On the Road to Zion

My post about the run-down desolate towns in Nevada was an observation, not a criticism or judgement. As we travel I am likely to write about what I see without great modification or perspective. I write after a long day of travel while the impressions are fresh and real.

Today, after a relaxing day and a half at the Oasis RV resort in Las Vegas, where I was able to catch up on the wash, do a bit of shopping for my son, and top off the groceries, we hooked up and headed off to Zion National park in Utah.

As we drove out of Las Vegas I thought about what I had written in my last post. As I looked at the desert landscape I started to see its unique character. The further east we went, the more green it became and the more interesting the mountains grew. The best thing was that aside from the road itself there was very little trace of mankind. No junk. No rundown buildings. No dead towns.

The terrain began to change in the small slice of Arizona that we crossed. More hills and more color in the rocks. As we crossed the Utah border a spectacular range of hills and mesas were revealed. 

The towns we passed thru were well kept and the road and yards were tree lined. Quite a difference. 

We are now at the Zion Canyonland RV Park. Our spot is a shaded pull-thru just a short distance from the pool and laundry.

We are both looking forward to a full week of hiking and exploring this wonderful park. 

This is the view from our dining table window:

WOW!

In coming here we have changed time zones. Craig just went around the coach changing the clocks. The "kitchen clock" on the wall, the bedside clock, and the Alfa dashboard clock. 

I would have just added an hour each time I needed to know what time it was.

What would you do?

Shutting Down?

Will the National Parks close next week? 

 I try very hard to stay far away from writing about politics or religion in my blog, but in the paper this morning was an article about what parts of the government would shut down, and what would stay open. It said the Parks would close and that campers would be given a 48 hour notice to leave. 

What a bummer.  We are booked into a site at Zion National Park for a week starting Sunday night.  I don't think the RV park will  close because it is operated by the concessionaire, and if Zion closes its gates we will just have to find some non-park sites to visit.

Has anyone heard anything about National Wildlife Refuges closing?  I know that would't affect the animals, but what about the volunteers?  Could they stay?  Are there camp hosts and other volunteers who trade work for their sites in National Parks?  Would they have to leave?

I'm sure that even if they did close the parks it would only be for a short time.  And then what? 

What a mess!

I know this will affect many people who work for the government in far worse ways than an interrupted RV trip, and I sympathize with them.  

I know that both parties think they are doing the will of the people, or at least what they think is best for the country.  I just wish they could negotiate and come to a workable resolution. 

Name calling is not a solution!

No more Tonomah!

Thursday was a travel day.  We were done at the Truck Center by 10 AM with one small disappointment.  Freightliner had given Craig the wrong information when he called, so one of the upgrade parts was the wrong size.  No big deal.  We will get it straightened out and installed after Zion. It is not a safety  issue.

I had padded our travel time with an extra day in case there were any unexpected delays in the repair work.  Seems if I do that, all goes well!  If I don’t, I just add stress to my life.  One thing we have now is time.  I love it!

We drove across Nevada on I-80 some years ago when going to Salt Lake for a ski trip. I remember how desolate and barren the land seemed.  It was mid winter and I think we went for hours without seeing another vehicle or man made structure.

The landscape between Reno and Las Vegas along Hwy 95 is also open desert range.  We saw numerous warning signs along the way for cattle and horses, but saw none. Unlike I-80 there was no lack of traffic or small ranch outbuildings. The two-lane road was quite smooth in most places.

The open range land is balanced by the many mountains on the horizons. As an artist I am enchanted by the play of light and the dramatic cloud shadows rolling over them. I have always been interested in geology, and seeing the results of the millions of years of natural earth movements it took to shape them is exciting.

One thing I find very distressing in the West is the small towns. I doubt they were ever vibrant centers of civilization, but they all seem so run down I can’t understand why anyone would live there unless this was the end of the line for them, and yet I saw school busses and schools in some of the larger towns, so families must live there.

I know many people love the desert and the West. Al for one, but he has worked hard to fix up his Congress Arizona house and make it a nice place.  It’ all the old deteriorating mobile homes and shacks that I find disturbing. I would have taken some pictures, but that would be like taking pictures of the poor in a third world country. We just cannot comprehend.

As we left Sacramento I started looking into where we would stay overnight. We have not yet tried to use the BLM system, but I’m sure there would have been many places we could have boondocked for a night.  Checking through the Passport America book I found a listing for a place in Tonomah, Nevada, at total day’s drive of about 360 miles. It seemed OK on paper. I really didn’t have many choices, and as we drove along 95, I didn’t see anywhere else we would want to stop. 

I figured we would get there after five, so I called, and the man said, "yes" they had full hook-ups and asked if we wanted a pull thru.

All I can say is “What a place!” In the Passport America book it is called JoyLand RV Park. Once there, it was called Joyland RV Storage and Campground. 

I’m learning that for an overnight, if the place is reasonably quiet, once you pull the blinds down, you are home. Sleeping in your own bed and cooking in your own kitchen! But this place stretched this to its limit.

Starting with the office. There was a faded note with a cell phone number taped to the window. I didn’t have to call because the “manager” came out from behind the building when we arrived. The office was a sad room that I think started as a patio for the mobile home it was attached to. It was filthy. It smelled strongly of mold and rodents.  I could see droppings on the floor. The manager himself looked like someone out of a B horror movie. Creepy and missing a few front teeth.  I paid cash because I would never want to give him a credit card number!

I don’t know how to put this, but as he filled out the receipt with a stub of a pencil, he leered as me and asked if this was my real name. I try not to judge people by their appearance, but I definitely would not open a door to this one.

Our space? A gravel pull thru in a parking lot.  Although there were junky buildings all around, there wasn’t any trash in the lot. Only one other RV came in overnight.  The 50 amp and water hookups worked, and we were able to take morning showers in the Alfa. We could have done that if we were boondocking too.

Tonight (Friday) we are staying at Oasis RV Resort in Las Vegas. We have been here before. Nice pool, clean laundry, level pad, cable TV, good cell phone signal: the other side of the coin.

I do have one picture to include in this post: As we switch drivers so Craig can have some ice cream. The joy of having a Class A coach. Ice Cream on the road.

Well Done!

From Merikay:

We had a good day as far as repairs go.  We stayed overnight at a small mobile home park Tuesday night. The place we were having our leveling jack replaced at, was quite near. That work was finished in a couple of hours and we went over to the Sacramento Truck Center for the replacement of our bell crank and the front brake drums, plus installation of SuperSteer motion control units which go in front of the air bags.  Big $$$.

STC has a comfortable driver's lounge with a nice TV and we were able to watch the last America's Cup race. Craig writes about that below.

They didn't finish the work on the Alfa this afternoon, so we're staying overnight in their parking lot.  It's OK because we  have an electrical hook up. We will be heading down to Zion as soon as they finish.  A good three day drive.

The rig is starting to smell wonderful because I'm baking a homemade chicken pot pie.   Looking forward to a yummy dinner!

From Craig:
Yes it was possible for a sports team to win a "first to 9" event after being down 8-1, and in fact Oracle Team USA did it! We watched the cup-presentation ceremony and everything, and the Kiwis were as gracious as runners-up as they have been throughout the regatta. Several speakers including the SF mayor murdered Spithill's name. We hope that both New Zealand and Oracle retain their interest in contending for the America's Cup in the future, and that future boats end up more like those used this year than like the smaller, slower, and less expensive AC45's.

We hope that Dean Barker recovers from this experience and continues to play a role in the international sailing community, as many AC guys have done as they've gotten older.

We would have been more neutral between Oracle and ETNZ if not for the sports-court decision to ban Oracle's sail-trimmer and penalize Oracle 2 races.  We heard both sides argued on public transit in our first weekend (SF is great for such things :-), and by our understanding the penalty exceeded the offense.

AC72s (while sailing) are among the most beautiful expressions of mankind's urge to engineer and design things. We sincerely hope that the reactionaries in the US, NZ, and elsewhere who call for "a return to proper single-hulled sailboats" will not prevail. They remind us of the Texas politicians who passed a bill/resolution to ban the teaching of critical thinking in their schools.

When we were young there was a saying that we've not heard much of recently: "American ingenuity". When was the last time you heard this phrase? Oracle's design team, who "worked all night every night" according to James Spithill, seem to embody these obsolete words. We assume the design team included a higher percentage of Americans than the sailing team.

We're drinking Skyy Vodka (one of ETNZ's sponsors) in tribute to both teams.

America's Cup: unbelievable

Tuesday September 24, 2013

[From Craig] We arrived in our favorite Sacramento Mobile home park, hooked up and settled down to watch the America's Cup racing today.  Oracle Team USA made its comeback complete with two victories over Emirates Team New Zealand.  "Comeback complete" means that the two teams are now equal in the scoring, including the two-race penalty that a sports court imposed on Oracle for something involving a small amount of weight added somewhere about two years ago.  We rode on a streetcar in SF two weeks ago with several Kiwis who were carrying on about how Russell Coutts (GM of Oracle) should be banned from all future sailing because of his role in this weight-shifting.  Which amazed us because Coutts is himself a Kiwi.

That's not important anymore.  However much weight was added where and when, and who should be banned from sailing, are for the moment blown away by the amazing comeback of Oracle USA.  We think they were down by 8-1 (8-3 in races) before they have gone on what may be the greatest comeback in sports history.  120 years of US baseball history can provide some comparable comebacks, but baseball has had 240 or so seasons to do it, compared to 34 America's Cups.

Please try to watch tomorrow's head-to-head race for the Cup.  It will happen about 1:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time, and will be broadcast live on NBC Sports (previously known as Versus), on youtube.com live outside the USA, and on youtube.com in the USA after an hour or two delay.

Try to watch!  Trust us, it's as good a sporting event as we may see in the rest of our lives.

From Merikay:   took this picture on Monday.  The distance between ORACLE and Fly Emirates as they passed by us was such that it was almost impossible to get them both into the same picture!  :`)

As someone who is not a sports fan, this series of races has been quite fun, and not just because it has been the USA that has come from behind.  Both teams have sailed spectacularly, and the boats are both things of beauty and engineering achievement.

May the best team win.  Whatever the outcome, it will be memorable.

FINAL Race for the cup is on Wednesday afternoon!  We will be watching.

America's Cup

It couldn't happen…
Could it?

It's not possible!
Is it?

Has any team ever been down 8-1 in a race to 9, and come back to win?
Don't know, maybe a good internet searcher could find out…

Only know two things:
It's 8-5 now, and we're going to San Francisco tomorrow!
Update: it's 8-6 now, and we're going to Sacramento tomorrow.

Craig & Merikay

Sidelight from Craig: when it was 8-1, I went out and bought a bottle of Skyy vodka (one of the sponsors of TNZ) so we could properly toast the NZ victors.  (Don't know of any local stores that sell Camper shoes.)  I like vodka, but would be willing to return it. :-)

Leg Cramp update and other odds and ends

If you were reading my blog a few months back, you may recall I had a terrible time with severe leg cramps.  Bad enough to call 911 and take a trip to the ER.

Since then I have taken a prescription potassium med every day and have supplemented my magnesium with OTC products.

At first I was using something called Magnesium Oil. It seemed to work well, relieving cramps when they started, but it was messy and dried the skin on my legs and feet.

Then Karen, one of my readers, sent me an e-mail about a product called Magnesium Plus Ionic-Fizz, by Pure Essence Labs. Although it is available at some health food stores, we ordered it on line.

All I can say is WOW, it really works wonders.  I've waited a couple of months to be sure before I recommended it to anyone since I am skeptical about "supplements." 

You mix a small scoop (spoon provided)

with water. The flavor I have (berry) has a very tart citrus taste and fizzes much like those little fizzy candies we had as kids.  It's quick and easy to take.



I take it as needed. Not every night, but on the many nights when I start to get a cramp in my foot or thigh, I don't wait for it to develop or hope to walk it out. Instead I go mix up and drink an Ionic Fizz. The cramp relaxes and does not come back.  I also seem to sleep much, much better.

So, if you also get leg cramps, you might want to give it a try.  All I can say is it works for me and so far I have had no negative side effects.  My doctor also says it is OK to take with the other medications that I'm on.

Needle Point:

I'm still finding plastic canvas needle point a very relaxing hobby. I actually finished this set of three "closet pockets" in early August, but never found a good time to put them into my post.

Each of the three pockets are about 12" wide. 

Our closet has four doors. I put these up on the bottom part of one of the doors on Craig's side. So far he hasn't thought of anything to put into them. 

My latest project is for this space next to the chair. I'm doing a pocket for the TV remotes and a larger one that will be a place to put a few magazines.  I'm doing them as geometric designs in the Pendleton blanket colors.

These projects help me cope with the stress of waiting for news about the house.  Keeps my fingers happy!

Our plans for our next trip are coming together. All parts for the Alfa repair have come in, and we have appointments for Wednesday, September 25 up in Sacramento.  Two different places, one for the jack and one for the steering, with the second one possibly extending into Thursday.  It's at the Truck Center, and they have a hook up which we hope we can use to stay overnight.

Our reservation at Zion National Park starts on Sunday, September 29. Plenty of time to get there. It's about 700 miles. They say Zion is great in early October.  I'm looking forward to it.

The only thing that will change the plan is if we get an offer on the house.  I wouldn't mind staying here to deal with that.

Finally I want to end this post by saying congratulations to my son, Gil (aka Joko) for finishing his first teaching assignment in Thailand and getting rehired for a second term. I had no doubt he would do well.  It has not been easy, but it is good to see him finding a new profession.  Good Job Joko! 

If you would like to follow his adventures his blog is: 

Leaving Amerika 

Tell him his Mom sent you!