Fulltime RV couple traveling the United States in our 2018 Tommy Bahama 27FBQ Airstream!
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We were a little reluctant to give up our beautiful campsite in the Atlatl Campground at Valley of Fire State Park this morning, but after 12-days it was time to move on.
We only moved 70-miles southwest to the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area campground that is run by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It may have a Las Vegas address, but were are a solid 15-miles west of The Strip here.
And I think you'll agree after looking at our campsite photos, we're nowhere near the bright neon lights of Las Vegas.
I'm going to share one more photo with you, and if you've ever backed up a sizeable trailer into a campsite you'll immediately see the problem. I know I did when I first drove up.
That's not THE POD in the photo, but you can see ROVER's nose in our driveway.
Someone has set up a small travel trailer in the roadway in front of their "TENT ONLY" site. Sure there is enough room if you just need to squeeze by them with a trailer, but they are right were I need to be in order to back a trailer into our Site #47. If they would have just setup their trailer with the back bumper next to their campsite post there would have been no problem, except for the fact they're still on a "TENT ONLY" site with a trailer.
ROVER and THE POD's total length is 50-feet, so I need to be 50-feet beyond my driveway before I can start to turn the wheel to back into our space. That's right where he is! To make matters worse there is no one around their site, so they must be out sightseeing or something.
What should have been an everyday back-in maneuver (like I've done hundreds of times before) turned into a 30-minute/15-point turn. I'd had to back up 2-feet, turn the wheel all the way to the other side, then pull forward 2-feet and repeat that over and over. Each time I had to be careful because I was within inches of hitting their trailer with ROVER's right front fender.
To make matters worse there is only one level spot in our driveway, so once I did have it clear of their trailer I still had to make several adjustments, back and forth again, to postion ourselves in "the sweet spot" of our site.
After we were all set up and I had calmed back down you bet I went back up to the check-in office to register my complaints, because if that trailer is still there on Wednesday morning when we leave, I'm going to have an unnecessarily difficult time getting out of this spot.
I guess I'm still "the grumpy old man".
TUESDAY - Today we have a 10:00AM "timed entry" reservation to go and check out the 13-mile long one-way scenic drive that winds it's way through the conservation area.
Normally it's $10 per car plus a $2 reservation fee, but with my Lifetime Senior Pass we only had to pay the $2 fee.
We arrived an hour early which gave us time to check out their very informative Visitor Center. We started with a 20-minute film explaining why this area is so important to protect and conserve.
Outside the Visitor Center there were many story boards explaining the different geology that created this place and what kind of plant and animal life we could expect to find.
Now that we are well informed about today's activities it's time to "hit the road" and go see some of the things they've been talking about!
RED ROCK CANYON NATIONAL CONSERVATION AREA
The 13-mile long scenic drive will only expose us to a very small percentage of the nearly 200,000 acres here.
We were told the differences between the red, white and grey rock here, but damn if I can remember.
At the end of our first hiking trail we saw a small collection of petroglyphs.
This one looks like a fish skeleton to me! How about you?
A zoomed in shot of the wall of petroglyphs that were scratched into the wall thousands of years ago.
There were even a few samples of pictrographs which are painted onto the walls.
Even from the end of the trail at the petroglyph wall we can still see ROVER waiting in the parking lot.
The next hike we did was a little longer and more challenging.
Some sections of the trail were easier than others.
Some resembled rock climbing instead of hiking.
My only complaint was they need more comfortable seating at the end of the trail.
Here's Tricia emerging from the rock tunnel.
Here we see three different kinds of rock, white with red stripes, red with white stripes and white with red polkadots.
This is the top of a johsua tree, complete with seed pods. With proper care you can grow your very own joshua tree from one of these seedlings.
TUESDAY - The blogpost for our Valley of Fire visit was getting way too long so I decided to break it into two separate posts.
After sharing our campsite with a half dozen uninvited guests during breakfast we got several much anticipated notifications on my phone.
Our Amazon orders (yes, there were 4) have arrived! They are ready for pickup at the Amazon Hub Locker+ in the northeast Las Vegas suburb of Sunrise Manor. It's about an hour drive to get there, so we'll also take care of shopping for Thanksgiving groceries and hopefully finding some less expensive gasoline to fill the tank.
I found out that Amazon Hub Locker+ is just a fancy way of saying they have a special entrance at their local distribution warehouse where people can have packages shipped for pickup or a place to take items you need to return. It was a very fast and convenient way to receive our items that were too large to be sent to a standard Amazon Locker location.
I received a bunch of items to properly mount our new Starlink satellite dish on our flag pole and get it up off the ground where in my opinion, it's just asking to be stolen or accidently broken. I also ordered several specialized tools to "cut the cord" and connectors to "patch it back together again" so I can easily get the wire from the outside to the inside of THE POD. Wish me luck!
I'll share photos when the project is all done if anyone is interested.
Tricia also ordered a bunch of stuff for a project she'll be working on all spring. All I know is it involves a lot of expensive specialized knitting needles.
I'm sure we'll share photos of her project too when it's all done.
Returning from our long day out doing errands we were given a real treat once we were back inside of the park.
This photo was taken at 5:05PM of the sunset behind the mountain ridges that surround the campground.
WEDNESDAY - This morning we awoke to another beautiful sunrise here in the Atlatl Campground of Valley of Fire State Park.
It makes even a simple early morning walk to the bathhouse a pleasure to experience.
This photo was taken at 6:08AM of the sunrise beyond the mountains that surround the campground.
Today after lunch we put our hiking boots back on!
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Do you see an elephant in the rocks? I sure don't.
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I guess it's starting to look like an elephant.
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Nah! I still don't see it.
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This trail is in the far eastern side of the park where it opens up into a wide valley that is part of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
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There's the East Entrance Station for the State Park and the trailhead parking lot we're heading back towards.
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On the way back Tricia spotted this clever little rock cairn shaped like a tortoise.
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Located right across the street is a very short trail that leads to the Arrowhead Arch.
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It's another one of those where you can see the end of the trail from the parking lot.
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Now this one I can see the arrowhead shape they're talking about.
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Arrowhead Arch is actually a "double arch" with an arrowhead below.
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These three cabins were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in 1935 when this area first became a state park.
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The cabins were used for many years to shelter visitors to the newly formed state park.
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Looks like the first visitors really had to ROUGH IT if they wished to stay overnight.
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Once again there were many petroglyphs located on the mountainside behind the cabins.
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I guess they call these Beehives Rock because people are busying themselves climbing all over them.
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It's not just the kids climbing on the rocks...
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...it appears to be a family activity also.
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Wait a minute! Now that there's no humans to distact me I think I see a beehive shape!
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This is what Thanksgiving Dinner looked like in the Kelley household this year!
SATURDAY - We're going to find out if we can experience LAS VEGAS ON A $200 BUDGET and not feel the need to revisit it again!
Right out of the box we are down $20 for a 24 hour parking permit. Sure there are cheaper places to park in Las Vegas, but ROVER has a lot of visible "stuff" in the windows and I wanted a moderately secure place to park for the night. We chose the Fremont Street Experience Parking Garage, which is near the northern end of downtown Las Vegas and is conveniently at the north end of the local bus transportation route.
We arrived in town an hour earlier than the start of the dinner buffet, so I decided to go ahead and get my gambling itch scratched and be done with it. The last time I walked into a casino was in September of 2019 outside of St. Louis, MO. I walked out of that casino less than an hour later and $100 less in my wallet.
I'm sad to report my Blackjack skill (or luck) hasn't changed in the last three years. Once again, less than an hour later, I was also short $100 in my wallet. The only reason I lasted that long was because I found a small casino that still plays Blackjack the "old fashion" way, one deck of cards. So with five players at the table, the dealer spent almost as much time shuffling the cards as dealing them.
With the gambling aspect of our visit out of the way, we can now get to something more important, the "All-You-Can-Eat" buffet line at the Main Street Station Garden Court Buffet. This is one of the more budget friendly places to eat and for $67 (tax and tip included) we both got several plates filled with a wide variety of good tasting food.
The casino where I played Blackjack and the Main Street Station Garden Court Buffet are at opposites ends of the Fremont Street Experience. What I'm talking about is ½-mile long section of Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas that has been permanently closed to traffic and turned into an open air mall filled with casinos, nightclubs, restaurants, music venues, light shows, ziplines and huksters of varying talent.
Huckster is a term used here in Las Vegas for someone who entertains for tips, usually displaying their musical talents. Although you'll also find women dressed in "showgirl attire" and men dressed in "Chippendale attire" who will offer you the chance to have your photo taken with them, for a small donation of course.
There were also "close up magic" performers, a variation of 3-Card Monte, but no betting is allowed. Only "tips" for being entertained are accepted. There were several talented "karaoke style" performers, drummers beating on upside down 5-gallon pails and "palm frond" artists who will weave your ladyfriend a rose.
Once dinner was complete we walked back down Fremont Street to the parking garage where you can purchase tickets for the Las Vegas Deuce on the Strip double decker bus. We spent $16 for a pair of 24-hour bus passes, the busses continuosly travel from one end of The Strip to the other. Normally buses arrive at the numerous stations every 15-20 minutes and they pretty much stop every ¼-mile along the route so you're never far from what it is you got off to see.
The Las Vegas Strip is 4½-miles long (too far to walk IMHO) and we plan to see the whole thing, so buying the bus passes was a no brainer for us. About halfway through the Southbound Route we manage to score the front row seats of the upper deck that give you a great view of Las Vegas.
We enjoyed the view from the front row seats so much we decided not to get off the bus and ride it all the way to the Southern Depot, where we had to change busses and once again got onboard first and grabbed the exact same seats we had before for our Northbound travels.
The traffic was so heavy and slow moving on Las Vegas Boulevard we got to see the entire Bellagio Fountains Show from the front window of the stationary bus.
We then rode the bus all the way to the Northern end of the route at Fremont Street and called it a night. The entire 9-mile round trip took nearly 4-hours to complete and we still have an hour drive to get back to the campground.
Our total expenses for our night in Las Vegas, $203 (just a tad over budget).
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The dining room at the Main Street Station Garden Court Buffet.
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A close up of the ornate ceiling in the dining room.
