Our RV Adventures

I mentioned before that the one thing Landon was looking forward to on the Costa Rica trip was all the wild monkeys that live in the area. And it looks like he got his wish, and more.

And not just Monkey’s,

but Toucans

and even a Tree Sloth.

Here’s a video from Facebook of Landon feeding the monkey’s, but I don’t know if you can see it or not if you’re not on FB.

Landon Feeding The Monkeys

And what better way to top off a day full of Monkeys than with a Banana Split.

And since we’re going with an animal theme today, here’s a repeat of our visit to Bearizona in 2011.

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Bearizona and Las Vegas . . .

Today was a travel day, from Williams, AZ to the Thousand Trails RV Park in Las Vegas. But before I tell you about that, I wanted to recount our visit to Bearizona yesterday.

Bearizona is a drive-thru/walk-thru wildlife park that just opened last year, and new exhibits are being built even now.

Here’s my sweetie with the park mascot.

These are American Burros who are apparently more interested in dinner than us.

Next we had the American Bison or Buffalo.

This guy was only about 20 feet from the truck, and I think he was bigger than the truck.

These are Gray Wolves. When we pulled up to their area, they were just laying around under the trees until one of the park guys went by on his ATV. They all perked up and came running over to the road, I guess thinking they were going to be fed.

In the next area, we had Dall Sheep. We saw a lot of these along the roads in Alaska.

And more sheep, this time Big Horn Sheep. We’ve seen these a number of times traveling out west.

This is the fabled White Buffalo. True albino buffalo are extremely rare, but I don’t know what these are. They could be leucistic, which means they would have blue eyes instead of the pink eyes of an albino, or they could be a buffalo/cow cross.

Finally we saw bears, lots of bears. Black ones, brown ones, little ones, big ones. All around us.

But the cutest ones were the four 3 month old cubs. They were playing, falling, and wrestling like a bunch of puppies, into everything.

I even shot some video of them.

They even had a baby javelina, with his own bed.

He even has his own toy to play with. I wonder if the Big Horn Sheep have a toy javelina to play with?

Another one of those ‘so ugly they’re cute’ animals.

In the Petting Zoo area, Terry made a new friend. In fact, for a while we thought he was going to follow her home.

A baby fox.

But, beside the bear cubs, I think everyone’s favorite were the Bobcats. It was almost like they enjoyed posing for us.

They would sit on the rock for a while, take a break and wander off, and then come back and sit on the rock again.

Just beautiful animals.

We all had a great time at Bearizona and look forward to visiting it again next year to check out the new animals.

Bearizona is well worth your time if you’re in the area.

Now back to today.

We left the Canyon Gate RV Park in Williams about 9, heading for Las Vegas 213 miles away. The reason we left so early for such a short trip was that Nick had planned to stop at the Speedco about 15 miles outside of Kingman and get the oil changed in his rig. And I was going to check out the instant oil analysis service they offered.

But it didn’t quite work out that way. Despite Nick having called twice and being assured they worked on RV’s and could get him in and out quickly, when he pulled into the parking lot, he was basically told to get out, and that they only worked on big trucks driven by guys working for a living.

When Nick mentioned that their website says they service RV’s, the guy said he didn’t care, just move!

And then they seemed to go out of their way to make it difficult for us to get out of their parking lot. So much so, that I ended up damaging the left front corner of my rig getting out of a tight turn.

Even stranger, a flat bed tractor-trailer pulled in right before us, and after talking to the same guy, started to leave immediately. But then had to wait for Nick to move out of his way. In doing so, he told Nick “these guys are a bunch of a$$hole$”.

So either his truck wasn’t big enough, or he wasn’t working hard enough, I guess.

I know that plenty of RV’ers have used Speedco, but I never have, and now never will.

So, after this brief but unpleasant interlude, we were back on the road to Las Vegas, about 115 miles away.

We were a little worried about the high wind advisories we were seeing, warning of bad conditions crossing the new Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, but except for the occasional ‘interesting’ wind gust, the trip was smooth and the scenery was great.

Both Nick and Jan had worried about crossing the new bridge, but because the sides are high, and RV’s are supposed to stay in the left lane, you never realize that you are almost 900 feet about the Colorado River as you cross.

It’s really kind of disappointing.

We got into the Thousand Trails here in Vegas a little after 1 and got set up. Then about 3 we drove down to Boulder Station Casino to check out the buffet there.

And it was just as good as last year. As usual we sat around talking for a good while before heading home about 5 pm.

We’re going to be here for two weeks, and hopefully we’ll have as much fun as last year.

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Thought for the Day:

Happy FUN BALL!  – only $14.95-

Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Fun Ball.

Caution: Happy Fun Ball may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.

Happy Fun Ball Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.

Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete.

Discontinue use of Happy Fun Ball if any of the following occurs:

Itching Vertigo Dizziness Tingling in extremities Loss of balance or coordination Slurred speech Temporary blindness Profuse sweating Heart palpitations

If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.

Happy Fun Ball may stick to certain types of skin.

When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration.

Failure to do so relieves the makers of Happy Fun Ball, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.

Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Happy Fun Ball comes with a lifetime guarantee.

Happy Fun Ball

ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!

As was forecast it did rain off and on all day so the only thing I got done outside was to get my local digital antenna mounted and an up in the air.

Coming inside I switched the TV over to Off-Air and hit Scan. And in a few minutes it had found 111 local channels. WOW.

That’s almost 3 times what it found before I put it up on the pole. Of course, about 80 of those are in languages we don’t understand.

One thing Jan was worried about is how to find out what was on the many channels since there’s not a guide like on our DirecTV. We did find one online that showed the local channels but it would be a real pain to have to check the computer every time you wanted to know what was on.

Then as I was looking at the TV remote I noticed a Guide button. So out of curiosity I press it, and suddenly I had a channel guide.

And just like our DirecTV guide, it not only time and program name, but also gives a short synopsis of what the show is about.

Neat

But now my question is, where is this coming from? It has to be coming over the air, but who is putting it together, and what channel is it coming in on? It doesn’t show up when you scan through the channels, just when you use the Guide button.

It must be something standard around the country, since I assume it works everywhere since it’s on the remote. But so far Googling hasn’t turned up anything.

So I’ll keeping looking.

As I mentioned yesterday I got an email from Panasonic saying they were repairing my camera, and then today I got another email saying it was done and they were shipping it out this afternoon. Very fast service.

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Thought for the Day: 

Knowledge is knowing how. Wisdom is knowing when.

gsdfg