected. Gerri's and Kathleen's lunch on the other hand was not only delicious but presented in a unique fashion. It looked more like a loaf rather than patties. It had everything in it except bean sprouts. We certainly won't need super tonight. As we left the restaurant we noticed there was a museum downstairs. We donated a dollar each and toured the Red Light Museum. The most interesting items on display were parts of old field fingerprinting and ID kits.
 
One of my purposes in going to Virginia City was to find a cache in Storey County to move toward finding a cache in each of the Nevada Counties. Again I messed up my Pocket query and didn't have the Virginia City caches loaded. Gerri's so called smart phone couldn't get a connection in the area so I didn't find a cache.

Next weekend is a special event in Virginia City with Civil War reenactments and special doings for Labor Day. Ian and Kathleen walked to the train station and bought tickets to bring his boys back. Gerri and I waited at the Delta Saloon and people watched until they got back. Ian went and brought the car around to pick us up. While we were eating we saw some feral horses by some buildings downhill from the restaurant, so we drove down that way to try and spot them. We found the three feral horses just outside a fenced area where there was another horse and burro, they seemed to be communing.

At the bottom of Geiger Grade we saw a larger group of feral horses, but the pictures came out too dark. We went by Kathleen's house and said goodbye to Sean and took pictures. Back at the coach we visited until it was time for Kathleen to pick up the girls at their father's house.

After Kathleen and Ian left I drove east about ten miles to get a cache in Storey County, since I was had been unsuccessful in getting one in Virginia City. I went to a cache called "Living on the Ridge" it was quite a hike up to the ridge. I now have two more counties to go. I did another cache on the way home, I think it was just inside Storey County.

Back at the coach, I drained the sewer tanks and stowed the city water hose and flagpole.

Gerri got a call from her mother that this morning at church she had been hurt. Her left foot is badly bruised. She has a boot to wear, a cane to use and pain pills to take. They now sound like a matching pair, both with injured left feet and canes to help them walk.
After some time on the computer we went to bed with plans to get up at seven and out of the park and fueled up before meeting our friends for breakfast on the south side of town.

 

 

Saturday, August 25, 2012, Reno, NV

Saturday, August 25, 2012, Reno, NV

After coffee and everyone was up and dressed we met the rest of the family at a local IHOP for breakfast. Sean stayed home so it was five girls and me.

With the G People for breakfast

After breakfast Gerri and I went back to coach for some quiet time. Kathleen had to drop off the girls at their father's house. This afternoon Kathleen and Ian went to watch his son play in a football game in Fernley.


I went to visit Don again while Gerri iced and rested her foot. At 5 we drove over to Kathleen's and visited with her and Ian until time to go to dinner.

Mother and daughter at Louis' Basque Corner

We went to dinner at Louis' Basque Corner which is located downtown Reno. Excellent food. I was here in the 80's with Stan Romanski when we attended a FBINAA training session. The ladies had shrimp as a main course, Ian had sweetbreads and I had the top sirloin. Of course the Basque meal begins with vegetable soup followed by salad and then chicken and rice and pinto beans. The main course is then served with French fries. Except for the main entrée the meal is served family style, all you can eat. For desert it was vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup.

After dinner I sort of waddled back to the RV park.
A few computer minutes and then to bed.
Tomorrow it's a visit to Virginia City. I plan on picking up a cache there to complete Storey County, only Churchill and Eureka to go and I have found a cache in each of the Nevada counties.

Friday, August 24, 2012, Reno, NV

First on my agenda today was to contact American Coach Service about the non-working latch on one of our cargo doors under the coach. The news wasn't very encouraging. The Service department offered two solutions. One involved taking the mechanism cover off from the inside. Since this isn't a pass through bay, that was ruled out quickly. The other solution was to use some type of shim to push back the plunger on the lock. I had already asked at the office and they didn't have one. I called Coach Net and they gave me the name of several shops in the Reno area to take the coach to. I called one and they said I could save $75 on a service call if I brought the coach in. I also called around to some auto parts store and none of them sell Slim Jims. I had pretty much resigned myself to going to a shop Monday as we leave town.
Gerri's plan for the day was to go shopping with Kathleen and the girls. Mine was to play some World of War Craft with Sean and then go see a movie called the Expendables at 4:40. When Kathleen came to pick up Gerri her friend Ian Porterfield was with her. Since I could get the top part of the door open a little, I ask him to put pressure on the door in a couple of directions, I thought that maybe the door was just in a bind. No luck, then Ian opened the next door back and he discovered that he could see the plunger on the offending lock. In about two seconds, after I returned with a screw driver, the door was open. It turns out the plastic plunger was broken where it attached to the cable that would normally pull it back. The door latches with only one lock but that should be fine until I can buy a metal replacement. I have had a couple of suggested sources after I posted info on the problem to the American Coach Yahoo Group.

Sisters and friends

Shannon at Karaoke

Gerri and Kathleen took the girls to Kohl's for shopping and in between shopping each girl went to the salon next door to Kohl's and had their hair cut. Maddy and Milana were in need of more clothes, where Shannon needed school supplies so Wal Mart was the destination for that. By 2pm shopping was completed and then they went over to Kathleen's friend's complex for pool time before pizza and Karaoke. Also with the group they picked up some of their friends, Mikey (Milana's boyfriend) and Maureena (Maddy's girlfriend). While eating pizza Shannon performed several songs. Ian, Kathleen's boyfriend, also sang.

I went to Sean's house at about 4 pm, we had a little time before the movie so we played some World of War Craft. The movie we went to was The Expendables 2. It feature several aging adventure film stars; Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  We saw enough people killed to depopulate a small mid-western city and too many explosions to count. The accuracy of the good guys' fire and the inability of the bad guys to hit anything was amazing. The popcorn was good and of course I enjoyed spending the afternoon with my grandson, Sean.

Shannon and Milana sleep over, first to use the bed in the lounge

We played some more WoW after we got home and before the rest of the family got home. Sean and I ate the leftover pizza. We visited for awhile before returning to the coach for the evening. Even with all his problems Sean can be a joy to be around but when there is a group he seems to act out more.
Maddy and Milana stayed with us overnight in the coach.


 

Thursday, August 23, 2012, Reno, NV

Thursday, August 23, 2012, Reno, NV

We left Tonopah at 9:45. Before leaving I pulled out of the site and one of the storage door worked, unfortunately the one that still doesn't work is the one with the refrigerator with our extra drinks and food. When I was unhooking the utilities I think I solved the water fill problem. I pressed the spray head lever to rerelease pressure on the city water hose. It came on without me turning the knob for the cold water. The cold water was all the way open. I'll be sure tonight by checking before I go to bed.

Our route today is US-95 to Fallon, US-50 to Fernley, I-80 to Reno and the north on US-395 to Parr Blvd. and the Shamrock RV Park. A trip pf 240 miles which took about 4 hours.

We got stuck for a half hour just north of Hawthorne in a one lane area of road construction. The drive was uneventful. At 60-65 mph it was much smoother than most stretches of Interstate we travel on. North of Tonopah we noticed how murky the sky was. It wasn't rain clouds it was smoke from California and Nevada wildfires. By Fallon my eyes were burning. We arrived at the RV park at 2:30 and were assigned space F-12, two years ago we were in F-13. I still couldn't get the third bay door on the curbside open. I plan to call American Coach in the morning.

I'm not posting pictures today, there is not much between Tonopah and Fallon except creosote and rabbit brush. From there to Reno some farm land and bare hills.

After getting set up we went to Kathleen's for visiting and supper. Sean and I played World of War Craft for awhile. He had me start a new character and helped me level it up to 6 with a higher level character of his.

We had pot roast with gravy for supper which we had brought it with us from Las Vegas. Kathleen fixed rice, garlic bread and Caesars salad to go with the roast. After supper Sean and I took the cushions we had brought for our friend Don Damitz.

Back at Kathleen's we had cake and ice cream to celebrate granddaughter Kayla's birthday, she lives in Seattle.

A little after 9 we went back to the RV. Granddaughters Shannon and Milana are sleeping over with us tonight. They are the first to sleep on the queen size bed in the living room. I had to search for the pump and then find out how to use it.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012, Tonopah, NV

Wednesday, August 22, 2012, Tonopah, NV

It rained most of the night and started again about 8 AM. It was raining heavily most of the morning. We both did things on the internet. We decided to go to Belmont in spite of the rain. The rain stopped after we left Tonopah on US-6. A little east of Tonopah we turned NE on SR-376 and then north on SR-82 to Belmont. It had obviously rained a lot and there were a couple of places with water crossing the road. We saw two antelope crossing the road. They looked fat and healthy.

Belmont is a ghost town, at least a ghost of its former self. An interesting place. It was the first County Seat of Nye County and the Court house is still there along with the remains of some old mills and buildings. There is a bed and breakfast and a church that has services twice a month. After driving around and taking pictures we headed back to Tonopah.

We stopped to do five caches on the way back to Tonopah. I was going to do some caches near the RV Park but got distracted by the fact that two of the storage bay doors won't open. I tried the key and auto lock fob, no luck. More to add to the list. I drained the sewer tank and tried the city water supply and it all seemed to work fine. Tomorrow on the way to Reno I plan to leave the satellite on In Motion and see if anything breaks loose. We can come back to Tonopah anytime to do some of the caches here and along the ET Highway.

The old mill site

Two double bunk jail cells

Belmont B&B

The Chuch at Belmont

The first Nye County Courthouse

The It Ain't New York City cache at the turn off to Manhattan

A warning when turning onto SR-82

Prominent citizens of Belmont

For supper we had a salad with tuna fish. The best meal ever.
With no TV we spent some time on the computers with the Sirius Radio playing Old Radio Classic's.
Before dark tonight there was a lot of blue sky.
We will probably go to bed earlier tonight and get a start in the morning that will get us in Reno early in the afternoon.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012, Tonopah, NV

Tuesday, August 21, 2012, Tonopah, NV

 

 
Tuesday, August 21, 2012, Tonopah, NV
We slept in until 9:20. I flushed the electric toilet in our bathroom and nothing happened. The water was off. I checked outside and the water was off at the faucet but also running out the overflow at the fill opening on the side of the coach. I checked the bypass valve and it seemed to be in the correct place. But if the city water is on it overflows the tank instead of bypassing the tank and feeding the inside faucets. With that and the DirecTV problem from yesterday, I am starting a list of repairs needed. Last night a rain storm started at about 11 PM, because it was blowing in I had to shut the windows. It became stuffy right away and I turned on the air conditioner. It was raining too hard to go out and extend the awnings over the windows. This morning I decided to extend the awnings over the side windows so rain wouldn't come in. The awning above the window by my computer was no problem. When I pulled the awning over the driver's side windows, the strap came loose. Something else to add to the list.
I sat down at the computer and started sending thank you's to all the people that sent expressions of condolence about the death of my mother. I think I got them all, some of the e-mails had been sent to Gerri's e-mail and she forwarded those to me. I also thanked all those on Facebook who had made comments on Gerri's post about my mother's passing. There were a lot of nice comments from people she had met while we were traveling.

At about 1:00 I was ready to go out geocaching. One of the reasons we are staying in Tonopah three nights is for me to do the oldest active cache in Nevada and a few caches in the series along the Extraterrestrial Highway. The ET caches are a series of caches along Nevada SR-375 and other roads in the area of the Tonopah Test Range and Area 51. There are over 1800 caches in the series. I set my GPSR on the Oldest cache, XKD-380, as the bird flies it is 38 miles from where we are parked. As the Jeep drives it is further, North on US-6 from Tonopah 38 miles to the Fish Lake turn off, 18 miles of dirt road to a Forest Service road, 4 miles to parking and a 450' walk to the cache. Of course half way through the walk I came across a road that would have meant a shorter walk. The last 240 feet was up a hill and over to the edge of a cliff. A few years ago this would have been easy rock hopping but now I have to practically crawl over the boulders to keep my balance. I located the cache and signed the log book, I was the 705^th finder. This cache was placed 12/26/2000, I have only done two older caches. I took some pictures with my phone showing the surrounding area and started back to the Jeep.  

Looking east over the rocks that hide the cache.

I have lived in Las Vegas for 48 years, but this area exemplifies what I love about Nevada.  The long valleys, the rugged mountains and the sparse population.

Looking north from the cache site

After logging the cache I decided to do 12 of the ET series caches while returning to Tonopah. The first one was only 140' feet from the Jeep. The others were placed one every 1/10 of a mile apart. Once back on US-6 I did 8 more caches along the road back to Tonopah. The last cache I did was just west of the RV Park.

We finished up the last of the taco meat leftovers, the tacos were better every night. After logging my caches I checked my e-mail and answered some more messages of condolence.
Gerri had me massage her left ankle and the area around the scar from her operation before she went to bed. It had quit raining by 11:30. If tonight is like last night, it will rain off and on until morning.
I did start writing a biography/eulogy for my Mother. I may post it here later.
I was in bed by midnight.

Monday August 20, 2012, Tonopah, NV

Monday August 20, 2012, Tonopah, NV
Our plan for today was to leave Las Vegas by 10 AM and drive as far as Tonopah. We planned to stay three nights at the Tonopah Station and then drive to Reno on Thursday.

Glenna on a cruise 2007

As my regular readers know, up until this year my mother, Glenna Wisnewski, has traveled with us most of the time. She hasn't been to Mexico since falling and breaking her hip there. She also didn't go with us on our last cruise. In April we had to place her in a memory care facility. She seemed to be doing pretty well there until a few weeks ago when she fell and was hospitalized. Nothing broken but on returning to the home she ate very little and eventually stopped eating altogether. Two weeks ago she was placed under hospice care. She continued to refuse to eat and would drink very little. Saturday the hospice put her in a hospital bed and on oxygen to try to ease her breathing. Yesterday I visited her with Gerri and her mother and our Minister from Church. She was having a hard time breathing and was asleep most of the time. She did seem to recognize us and would alternately hold my hand, hug me and sleep. I got a call that she passed away at 2:30 this morning.
We had already made arrangement with Palm Mortuary for cremation. We didn't plan on a memorial service or funeral here in Las Vegas. She will be interred with her husband of 46 years at the Riverside National Cemetery. We will arrange whatever graveside memorial that seems appropriate at that time
After a flurry of phone calls to make sure we really had all the bases covered, we left Las Vegas at 3:10 PM. We took Rainbow north to US95 to avoid a storm that seemed to be hovering over the route through Pahrump on SR-160. The way we went also eliminates a long hill out of the Las Vegas bowl and allows for more travel on four lane divided highway. It was windy most of the way with a lot of storm activity around the mountains on both sides of the road. In Indian Springs and several other places the road was wet where the storms had crossed. We got only a few sprinkles along the way and in spite of the wind we made good time, only having to slow below sixty a couple of times.

A Rainbow near Goldfield, NV

Just north of Beatty we got stuck in a construction zone with one way traffic, we had to wait about a half an hour. They are resurfacing the road, too bad they aren't making it four lanes. We got to Goldfield at about 6:30. There was beautiful rainbow in the east. Isn't a rainbow a reminder that God keeps his promises?
We got to the Tonopah Station Ramada Inn at 7:10 PM and found a pull through site, number 7. Our timing was good because while I was unhooking the Jeep two more units showed up taking the last unoccupied sites.

Sunset in Tonopah, NV

I got all hooked up, water, electric and sewer since we plan to stay three nights. The clouds we still hanging around in the distance, making for an awesome sunset. After registering and taking pictures of the sunset we had tacos for supper. The meat was leftovers that I froze a couple of weeks ago while Gerri was recuperating from her fall. In turn that meal was made from taco meat we had frozen after Chris and Cassie's going away party in March. Waste not, want not and leftovers get better each time they are served. BTW, we have more than enough left over for more than another meal.
I tried to return some of the condolence calls I got while driving, not too much luck. I will try again tomorrow to make the calls back and answer e-mails that came in today along with all the condolences on Facebook.
At about 10:30 I had to close the windows up because of heavy rain blowing in. It immediately got stuffy, so I had to turn on an air conditioner.
E-chores tonight, but I forgot the thump drive with my pack ups of the planned routes and other programs I use both at home and while traveling. No TV. For some reason the satellite wasn't locking on. I called DirecTV but we couldn't get it going. I may address it tomorrow or wait until we get to the RV Park in Reno.
It was a long day and after a shower I went to bed about midnight. Depending on the noise factor, I will sleep in tomorrow.

Sunday August 12, 2012, Las Vegas, NV

Sunday August 12, 2012, Las Vegas, NV

We were up and ready to leave Flagstaff by 9:15. Not much to comment about on the trip, I slept until Gerri turned off I-40 in Kingman. It must have been a smooth trip. I was awake most of the rest of the way, but if you have driven from Kingman to Las Vegas a few times there isn't much that is remarkable.

We made the return trip a little quicker than the trip to Flagstaff. No rain. We were home about 1:30. Todd and his family had left about noon. They stopped by the home to visit Glenna but had left before I got there.

Hopefully next week we will begin our 2012 RV trek. We plan to go to Reno via the ET Hwy and after visiting the G-People then head for the mountains of southern Colorado, Fun Valley near South Fork. We plan to stay there until they close in mid-September and then head to Columbus, MS. Gerri's High School class is having a 65^th birthday party (Class of '65). After that we will probably spend most of October in Texas visiting friends and relatives.

Saturday August 11, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

Saturday August 11, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

I was up earlier this morning, Gerri had left the drapes open so the light woke me up. It didn't bother Gerri, she slept later.

Today we were having Denise and Kyoko coming for lunch. They live in Sedona, Denise is Gerri's 1^st cousin. Neva was bustling around the kitchen by 7:30 and never stopped until we sat down at the table. Stopped? OK, she just slowed down a little when it came time to eat We had pot roast, mashed potatoes and stir fried vegetables. The roast was one that we had bought through John's contacts at a meat company in Las Vegas. Kyoko brought a strawberry cake. A great meal with good company. We wound down our visit with the cake and coffee. By the time we got to picture taking and saying goodbyes it was sprinkling rain with quite a bit of thunder to be heard in the distance. After company left it rained hard for a short time. I went out caching at about 3:00. I found four and called it a day.

I did go by Sam's Club and gassed up the car for the trip home tomorrow.

Back at the timeshare we watched the news and some Olympic events before eating. We had a great meal and cleaned up the left overs from the last two days' suppers.

Computer time and watching the Olympic events rounded out the evening. Neva did get some of her things packed up for the trip home.
Today is our oldest son's 48th birhtday.

Friday August 10, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

Friday August 10, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

We slept in late this morning.

Starting at 10:00 I was on the phone for about 45 minutes with Hospice workers about services needed and available for my mother.

The weather here in Flagstaff was mostly mid 80's today with occasional clouds later in the afternoon. I hoped to get out geocaching but messed up my pocket query and don't have a cable to load caches one by one into the GPSR. My second pocket query hadn't come in by 3:00PM, so I may not get out hunting today.

I took Gerri's phone and went caching. I found one near the timeshares, ` about ½ mile walk. I tried a couple of others but drove around and around without finding a way to get to them.

Went back to the timeshare. We had supper at about 7:00. Salad and then salmon cakes with Lima beans and corn. For desert we had fresh fruit and cookies.

Some computer time and watching the Olympic events rounded out the evening.

Thursday August 9, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

Thursday August 9, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

We were up early, for us, this morning. A lot to do and places to go for both of us. Both Gerri and I have luncheons today. Gerri with some ladies she worked with and me with the Sheriff's Protective Association board of directors. I still serve the board as retiree liaison.

Before going to my meeting I went to visit my mother. It's hard to tell if she knows me or not. She doesn't respond to questions and only asks, “where am I supposed to go” or “what am I supposed to do.

Yesterday at her doctors suggestion we signed her up for Hospice care. They are supposed to finish evaluating her today. Beside being unresponsive she hasn't been eating more that a few bites or a glass of milk a day. The Hospice representative says after the evaluation they will stat a plan to treat her and at least try to keep her comfortable without moving her to a different care facility.

Gerri got home from her luncheon about a half hour before me, I got home about 1:30. We got everything in the car for a short trip to Flagstaff, AZ and were on the road after fueling up Gerri's car at about 2:50. We will be staying with Gerri's mother at her Wyndham timeshare. I had some reluctance to leave town but realistically there is nothing I can do that isn't being done.

Earlier this morning I spoke to Jeannette and they plan to come to visit my mom this weekend. I gave them the codes to get in the house and instructions on the air conditioning. I also warned them that Glenna may not recognize them and not to be shocked at her weight loss,

Thee o'clock seems to be a good time to leave Las Vegas. We had light traffic on I-215 and US-93 to Kingman, AZ. After we crossed the bridge and were a short way into Arizona we could see dark clouds over the River Mountains and the White Mountains as we approached Kingman but they were pretty far off to the north. After we got on I-40 and past Kingman the black clouds were ahead of us and we could see occasional lightning. When we got into the mountains east of Kingman it started raining and several times I was down to 40 mph or slower because of the visibility. Some of the lightning strikes weren't far away. Several times we heard the thunder before the flash of light had died away. By the time we got to Williams we were past the storm and it was clear the rest of the way to Flagstaff, We arrived at the timeshare at about 7:30. The trip of 250 miles took just over five hours. Not bad considering the slow downs at the heavy storm times. The light traffic and 75 mph Arizona speed limit made the driving time shorter.

After unpacking and relaxing for a while, Neva served supper. Black eyed peas with cornbread and a pineapple cottage cheese salad. One of our favorite meals.

In Flagstaff this time of year it can be mid 80's during the day and 50'ish at night. We caught up on e-mail and watched a few Olympic events before bedtime. I opened the bedroom window and it was cool enough to close it at about 4:30AM.

Much to my chagrin, I realized that Saturday is Todd's birthday. He will be in Las Vegas and we will be in Flagstaff..