The Adventures of Me & My Shadow #45 in NV,AZ,NM,TX &
LA
3/18/00
1,749 miles this trip, odometer now 5,8497 total miles this year
5,969.
From , Rayne, LA Hi Everyone!
I enjoyed my stay in the Siverton RV park in Las Vegas, was here
with the International Club Rally two or three years ago. It is
still one of the best RV Parks that I have stayed in, it is clean
and well maintained, all sites have full hookup with cable TV
and Phone hookups that cost $.75 for each local call but I am
able to get on the internet. The price with a Good Sam discount
is right, $15.00 per night, it was $12.50 the last time I was
here. The buffet has good food and is affordable. There is a down
side, we are not too far from the airport and some days, according
to the wind, we are under the flight path. Another problem is
the toilets, they are called Comfort Stations, there is a six
hole comfort station at each end of the park and an eight hole
comfort station at the office in the center of the park, That
figures out to be 20 holes for 324 sites, another complication
is: they are all “by-sexual”, each room has a shower,
lavatory and a throne. Now if a woman goes in to primp you might
have to wait several hours. This does have a good side, I met
a lot of nice people and had some interesting conversations while
waiting to go. This is a pretty good way to kill time (if you
can wait that long) and save fuel, I hear that the price of fuel
will go higher yet. They have a two week limit for staying in
the park, I wish they had a limit on staying in the toilet.
3/12/00 The family reunion yesterday went well, I was afraid my
daughter-in-law Alexis, who’s family it was for, was going
to miss it. This was the first time she had been in this part
of the country and she and Jeff were out sight seeing from sun
up to sun down. They took in Death Valley, CA, Friday, Bolder
Dam, NV Saturday morning before the reunion started , they are
off today to see the Grand Canyon in AZ before flying home tomorrow.
One of her clan I was visiting with lives here in Las Vegas and
admitted that he has never been to Bolder Dam, about 30 miles
away. This was the first Polish family reunion I have been to
so besides having a good time and meeting a lot of nice people,
I heard some more good Pollock jokes. It is always good to see
families get to gather at times other than for a funeral or wedding
just to enjoy visiting and meeting new members. I saw two little
toddlers and a grandmother having the time of there lives.
I figured Jeff & Alexis would be late getting back from Bolder
Dam yesterday to take me to the reunion so I decided to drive
my coach over to it . I punched the address into the computer
and told Gus to take the short way to save gas. I found out there
is no short way, Gus’s map was way out of date, a railroad
and an Interstate have been added since the map was last updated.
I kept coming to dead ends and many of the streets just were not
there. I kept backtracking and trying different ways and ended
up using a lot more gas than if I had told Gus to take the fast
way. Jeff & Alexis showed up shortly after I got there so
it turned out to be a wasted effort.
While visiting with the men at the reunion, the discussion turned
to the shortage of water here in the south west and what is being
done to solve the problem. As more people move out here the problem
keeps getting worse. One of the things they have done to cut down
on water usage is the low water volume toilet, I saw a lot of
them in CA and these toilets here in the park uses them. If you
are not familiar with them, and if you flush it the first time
while you are setting on it, you will probably take off running
with your pants down. It sounds like a gun went off followed by
a spray of high pressure water. They seem to work OK, but I can’t
understand why they don’t make them quieter. Another thing
they could do, and I haven’t seen it yet, is to insulate
the water pipes from the water heater. Here at the park a whole
lot of water goes down the drain waiting for the hot water to
come. At Alexis’ house in MD, I not only Insulated the water
pipes in the crawl space under the house, I installed a 6 gallon
Point Of Use water heater teed into the hot water pipe between
the shower and the lavatory. She now has instant hot water, it
saves water, the heating bill and the drain field (her house is
in the country with the drains going to a septic tank and drain
field).
3/13/00 Bid Jeff & Alexis good by, they headed to the airport
and I headed to Rayne, LA. The trip went well for the first few
hours, the trouble started when I found snow 50 miles west of
Kingman, AZ. The road was dry but it was a bad omen, shortly after
crossing the boarder into NM I went through a WOOP-DE-DO, that’s
one of those inverted Texas speed bumps that my cousin The Comish
claims to have invented to control traffic speed passed his place.
Sometimes I find them in the Cities at the cross streets. It might
be one big hump or a dip a hump then another dip. If I am going
too fast when I hit it, the WOOP is when I become airborne, the
DE-DO is when the front and rear wheels return to earth in that
order. The number of O’s signify how long I was airborne
and is relative to how fast I was going when I hit it. If I speedup
to miss a red light there can be many O’s. Of coarse my first
reaction is to slow down, no good! that should have happened five
minutes ago. Don’t ask me what a WOOP-DE-DO was doing out
on the highway but when the DO took place, the shock absorber
(that is supposed to limit the travel of the suspension) on the
leading rear wheel on the right side let go. This took out the
airbag auto level linkage and the air line going to the airbag.
It was getting late so I hurriedly
replaced the air fitting with a spare that I have with me, filled
the airbag and figured I could make it to the next town where
I could find a save, level place to jack it up and remove the
broken shock absorber, Wrong! By the time I got to the next town
the broken shock absorber had wiped out the air fitting again.
I managed to get it ready to go again just as it was getting dark,
I told my navigators to re-do the trip and take us to Albuquerque,
NM so I could check with Ed Osburn’s Service for a new shock
absorber and restock my airline fitting box. I pulled into a rest
area about 20 miles west of Albuquerque to get some sleep. Next
morning I found that Ed didn’t have the shock, he welded
the broken airbag control linkage, no charge, I installed it so
I could again run the airbags on auto-level, with my fittings
restocked I was once again on my way.
On this trip I am using a team of navigators, I use Gus’s
map, it’s the best, but because he still hasn’t blown
his nose, I would rather listen to Keith so I told Gus to get
some rest. I told them both to figure the shortest way to Rayne,
LA. There was only a couple miles different in total mileage and
a quick glance told me they used the same roads. I was wrong,
I would follow Gus’s map and Keith would eventually figure
it out and follow the same road till they differed again. My next
problem showed up after dark in eastern Texas, the highway I was
on had a barricade across it with a sign saying “NO THROUGH
TRAFFIC”, there were no detour signs so I zoomed out on the
GPS map and saw that if I went south a few miles there was another
road going east that should take me around the barricaded highway.
It was also raining but I wanted to keep driving for a while so
I headed south. My navigator, Keith got all excited and was telling
me to turn around, I turned onto the road going east and discovered
it to be a narrow dirt road. Turning around or backing up was
not an option but Keith kept harping for me to turn around. If
he would have shut up and looked at the map he would see that
this road would take me where I wanted to go. I managed to stay
between the ditches and moving ahead slowly but I was sure wishing
I was some place else. Finally arrived at the rally park after
spending one more night at a small town in LA. Will get this sent
and tell about the rally in the next letter
Till next time, Dallas or Dad if it fits.