We'll be here six months until March 31. In April I'd like to fly to London and then take fast trains, ferries and planes to Ireland, Paris, Rome and Istanbul. Maybe we'll do New England and Eastern Canada this next summer?
Our last six months were pretty much ok. We spent the first month of our vacation in Spain and then drove the RV around the US for five months though New Orleans, Abbeville, Las Cruces, Silver City, Mono Lake, Death Valley, Yosemite, Las Vegas, the High Sierras, the Redwoods, the Oregon Coast, Hell's Canyon, Winslow Arizon, Jackson Hole and other pretty places. We did some whitewater rafting and I caught tasty fish in Oregon. The Sun and Fun RV park is fairly dead right now. We find it hard to get a doubles match of tennis going in the morning or evening before it gets too hot.
Sometimes we play round robin two on one side and one on the other. In a pinch, Mrs. Phred and I can play singles. They are refinishing the pool here. It should be ready by November 1st. Meanwhile, the hot tubs are functional but the tiki bar doesn't open before 4 PM.
The sunrise over our campground in Lake Mead is nice. We are dry camping so we sleep with the windows open and no covers.
I left the Brake Buddy turned on all night so the Toyota battery is dead. I clean the crud off the positive battery terminal with the gas grill wire brush and start the RV generator. At first the battery charger gives off a fault reading, so I fool with it until it starts to work properly.
We drive to Las Vegas and drop off the RV to get the dash air-conditioner compressor hose replaced. It seems like a good time to visit downtown Las Vegas once again, while we wait. We have breakfast in the Venetian. It's a strange feeling to have a good breakfast in a luxurious setting at 11 AM on a workday. The feeling of really being seriously retired sweeps over me.
We pause for a rum and coke and I pay $8.50 for a small drink at a casino bar. The shopping in the hotel corridors is very high end. Vegas is a little like Disneyland. The foreclosure rate on homes in Las Vegas is second only to Lee County in Florida near Fort Myers. We see a number of shuttered businesses as we drive around the city.
The Fleetwood RV dealer wants to keep the RV overnight so we cruise out to look at the Valley of Fire State Park NE of Las Vegas. I've always wanted to see it and now we have extra time on our hands.
We return to Las Vegas in the evening and check into a sprawling casino complex away from the center of town, near the Fleetwood dealer. I study the thousands of slot machines but I can't understand how any of them work. None of them accept coins anymore or pay off in coins. You have to insert bills or vouchers to play. They all have electronic displays and seem to be variations on card games or have other confusing electronic icons in place of the once familiar mechanical dial with bars and cherries. There is one antique machine, under glass, that I think I could play. I feel like a fossil.
The Casino has a number of restaurants, an arcade, bowling alleys, numerous restaurants and a Duncan Donuts. We have the buffet for dinner and are disappointed with the food quality and preparation.
This morning we'll kill some time with breakfast and maybe find a car wash and shop for some new radials for the Toyota...then on to Death Valley.
We've spent the last week on the shores of Lake Mead in the Nevada desert 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas.
An evening in Vegas is surreal. The sidewalks are lined with hustlers who hand out pictures of scantily-clad women offering $35 'specials', apparently 'massages'.
There is the Eiffel tower, live volcanoes, Venetian gondolas and other wonders.
I learn to play doubles in tennis and discover that there is an intact B-29 on the bottom of Lake Mead. We rent a powerboat and drive it twelve miles up the Colorado river to the foot of the Hoover dam. The scenery along the river includes mountain goats.
The next door neighbour is an iron worker named Clay who drives in to Vegas every day to work on a new 82-story casino. He appears to possibly be a meth freak and talks rapidly, changing the subject frequently. He says that his casino will be the tallest building west of the Mississippi. He walks on the high steel girders.
Our last six months were pretty much ok. We spent the first month of our vacation in Spain and then drove the RV around the US for five months though New Orleans, Abbeville, Las Cruces, Silver City, Mono Lake, Death Valley, Yosemite, Las Vegas, the High Sierras, the Redwoods, the Oregon Coast, Hell's Canyon, Winslow Arizon, Jackson Hole and other pretty places.
We did some whitewater rafting and I caught tasty fish in Oregon.
The Sun and Fun RV park is fairly dead right now. We find it hard to get a doubles match of tennis going in the morning or evening before it gets too hot.
Sometimes we play round robin two on one side and one on the other. In a pinch, Mrs. Phred and I can play singles.
They are refinishing the pool here. It should be ready by November 1st. Meanwhile, the hot tubs are functional but the tiki bar doesn't open before 4 PM.
