Today we left Lake Havasu City, Arizona and traveled to Pahrump, Nevada.  We drove north on Arizona 95 to I-40 and took the interstate west across the Colorado River into California.  After a couple of miles we had to stop at the ubiquitous checkpoint, but the Chips guy just waived us through.  After passing through Needles, we turned north on Route 66 for a mile or so and then picked up U.S. 95 which took us from Needles to Boulder City, Nevada.  We passed through a couple of small communities and then came to Searchlight.  I have heard the name Searchlight for years, but had never been there.  When we hit the intersection of 93 and 95 we turned west toward Las Vegas.  This road turns into I 515 and took us to Henderson, Nevada.  At Henderson we turned west and ran into I 215, which in turn took us to I 15.  We were on I 15 for about 1 mile taking the exit for Pahrump and heading out toward the snow covered mountains to the west.  As we rolled through the mountains the D started to go slower.  I had just been commenting to Libby how powerful the engine was.  All morning we were passing trucks, motorhomes and duallies pulling fivers.  All of a sudden we were down to 40 mph and the engine was beginning to heat up.  I was very concerned.  We passed a couple of 18 wheelers sitting at pullouts on the side of the road.  It didn't hit me until we reached the summit at Mountain Springs how long and steep the grade we had just pulled was.  We left Vegas at about 2000 feet and topped the summit at 5493 feet a few miles later.  Now I understood.  We had climbed 3500 feet in just a few miles.  As soon as we topped the summit, the engine cooled off and we rolled down into a huge valley.  Now I also understand why they say, come over the hump to Pahrump.

Pahrump is much larger than we anticipated.  To the east is Charleston Peak.

122This mountain almost hits 12,000 feet.  It is covered with snow and here in Pahrump the temperature is 85 degrees.  As soon as we got set up, we hustled down the road about a mile to Terrible's Casino to eat lunch.  They had an all you can eat buffet, salad bar and desert for $3.49.  We seem to be settling into this retired stuff pretty seriously.  Next we will be looking for early bird specials!  Of course, we had to stop in the Casino on the way out the door.  Libby dropped $5 in the quarter slots and I won $50 in the dollar slots while using up a $20 bill.  We were ahead of the house!  Not only that,  the machine I was playing couldn't pay out the $50, it ran out of money.  That is a real switch.  Usually it is me that runs out of money in a casino.  Anyway, the casino guy came over, wrote some stuff down and came back with a guard and a bag of money.  He opened the slot up, dumped several hundred dollars in silver dollar token into it and it paid me the rest of my winnings.  We left.

Another bonus to a great day.  When we were sitting outside under the awning and the wind wasn't blowing for a change, I saw the home made motorhome that I talked about in the January review pull into the park.  If you have been following the site, you will remember that I was disappointed that this rig was gone when I went to take a picture of it.  Here is today's bonus pic.  The homemade gas pusher.

Pahrump was fun for a couple of days, but we soon discovered that with four casinos serving cheap meals, there were very few restaurants in town.  In addition, there is just something not right in our minds to walk into a grocery store and have both sides of the entrance lined with slots and folks sitting there spending their grocery money.  ( I know, none of my business, but that is the impression we had anyway)

We drove over to Death Valley on Wednesday and were so impressed that we moved over to Sunset campground at Furnace Creek on Friday.   Death Valley was sort of like Big Bend National Park on steroids.  What a magnificent place.  We saw some pretty interesting geological formations including the Devil's Golf Course, Salt Creek, The Sand Dunes, the Natural Bridge, Golden Canyon, Zabriske Point, Badwater, Dante's View, Twenty Mule Team Canyon and one neat man made feature, Scotty's Castle.

The Devil's Golf course   is a salt pan lake bottom with acres of salt crystals growing out in the middle of the valley floor.  Just as an interesting aside, there is a surprising amount of water in Death Valley, it is just not there all the time nor is it everywhere.

After carefully walking among the salt crystals ( it really is salt, even though it looks like mud), we moved on to Badwater and drove out the south end of Death Valley to eat lunch in Shoshone.  Leaving Shosone, we re entered Death Valley from Death Valley Junction and took the road to Dante's View.  Dante's view towers is 5,475 feet above sea level, directly above Badwater which is 280 feet below sea level.   I know it looks like water below and there is some down there, but 99% of what you can see is salt.  Across the valley which is 5 miles wide, is the Panamint Mountain Range.  Dante's View is on the Black Mountains.  Its a great view, but the road is 13 miles of climbing to get there and the last 1/4 mile is a 14% grade with a bunch of switch backs.  We went in the Tracker, but just as we were leaving a rented Class C came up to the parking lot.  I am glad we were not there to watch them come down.  Just for information purposes, this picture is of the lowest point in the United States.  282 feet below sea level just west of Badwater and also the one of the hottest places on earth.  In 1913 Furnace Creek recorded a high of 134 degrees, it is estimated that is was 135 or 136 degrees at Badwater that day.  The only other hotter temp was recorded one time in Libya.

While we camped in Death Valley, $10 to boondock at Furnace Creek,  we saw and talked to some interesting folks.  The campground as Sunset which is on the east side of Furnace Creek has 1000 spaces.  When we pulled in there were 12 of us in the whole place.    The next day a guy pulled  in right beside us.  Go figure.

We traveled north to the Sand Dunes  and then on to Scotty's Castle.  Scotty's Castle was never finished and never will be, but it is a magnificent structure out in the middle of nowhere.  On the way to the Castle, we ran into this guy on the highway. He must be a cousin to the pack of Coyotes that serenaded us in the campground at about 3 am on morning.  Also in the north end of Death Valley is the Ubehebe Crater. 

On the way into Death Valley from the Junction is Zabriske Point.    This is a really neat geological formation that is a must see.

On Monday the 10th, we left Death Valley headed for Barstow.  There is a Freightliner service center in Barstow and it was time to get the chassis lubed.  We pulled into Rip Griffin's Freightliner service just after noon and about an hour and $67 dollars later, moved over to the Flying J for lunch and an internet fix.  I did some net surfing and caught up on email while eating lunch.  After lunch, we decided to go on toward Mojave.  Arriving at Mojave about 4 or 4:30, we decided to push on the last few miles to Lancaster where the Escapade was being held.   We found the California RV Resort in the mountains above Palmdale and settled in until Saturday when we are to meet the Boomers just before the Escapade.  While driving in Palmdale one day during the week, I looked up and thought Commissioner Gordon was giving the Bat Signal.  In reality, it was a B2 Bomber shooting touch and goes at Edward's AFB.  What a cool airplane.  It looks like a big boomerang and is much larger than I expected.  It also looks like it should not be able to fly.  Unfortunately, we did not have our camera with us.  Perhaps before the Escapade is over, we will capture this beauty on film.