tales from the Drivers' seat: Las Vegas to Grand Canyon and all stops between

We headed off to Pahrump Nevada to visit Dick's nephew and his mom. It was great to see the family again and spend some quality time with all of them. Another nice dinner with Gail and the family (thanks Gail for another great meal).

Dick had several projects he wanted to get done so we decided to go to another park in town. It was within close walking distance from two casinos and the park has several shops for those that have crafts and projects to do.

Dick was in his glory after checking out the wood shop. He spent part of 3 days making a new bookcase and other things for the rig. They have about every power and hand tool one needs for wooding working projects and all they ask is a $2.00 donation to use the shop. Did we tell you that the our camping fee for this park was free but we could only stay seven nights. We had planned to stay four nights, but at that price we decided to stay for all seven. This also put us out on a Monday rather than Friday so we figured it would be easier to get a space at our next destination.

Because this is our third trip here and we have seen most of the area and it was over 100 degrees at Death Valley, we decided to take a day trip to see what we could find.

We ended up taking a loop drive that took us to The Date Farm for a date shake and to see what the farm was like.

They had several gardens with lots of cactus and some of it was starting to bloom. We wish we could stick around to see it all in bloom but maybe next time.

A closer look at the flowers on this choya are very beautiful.

We pulled out as planned on Monday, trying to reach a County park southeast of Kingman Arizona. Jackie had found a park called Hualapai Mountain County park. We arrived in Kingman without any problems and started up Hualapai Mt. road. We passed through several residential areas and then into an area with lots of trees. The problem was that the road got steeper and steeper and we are sure there was a time the truck was headed straight up.

It was so steep that the truck was over heating and we had to pull off to let it cool down. Continuing again it got even steeper and then we finally found the park. We let the engine cool down again after checking in only to be told to follow the narrow road "up" the hill to the RV campsites. The .8 miles to the campsite was again straight up. When we finally got to our site it took about a half hour to get the engine to cool down.

We finally picked a space as there was only one other rig in this area of the park, set up and then Dick started to worry how we are going to get back down off this mountain.

We are not even sure if we can get out of this spot because of trees that we have to get around but the hill to get back to the road is loose gravel so there is no stopping once we get going. We will just have to wait 2 days and see what happens.

It was great being back in the trees and mountains. We hiked an old road that continued up past the campground and also took a day trip to the town of Oatman which is a old mining town that is trying to survive on tourist trade only.

As soon as we got out of the truck we were greeted by one of the local Burros trying to mooch some food from us.

There must have been over 25 burros wandering the streets, and by the time we left, the town smelled a little ripe and for some strange reason there were quite a few large flies all around.

Dick posed so Jackie could get a picture in front of one of the many shops.

We arrived back to camp and the next day hooked up and we decided to try and pull up the hill rather than back through the campground and down the road to turn around. Pulling out with Jackie watching for tree clearance, we made the 90 degree turn without hitting a tree, and with the truck in 4wd low we slowly made it up the dirt portion of the road.

Then it was several miles down a very steep slope. By the time we reached the exit, our breaks were starting to heat up. We pulled out onto the main road and started down. We had to try and stop after about 3 miles because we could smell the breaks. By the time we got stopped our breaks were smoking and the emergency would not hold so Dick had to get out and put rocks in front of the wheels while we waited for the breaks to cool down.

After about 15 minutes we tried it again but in low gear picked up a little more speed so we could stay off the breaks more. We finally made it off the mountain and when we got to our next stop we could still smell the breaks. It was sure touch and go for a little while there.

We finally made it to our destination of Grand Canyon National Park and went into the park to see if there was a space for us. No luck so we ended camping about a mile outside of the park, a little expensive but we can make it work.

After setting up we headed back into the park to see the canyon and this is what we saw as soon as we reached the rim. Don't know who the people are but this first shot gives some idea of scale of what we are looking at.

This is looking across the canyon to the north rim; wow what a sight to see. The weather is in the low 70's during the day and the nights in the low 40's, so it's just right for lots of hikes.

Yes we are on the edge of the rim and one more step back we would drop only about 2000'.