10-4-17 - (Day 65 - Riverwalk)

We ate a light breakfast this morning and hit the cement.  We decided to check out Riverside Casino, being we are staying at their RV Park.  It is amazing!  It has a lot of restaurants and specialty retail shops, a bowling alley, a 6 plex movie theater, a Kid's Kastle, an arcade, 2 swimming pools, a spa, and a couple of dance clubs.  It has a classic car showroom that we have yet to visit.

We meandered through the casino, got our free slot play for signing up for a players card and realized, there is a Riverwalk.

The Riverwalk is awesome, walking along the clear waters of the Colorado River along the back side of the casinos. They have water taxis to take you across the river to Arizona and they have river cruises.  We decided to take the cruise another day.

We walked as far as we could go on the Riverwalk.   It was a very pretty walk along the river watching the boats and jet-skis.  There were numerous restaurants and bars overlooking the river.  We took the sidewalk on S. Casino Drive back to Riverside Casino.

We ate a buy one get one free buffet at Riverside Casino.  Our table had a gorgeous river front view. It was an awesome buffet for a little bit of nothing.

                                                                Lunch View

We got our free play and played for a while, when we cashed out, we had enough to cover the one buffet.

We have over 8 miles of nice, relaxing, walking in today.

Laughlin has been more than we expected.   It reminds us of the atmosphere of old town Las Vegas when we visited on our 5th Wedding Anniversary.

                                                                  Moon Rising

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10-3-17 - (Day 64 - Laughlin, Nevada)

We made it 150 miles east to Laughlin, Nevada.  We are spending the next week at Riverside Resort RV Park and Casino.  The RV Park has 740 campsites.  It has five floors and we are on the fourth.  This our first campground with floors.

We have a beautiful view of casino row, down town, and the top of the date palm trees. We got a great deal for a week which includes 2 buffets.  Can't beat this.

When we got here, Ferny Kat went to sleep.  She had no desire to go outside.  We sat outside until it was time for dinner, Ferny Kat is still asleep.  Hopefully she will warm up to this campground tomorrow.

It was a hot, windy day.  It felt like we were on the Gulf Coast, except no humidity.  This is the first time in a long time that we have run the air conditioner at night.


Mo Pics click here:

10-2-17 - (Day 63 - Last Day In Pahrump, for now)

It was very sad to hear of all the victims last night in Las Vegas.  We are not that far away from where this happened, about 55 miles.

We didn't do much today.  We took a walk, cleaned the camper, the truck, and Amber.  We made a trip to town to stock up, since it is so convenient.  We saw all the flags at half mast on our way to town. 

I washed a load of clothes today, not because we needed to, but because it was just a few steps away from the camper to an awesome laundry room.  I just couldn't pass it up.

We have really enjoyed our stay at Pair-A-Dice.  Linda. on the welcome committee, came by with a gift for us.  She asked if we had plans to go to Laughlin, Nevada.  Actually we had been thinking, this may be our next stop.  She had a lot of information about the area and a coupon book.  Decision made, we are headed that way tomorrow.

10-1-17 - (Day 62 - Furnace Creek Golf Course, Death Valley, California)

It's been 36 years ago today that we starting dating.  Can't think of a better way to celebrate than to play golf amongst the Date trees at Furnace Creek Golf Course in Death Valley

Furnace Creek is the lowest-elevation golf course in the world, at 214 feet below sea level.  It was a fun course to play while looking at the gorgeous Death Valley scenery.  We pretty much had the course to ourselves being we only saw 2 other golfers during our 18 hole round.

My goal today was to finish the game with a score that was even with the temperature.  I was 3 strokes under the 92 degree weather, and I even made a birdie.  We played our lowest round ever today, (maybe not in score but definitely in elevation !!)  Our scores were decent considering we haven't played golf in over 6 months.

We stopped by Pahrump Nugget Casino and played the senior slot tournament, then went to China Wok Buffet to eat a late lunch/early supper.  It was pretty tasty.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting around watching the doves perched on the camper across the road.  The doves spent their afternoon watching the humans and cat sitting outside their camper.  We have another full day here tomorrow before leaving on Tuesday.

Pictures are here:

9-30-17 - (Day 61 - Hanging Around)

We got up and  played on the Internet for hours this morning.  We were in a lull.  We were tired from the long day of  Death Valley heat from yesterday.

We ate breakfast around 11 am. then went to town.

We watched a bunch of motorcycles traveling toward the Chicken Ranch.  Lauren remembered they were having the Bordello Thunder Run.  We missed out!!

We spent the afternoon washing clothes and sitting around.  We grilled some chicken and are in for the night.

It was not a day of picture taking, as we have none.  Tomorrow we do something that we have never done in a long while.  We are playing golf!

9-29-17 - (Day 60 - Death Valley)

We left camp this morning with a light, long sleeve on.  It was a nice, cool, morning. It was a gorgeous drive to Death Valley.  Lauren had to remind me to slow down on the picture taking to conserve camera battery life.

When we arrived at Death Valley National Park about an hour later, the long sleeve came off.  Our first stop was Dante's Point, it was as pretty as it was in 2012.  Only today it was better, we were riding on Amber.

                                                                 Pano from Dante's View

We stopped at Furnace Creek Visitor Center, then went across the road to eat our lunch under the date trees.  Even though the flood waters had washed away some of the trees since our last visit,  it was still a nice place.  We had a Road Runner watching our every move while we ate.  I guess he thought we might drop something. 

After lunch, we stopped and checked out the Furnace Creek Golf Course, then headed to Badwater Basin.

Badwater Basin is 282 feet below sea level, something we are accustomed to living near New Orleans.  We ran into a couple from Nashville, Tennessee.  We were so happy to hear that Southern Drawl.

On the way back, we took the 9 mile loop of Artist's Drive.  It was beautiful.  Nothing like riding on a switch back masterpiece of art.  I just couldn't hold back on the picture taking.

The temperature rose to 100 degrees.  It was hot.  The little bit of perspiration we had evaporated before it could cool us.  As they say, it's a dry heat.

We made a stop at the Harmony Borax Works refinery and saw the 20 Mile Mule Team wagon.  I can't imagine how hot it was to work in the refinery in this desert heat.

We took a ride to Stovepipe Wells.  There were too many tourist here.  We headed toward Beatty to make our loop back home.

We crossed Daylight Pass.  Talk about the difference in Daylight and Dark.  We went from 282 feet below see level to 4,317 feet above sea level.  The temperature went from 100 degrees to 82 degrees.  A difference of 4,599 feet elevation change and 18 degrees in temperature change. It was NICE!

We stopped at Rhyolite to visit the ghost town.  It was real ghost town with crumbling buildings.  The bottle house was very pretty.   The air museum was very unique.

We made it back to camp about 8 hours later.  It was a beautiful day to tour Death Valley.  There is no way we would have rode on Amber in 100 degrees down South, but we ain't in the South.

Many more pictures, click here:

9-28-17 - (Day 59 - Ranching)

We took the truck to GMC in Pahrump for a check engine light repair. While waiting on the truck, we walked to Gold Town Casino, lost $5 between the two of us and decided it was too pretty of a day to stay inside.  A couple hours later; happy the repair was under warranty; we were out of there.  Great Service from the Pahrump Valley Auto Service.

Our camper neighbor, Harry, told Lauren about things to do in this area.  One of them was to go to Sheri's Ranch.  He said the food is good.  He laughed and said this is where his wife takes his sons out to eat when they visit.

Sheri's was a few miles down the road from the campground.  We have never been to a brothel and decided to eat lunch there.  Right before we got there, we passed the Chicken Ranch, another brothel.  Two legalized prostitution businesses in the middle of nowhere.  Who would have thought it??

This is not quite your typical dining experience.  We were greeted at the door by the hostess checking to see if we had an appointment.  Then she asked what she could help us with.  Lauren told her that we were here to eat, and she confirmed the grub was good.  She also asked if we wanted to take a tour of the brothel, and we declined.

I was under dressed for this atmosphere.  The ladies in there had on nice party dresses and stiletto heel shoes.  I was in a tank top and tennis shoes.  They didn't seem to mind.

After lunch, our waitress/bartender, asked if there was anything else we needed, and if we wanted to take the tour of the brothel.  The answer was No and NO!  I have to admit, Harry was right about the food being good.

We went back to camp for a bit, then headed 55 miles to China Ranch Date Farm.  Harry had recommended that we go here to get a  Date Shake.   He had also recommended that we go in the truck and not on Amber.  The last mile into the Ranch, was steep, down hill, loose gravel, wash board, one lane road.  Another good recommendation from Harry.

It looked like we were riding right dab in the middle of the badlands, in the middle of nowhere, in the desert., and we were.

The Date Shake was more like an ice cream than a milk shake.  It was so thick, we ate it with a spoon.  We saw a bunch of Gamble's quail while eating our fantastic Date Shakes.  Again, another great recommendation from Harry.

We got back to camp, and sat outside until after dark.  Tomorrow we plan to go to Death Valley.

More pictures right here: