Pahrump - Last Stop of 3,000 Mile Adventure

 


Friday October 4, 2024

We've departed Benson, AZ and the saguaro forests for our one night stay in Wickenburg, AZ.  This day is  about halving the distance between us and Death Valley.  It's plenty hot and we retreat indoors as soon as we are level and hooked up to utilities.  Our layover is in Desert Cypress Mobile Home and RV Park.  The main part of the park is set up for long term occupancy and we are in a block of RV pads that are outside the main park that is for overnighters.  Not cheap but fits our drive time and ease of access to our route.  We can cough up $70 for one night.

Saturday October 5, 2024

Anxious to get to our last stop before entering Death Valley we are up well before sunrise and getting configured to travel.  We have a long leg today at nearly 5 hours of driving time.  Beating the heat is out of the question as it is nearly 90 degrees at 7:00 in the morning.  But we are getting to Pahrump, NV today come hell or high water.  Our last 5 weeks of traveling or sightseeing every day has worn us down.  We're ready to drop anchor and be stationary for a spell.

Since Pahrump is our last stop before entering the National Park 50 miles away, and several thousand feet lower, we'll be stocking up on supplies.  We have a couple of days to kill before we can report to our camp host location in the park so we'll explore the shopping options Pahrump has to offer.  It will be good to familiarize ourselves with what is in Pahrump because that will be where we will spend the next six months getting our groceries and other supplies.  But first we have to get settled in at Wine Ridge RV Resort and Cottages.  And yes, it is as fancy as it sounds but happily not near as expensive as our previous night.  The next couple of nights will run at about $50.  The town of Pahrump is chock-full of RV parks so there is competitive pricing.
Sunset view out our back window at Wine Ridge
RV Resort, looking east towards Las Vegas

Sunrise, same view.
We didn't know it at the time but this view out our back window was a preview of our next six months.  Lots of bare rock and vegetation-free mountains.

Most of Pahrump's commercial endeavors lie along the highway that slices north/south through the Mojave Basin.  What mostly meets the eye at first are casinos that alternate between sides of the highway.  But at second glance we see desired shopping.  There is a Super Walmart, Albertson's, Smith's (Kroger), Home Depot, and Tractor Supply.  Everything a fulltimer could ask for.

A nice feature of Wine Ridge RV Resort is that they have an RV wash bay.  You could get a good-size Class-A motorhome in it but there is no way I could thread my sixty feet of truck and trailer through this curved car wash.  We've come 3,000 miles and the rig is in dire need of a wash and bug removal.  But I'll have to make do with just being able to wash the truck for now.  I started late in the day when the sun was low and less hot but I ran out of light before I could finish.  So by sunrise the next morning I was back at it to finish what had been started.

We've stocked up on supplies and fuel, one last night in Pahrump and we'll be off to Furnace Creek, Death Valley.  We're ready!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Putting Down Roots for the Winter

Image
  October 2024 Okay, so the above pic is not our winter home, except in our dreams.  However it (The Biltmore) is just a stones throw away from where we are setting up housekeeping. As planned, our departure from Dumplin Valley RV Park in Kodak, TN was early with only about an hour-and-a-half traveling time to our destination in Candler, NC, a western suburb of Asheville.  But it wasn't quite as easy as it sounds.  The last four miles was like running a gauntlet. As soon as we took the I-40 exit to Candler a four mile obstacle course began.  The roads were just barely wide enough for two sedans to pass one another without taking a wheel off the edge of the pavement.  But that would be ill advised as steep and deep trenches lined both sides of the road.  Getting an eight foot wide and sixty foot long truck and trailer combination down these winding mountain roads was an altogether different drive.  Many of the turns in the road required me to pull ...
Read more
Image
 Since October it has been hard to tell that we are full-time RV travelers.  We dropped anchor at our daughter's family home and that's where we've been ever since.  We're starting our sixth month without moving.  But it's all going as planned.  We sought to spend the winter with our grandkids in close proximity and that has been accomplished.  And as luck would have it we had relatively easy access to replacement equipment our rig was in sore need of.  Some of it we knew about, some we didn't. The first thing to crop up was a bad circuit board on our water heater.  It was the "brains" of the water heater and we could not run on electric or propane, it was totally down for the count.  Most places we have been it wouldn't have been a big deal but in our North Carolina location the well water coming to us was running at about 35 deg F.  That's uncomfortable to wash hands in, let alone take a shower.  I didn't waste any time in getting...
Read more

Looking Ahead - Distant Destination

Image
  Not much happening since last post other than routine life.  Doing things with the grandkids and old people doctor visits.   Except! We have been applying for winter volunteer jobs for 2024/2025 and have been officially accepted as campground hosts for Furnace Creek Campground, Death Valley.  My first communications for this position date back to about three months ago.  There was a lot of waiting between the first few communications but the pace has really picked up in the last three weeks.  We have had phone interviews and signed volunteer agreement forms via encrypted communications.  And as of six days ago of this writing the medium level background checks were begun and completed.  We were told that they could see we had many background checks showing in the system from our past positions and that facilitated rapid progression through the system for this one.  All we have to do now is show up for our October report date. Maybe "al...
Read more