maria fighting off a cold

By consuming vast amounts of vitamin C. And tequila - we'll she figures it kills worms, so maybe it works for germs.

Getting classy at the Wynn

I'm sure they would have barred us if they knew we are pikeys with a caravan....

Bad NYE plans

Forget Bad Santa, I've worked out the perfect way to do NYE on the  Vegas strip - rent a pair of electric pensioner scooters. You are guaranteed a seat all night, you get a bit of personal space, you can put your cool bag of drinks in the basket at the front, and you don't have to walk home afterwards...

One way ticket to hull, please....

Aliens...

Well, Canadians, but they are not allowed to stay here any longer than we are.

Cheryl and Blair flew in yesterday from the Toronto ice storm, so enjoying a few days of warm and sunshine, and their visit is the reason we are here in Vegas now. So its all their fault

Her, me and a load of smeggin' rocks...

...to paraphrase red dwarf. And its not really a reference to Maria's first attempt at sour dough bread, which was quite crusty but very tasty and perfectly edible.

We've been busy visiting the desert around vegas for the past week, and there are a lot of rocks of all shapes, sizes and colours. Hoover dam, boulder canyon, valley of fire and yesterday was a 2+ hour drive over to Death Valley - lowest point in the US at -282 feet, driest here abouts and hottest in the world - fortunately yesterday was a pleasant high teens/low 20s. Would not want to be here in summer when it has reached 57c....

Saw our first coyote just after sunset, then stayed into the evening to see the stars from one of the lookout points  - this is supposed to be one of the best dark skies locations here, and the milky way was very clear - almost as good as some of the places in Oz. But you could still see the glow from Vegas over 100 miles away and behind some 3000 ft mountains....

Yuletide greetings - again

Second holidays away from home, and again midwinter is warm, sunny with blue skies and just a few fluff clouds....to be honest its getting a bit boring. Eat, drink, relax, enjoy friends and family and generally do all the things the pagans used to enjoy at this time of this year. But watch out for the bean....

Good Dam! that's a big lump of concrete

Hoover Dam to be specific. Upto 5500 people working for 4 years, came in 2 years ahead of schedule, paid for itself with the electricity generated as a byproduct - its main aim was flood control and irrigation - and expected to last 2000 years. Methinks project management has lost something in the intervening 80 years...

Avec waterslide - the arizona side spillway only used of the water levels rise faster than the turbines can cope with. Only used twice to date, 50 ft diameter pipe bypasses the turbine hall

Vegas, baby, Vegas!

Arrived in Vegas yesterday afternoon as our first planned destination of the trip, and we will be here for 17 days. This week we will focus on the outlying stuff - hoover dam, death valley, etc - and then next week Blair and Cheryl fly in from Canada so we will do the strip and city stuff with them. But we couldn't resist a quick lap of the strip after dark last night just to get in the mood......

California - deserts, planes, lights and rocks

The last few weeks in California have been packed with lots of tourist stuff. 

On our first night at the RV park in Palm Desert we saw a fabulous sunset and many more over the following evenings:

We visited both Palm Springs Air Museum and March Field Air force Museum and saw lots a great planes and helicopters including the SR71 Blackbird, B17 Flying Fortress, B29 Superfortress, B52 Stratofortress, lots of MIGs and far too many others to mentions.  

Last weekend we didn't get to see the giant telescope at Mount Palomar as we had hoped and got within a few miles but the road was closed, possibly due to the snow. We did get a fabulous view of the landscape on the way back down (you can see the winding road and more mountains in the background):

In the afternoon we went to the Indio International Tamale Festival, which as Mark has already commented on, are stuffed steamed dough without the suet – not really to my taste, but one has to try these things. In the evening, we saw the Palm Springs Festival of Lights parade, celebrating “75 years of Like No Place Else”. Some of the floats were great and there were many local dance troupes and marching bands to keep us entertained.

We met a lovely retired couple (Pris and Bill) at Palm Desert, who were so knowledgeable and a real pleasure to spend time with. They were a font of information on where to go and what to visit on our travels. We spent many hours chatting and they recommended our first stop, Lake Cahuilla, to start our ‘dry camping’ – living off our own power and stored water - so we could make sure everything was working as it should before we went too far from civilization. The lake was breathtaking and this was the view from our front window:

And more great sunsets:

The following day we visited the Joshua Tree National Park where the Colorado (eastern half) and Mojave (western half) deserts meet. It covers 794,000 acres and is really diverse. The eastern half of the park is below 3,000 feet and is sun baked, covered in desert hardy plants

and a relatively small area is covered with the jumping Cholla cactus, also called teddy bear cholla

The western half is above 3,000 feet, with stacks of boulders and jumbo rocks and thousands of the wild-armed Joshua tree for as far as the eye can see, which the park is named after:

One of the highest places in the park, Keys View, is at 5,185 feet and the view of the valley below is stunning. In front of the mountain range (Santa Rosa Mountains), there’s a long dark patch which is the San Andreas Fault.

The time has come to leave California and head east into the unknown of Arizona…

London Bridge isn't falling down

In fact, its in better shape than the new one. Maybe the blue skies, sunshine and lack of buses helps.

Lake Havasu City - completely artificial construction when they dammed the Colorado river again downstream from the Hoover dam, primarily famous for McCulloch the chain saw manufacturer deciding to buy and transplant the old bridge in the late 1960s, and now home to water borne petrol heads. One of the few lakes with no speed limits, they take their power boats seriously here - just about every petrol station in town sells 110 octane racing fuel at the pumps. Don't think I'll try it in badger though..... 

Baby vegas

Moved all of 11 miles up the road today to a small Indian reservation casino in Coachella - the pensioners next door recommended the restaurant and that we can stay in the car park for free. As we have been wanting to try some self contained camping in badger to see how it all works with no external power or water before straying too far from the dealer it seemed like a good idea

Outside its a long way from the lights of Vegas - squat concrete box in the middle of nowhere. Inside its disorientating lighting, hundreds of slot machines and a couple of poker and blackjack tables. But even early on a Monday night it is full of lab rats pumping dollars into the slot machines. And they smoke - the anti tobacco lobby in SoCal is pretty strong so its a real surprise - I guess Indian reservation trumps state and federal- my reservation, my rules.

I still don't see the fun in it though....

Snowed out

Tried to make it up to visit Mount Palomar observatory yesterday at 5500 feet. Got about 3 miles from it and the road was closed for bad weather, so never got to even see the building. We were in cloud and there was hoar frost on the trees, but it didn't seem that bad to me. Oh well, the Coachella valley is quite impressive as you come back down from the hills to the south, and we got a consolation prize by visiting the Tamale festival at Indio which is supposed to be one of the top ten native  food festivals in the US. Never seen tamales on the menu at your local Mexican? You aren't missing much: think dumpling without the magic ingredient  - suet....

Also came over all proper touristy and went to the festival of lights parade at palm springs - very festive, and as a nice change they have never heard of Slade or Wizzard.

Badger the barge

We’ve finally got Badger finished and tidy enough to introduce him properly, so here he is:

 As mentioned before he is a Jayco Avatar born in 2003. Same Jayco as in Australia who dominate the market over there, strangely they are not that common here despite being a US company, but do allegedly have a good name. Primarily they make travel trailers (caravans as we know them) and C-class motorhomes (like Lurch and Fat Tranny where the cab and chassis are bought in from stock). Apparently they only briefly ventured into A-class motorhomes like Badger where they build all the bodywork on a stock chassis, but didn’t get enough market share to make it worthwhile. We hadn’t seen any others until we passed another one the same colour going the other way on Interstate 10 on the way out to Palm Desert. Its always at the back of my mind have we bought an uncommon lemon, but of all the RVs we saw it was the only one we liked the interior layout and décor of, and most of the fittings and moving parts are fairly common with other manufacturers – fridge, aircon, water heater, etc – and there are lots of other manufacturers who build on the same Freightliner chassis and Cat engine configuration. Being 10 years old some parts are a bit of a concern – the awning still isn’t working and the dealer has had to send the motor to be rewound as a replacement is no longer available – but overall he’s in very good shape and low mileage on an engine that should be capable of doing ½ a millon miles.

He’s almost 39 feet long, 8 wide and 12 high, with air suspension, double rear tyres and the motor at the back – what is called a diesel pusher - which is supposed to be better for driving: quieter, smoother, more torque and maybe slightly better fuel consumption, but as diesel is 10-12% more expensive than petrol here that may not work out. And he drives like a barge…

One advantage of the engine at the back is that there is no transmission going through the chassis, so the basement storage compartments go right the way through. Gives me somewhere quiet to sleep if Maria is snoring too loudly, although as you can see we have already amassed quite a bit of crap to fill it up and carry around everywhere.

There are only 2 sliders, both on the drivers side, and they are not as deep as on Tigger, but its quite enough room inside for us as the whole thing is wider anyway, and an advantage is that in some cases you can’t put sliders out, so you aren’t losing that much space by not using them.

 The whole engine compartment is very scary, and servicing is definitely a professional job and will be more than the petrol engines, but I can’t get my head around a 7 litre v10 petrol engine powering a bus anyway  – Dodge viper? yes, Winnebago? no. And yes, that is a real 4 inch exhaust pipe – let’s see your pimped out Citroen Saxo beat that. Personally I hate the picture on the back – might look for a union jack sticker to go over it just to be different, but then I’m not what you would call nationalistic under normal circumstances. Maybe the European 12 stars just to confuse the locals….

Turns out I was wrong: Badger IS from Pandora, and he does plug his junk in to tow Toad

But to be fair to the dealers they have done a really neat job fitting the tow hitch to Toad. It is only a couple of minutes work to hook it all up or disconnect, and if we come to sell the Suzi separately it would be quite easy and cheap to replace the plastic grill to make it look original

Inside, the kitchen and Maria’s sofa are in the slider. We paid for the gas oven to be supplied and fitted, although it turns out that the microwave above the hob is also a convection oven and cooker hood, so it might have been cheaper to just run the generator anytime we want to bake off mains power, and buy a small tabletop toaster oven for grilling bacon and cheese on toast. Oh well, she hasn’t used it yet, but the electric one does make very nice raspberry and white chocolate muffins. And the sour dough bread and butter pudding is a bit tougher than proper white bread, but it will do.

One of my favourite things we have bought is the single induction hotplate for when we are on mains power – it really does heat the pan up quickly and is as controllable as gas. James Seatter told me how good his induction hob was, and I was a bit sceptical being a fan of gas, but I have to say I am really impressed. And we even managed to find a pretty funky whistling kettle here in the land of coffee makers.

The sofa does fold out so a short person can sleep on it, but as the surround sound sub-woofer is underneath it she hasn’t been doing her usual trick of dozing off halfway through the movie.

I’ve made the fold up table leaf on the end to give a bit more worktop space when cooking, as all the kitchens we saw were really small, and have had some fun mixing an oil to match the honey maple cabinetry so I could replace the false drawer front and store the original. Even so, worktop space is still at a premium and we usually have the smaller sink covered as we need the counter space.

On my side is the longer sofa, which also folds out for sleeping, and I have made the end panel for it so I have somewhere to lean back against while watching the tv or movies without my cushions falling off the end. The table and free chairs are more flexible than the typical booth configuration you see, but a bit tight - that’s probably a good thing given the portions over here – if we can’t sit at the table to eat we can’t eat…

You can just about make out the side by side fridge freezer behind the dining table – not quite as big as our one at home, but close and has an ice maker. Lots of space for steaks…

The TV is the old style above the windscreen, but the previous owners have replaced the old CRT with a small LCD and made quite a neat job of it, and we hang a sheet in front of the windscreen to project movies on so have a nice big widescreen. There are also curtains that we normally draw across in front of the windscreen for warmth and privacy. All we need is the Wurlitzer organ to rise up out of the stair well. The drivers and shotgun chairs will spin right the way round, but then the backs get in the way of the bottom of the screen.

Toilet, shower and basin are in the middle of the bus so could be shared if we have visitors – there is a door that pulls across from the lounge, and you could fit a curtain between bath and bedroom. There is a big cupboard on the right that is plumbed to take a washer drier, but the only ones you can buy here are over 1500 bucks. I’ve persuaded Maria that it is cheaper and easier to use the camp laundrette once a week and go down and take over 3 or 4 machines and do the whole wash in 2 hours rather than having to do a load every day. No-one here line dries anything – it all goes in the tumble drier, and campsites have rules preventing you from hanging stuff out, but it means there are lots of washers and driers on the camps we have seen and heard about. And it gives her a chance to sit with the laptop for a couple of hours and catch up on her Doctor Who.

It’s a 5 ft bed with space all the way around – the head of the bed is in the rear slider so the whole thing moves across to give more space, but you can still get past the end of the bed with it in if you have to. Maria loves the full depth wardrobe right across the back wall and is itching to hit the outlet stores to try and fill it up.

And that is it so far – still finding needs and looking for bits and pieces, and the sagas of buying online and being fed lies and incompetence are growing, but at least we are now on the road…

High Plains Drifter...

actually high desert nomad, but it feels a bit like it

Arrived in Palm Desert yesterday and it is definitely different to the coast. 99 miles from the RV dealer and I was shattered at the end of the drive - 40ft bus plus another 20ft of car and hitch behind, first time driving it on the freeways with idiots coming by on both sides, other big trucks and some of the worst road surfaces since Victoria.....

The dealers threw in a membership to a camping club so we are staying on one of their reserves for 9 nights - have power, water and sewage hookups at the site, its less crammed in than at Newport beach, lots of palm trees and isn't costing us anything. Sunsets have been spectacular

and warm enough for an early supper outside - still working our way through the steaks we bought a month ago, on charcoal. Maria is getting really good at a simple coleslaw - red and green cabbage, lots of carrot and just enough dressing to coat it after a good swirl round, plus potato salad with Heinz Salad Cream :-) and the sound of cicadas in the background.