Visiting the Grandbabies

April 19-26

Beep beep, Nana and Papa are here!  We left the motorhome in Las Vegas and flew to Houston for a week to see the grands.  They are as active as we remembered and we had fun trying to catch up on all the fun we had missed.

Of course, Papa pooped out pretty fast as you can see after an active day at the beach along with the kids.

Cole 21 mos. is a waterbaby if he isn’t in the sprinkler he’s playing in the toliet ,never a dull moment here!!

We got to play Easter bunny and we colored eggs and hid them.  The kids had a ball and it was so funny to watch them, unfortunately they won’t stay this size long so we will visit as much as possible.  Mom and Dad are always glad to see us and sad when we leave, we keep them out of their hair for a week!   It was a week of chaos, but we loved every minute.

Back to Las Vegas for more of Nana and Papa’s kind of fun…jackpot!!!!!

Back to Pahrump for Rally

April 13-18

We are going back to Pahrump, Nv to attend a rally for people who have motorhomes like ours an Alfa. There were about 120 motorhomes that attended the rally.  We meet lots of new people and learned lots of new things. We stayed at Nevada Treasures RV Resort which was a real nice place.

We did a 4 wheel trip with the group into Death Valley through Titus Canyon on about 23 miles of backroad country and stopping in the canyon for a picnic lunch. The scenery was awesome.

Springtime in Cottonwood, Az

Spring has arrived and we are in Cottonwood, Az where the flowers are starting to bloom and trees are budding, temps have been in the high 70’s until yesterday.

The winds blew and the clouds moved in, temps dropped into the 30’s and the rain changed to snow in the mtns. surrounding us. So we drove up to Jerome an old ghost town and had dinner at the Haunted Hamburger and watched the snow fall. What fun, we drove back down the mountain and the snow was gone that’s the kind of snow I like.

Coffeepot rock in Sedona

Strange housing

On another side trip to the town of Shoshone, Nv which is on the south boundary of Death Valley we came across a historic town by the name of Dublin.

This little community was made up of different folks seeking a new life in Death Valley.  Some of them had been more well off than others but, they were all in the same boat by the time they had reached Death Valley.  The area had some springs for a water source and mud and rock washes and hills.  Seemed like a pretty good place to start a new town. So they made their homes in the sides of the mud hills and called that home.

They even had a community outhouse a two-seater by the way.  Most of the cave homes had a fireplace and some had connecting rooms for the larger family.  One family had come here from England and had sold most of their belongings except for a sterling silver teapot, which they used every day to have tea time in front of their cave home.

Trash service wasn’t available so they just pitched everything into a pile in the front yard.  Some of the folks are buried across the road just up out of the wash a bit.

Death Valley, CA

We have moved to Pahrump, Nv for a week so, we took a day trip over to Death Valley. First we had to get out the old ‘35 and gas her up.

I bet this old girl never ever thought she would see those prices, gulp! Now we are ready to go.

Death Valley is one of those truly awesome sights the first time you see it, it’s sort of other worldly.

The white stuff is salt. This section is known as Badwater and is almost 300 ft below sea level. Most of the Valley is much the same except for the Furnace Creek area in the center of the park. It is like an oasis in the desert.

This wonderful spot is the Furnace Creek Inn built back in the 1930’s and has been updated through the years into this oasis of a hotel. It was fun to walk the grounds of the old beautiful hotel, but pretty spendy to stay there so, we drove back to Pahrump

Leaving Vegas

Goodbye Las Vegas….moving on up the road to The Valley Of Fire state park.  This is an awesome place with beautiful red rock scenery, Indians lived here for thousands of yrs and left behind lots of evidence of their stay.We had this awful parking spot.

These rocks were called the beehives because of their round shape and layers.

The stairs went up to some of the petroglyphs on the rocks…what do they mean?  They meant something to someone.

These cabins were built by the CCC for workers to live in while the park was being developed.  This was the first state park built in Nevada in early 1930’s

We had lunch with this guy, didn’t get his name.

Carol Shelby Automotives

We visited the Shelby World Headquarters in Las Vegas one day.  They had a very good display of all the models he has produced since the late 1960’s.

Some of cars on display.

2012 proto-type.

NO…he can’t have one, but they did sell two while we were there.

Out of this world

We have always heard all the stories about aliens and Area 51 and watched all the tv shows about the extraterrestrials landing and seeing the lights in the skies.  So we decided to check out the Extraterrstrial Highway for ourselves. Hwy 375 is north of Las Vegas.

Looks like a great place for a landing to me.  So without another car in site (or spaceship) we traveled another 100 miles to the little town of Rachel.

We finally made it to Rachel and the only business in town was the Little

A-le-Inn.  Well of course we had to go in and check it out, besides it was the only place to get something to eat in the last 100 miles.

Some of the folks working there looked a little shady but, we bellied up to the bar and ordered an alien burger, actually it was pretty good and we were hungry.

Looking around we saw a poster for the new movie Paul and found out some of it was filmed there. Haven’t seen the movie yet but, we will looks really funny.

So after our burger we got back in the ship and headed back to Las Vegas.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…..The End.