Our RV Adventures

We left Laughlin about 8:30am, heading toward Las Vegas.

Although our parking facilities were plain-jane with no hookups, it was free and had a great view. Can’t beat that!

We had a couple of long hills on our way, but our rigs had no problem with them, unlike Nick’s old bus conversion. He said they never would have made it up the hill without overheating. And one of these hills was a 17 mile long steady climb.

About 50 miles out of Las Vegas we passed thru the town of Searchlight.

Searchlight is a famous gold mining town. During the early 1900’s it was bigger than Las Vegas, with over 7 million dollars in gold taken out between 1907 and 1910. Although the gold mining started to play out in the 1920’s, the town had a resurgence during the 30’s and 40’s during the building of the Hoover Dam because of the El Rey, a famous bordello. At its peak it had a population of 1500, but according to the 2000 census there are only 576 people there.

We pulled into the Roadrunner RV Park about 10:20. We parked out on the street for a few minutes waiting for a space to open up since they don’t take reservations. But by 10:45 we were parked and set up.

Nick and Terry were about a mile down the road at the Thousands Trails RV Park. Thousand Trails is a membership park and we’re not members. Of course, as Groucho Marx said “I wouldn’t join any club that would have me as a member.”

Hmm, I wonder why they took Nick?

BTW Here’s a picture of Nick and his lovely wife Terry.

Some people say we look alike, but I don’t see the resemblance.

And of course here’s my lovely bride, Jan.

After we got set up Nick called and said he was still having trouble with his leveler jacks and his slideouts.

They’ve been acting up for the last week or so, but last night in Laughlin they wouldn’t work at all. And they still wouldn’t work today.

By the time Jan and I got over to Nick’s rig, he had talked to an RV mechanic who had worked on the system previously, and HWH, the leveler/;slideout manufacturer. The consensus seemed to be that the motor was bad.

So I crawled under the rig to take a look. It looked like it wouldn’t be real problem to get out. In the meantime Nick had finally located a replacement motor about 150 miles away in Lake Havasu. Too bad we didn’t know we needed on yesterday when we drove thru there.

Anyway,  I started removing the old one. Everything was going fine until it came loose unexpectedly and hit me in the head. That is one heavy motor!

We tested the old motor after we got it out and it worked perfectly.

After Nick hit it with a hammer. Repeatedly.

And since it would be somewhat inconvenient to crawl under the rig and bang on the motor with a hammer every time they wanted to use the levelers and the slideouts, Nick got a new motor on its way from Lake Havasu. It should be here late tomorrow morning.

After I got cleaned up we all headed out to Claim Jumper, a restaurant we ate when we were here two years ago and really enjoyed. And it was a good as we remembered. We will definitely go back before we leave.

Leaving the restaurant we stopped off at WalMart for ‘stuff’. You can never have too much ‘stuff’, and WalMart has great ‘stuff’, and a lot of it.

Then it was on to Fry’s Electronics so Terry could get a new portable inkjet printer. It was her first time in

By then it was dark and we decided to drive up and down the Strip to see the lights. Between the Luxor pyramid, the Paris Eiffel tower, and New York, New York Stature of Liberty, it was quite a sight.

After driving up and down the Strip, we let Nick and Terry off at their rig and headed back to ours. It was a long, but very enjoyable day.

More tomorrow…

We left Yuma about 9:30am heading on a two day trip to Las Vegas. We’re traveling along with Nick and Terry Russell, our friends who publish the Gypsy Journal and run the Gypsy Journal RV rallies like the one we just finished up in Yuma.

One place we were interesting in seeing was Quartzsite, AZ, a place we’d heard about for years.  Quartzsite is kind of a mecca for RV’ers who like to dry camp out in the desert. The area is surrounded by BLM land where people can park for free.  Every January Quartzsite is flooded with RV’s as the place becomes one big RV flea market.

Nick took us by the scenic route which gave us some amazing views, but the many roller coaster dips as we drove over the washes made Jan’s cat, Emma, carsick. Emma proceeded to barf all over the carpet. Thanks Nick!

A little after noon we arrived in Lake Havasu City, home of the London Bridge.

We parked our rigs at a local Elks club, unhitched our truck, and all drove over to see the Bridge.

Robert McCulloch, of McCulloch Chain Saw fame bought the bridge from the City of London in 1967 as a tourist attraction for the retirement community he was building in the area. 

Originally built in 1831, the bridge, out-dated for modern traffic, was dismantled, numbered, and shipped to America. It was then reassembled around a stronger concrete core, and opened in 1971.

It was actually built on dry land and then the channel was dredged out under it, making the river.

Remains of the numbers can still be seen today.

Now a large marina lies next to the bridge.

After stopping off for ice cream at Dairy Queen, we hitched up and hit the road again.

We pulled into Laughlin NV around 5pm and got parked in the River Palms Casino RV Park that overlooks the city and the casinos. It’s quite a view at night.

Nick found a problem with his rig when we were setting up.  His leveler jacks would not go down and his slides would not extend. We’ll have to look at this further tomorrow.

Later we headed over to the River Palms Casino to partake of the 2 for 1 Prime Rib Buffet. That’s $5.40 per person, and it was really good!

Of course, Jan immediately lost $20 in the slots, so they made their money back, which I think was the idea.

Tomorrow we head to Las Vegas.

More then…