Quartzsite AZ

We have moved to our winter home for this year. Quartzsite, AZ. The small town that gets no respect. When you tell someone that you are going to winter in Quartzsite, they roll their eyes and say "really". The population in the summer is about 3200 people. They say in January the population grows to 1 million. It's a big RV destination for dry camping on the BLM land. They even pan for gold here in the desert. They have a big gem and mineral show here also.

Here is our site all set up.

We went for a walk around the park and found this prickly pair. Oh and the nice cactus too.

 We found a good restaurant in town, Silly Al's. The pizza was really good and the beer was cold. We will be going back there.

The weather so far has been in the high 80's and sunny. We love that.

The park is not full yet. There are about 20 sites set up so far.

Our site at night.
Throw- Back Picture of the Blog.

 On the Beach with our first motorhome back in the late 80's.

Live Happy and Always Go Big.

 

   

Our First Year



It was one year ago we started this journey. It has been a blast. We have gone to so many places and met so many new people. We have been to 15 different states, The Grand Canyon, Lake Powell National Park, Zion National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Bryce National Park, The Petrified Forest National Park and The Painted Desert National Park. We did the Black Hills Bike Rally in Sturgis SD. We have stayed at a lot of nice parks, one of my favorites was Llano Grand Lake Resort. We stayed there for the winter. But the weather was not that good. We have been in some big cities like Phoenix, Houston, Albuquerque, Las Vegas and Deadwood. We have put 12000 miles on the trucks on this trip.

The Grand Canyon.

We had Elk right in our camp site at The Grand Canyon.

Lake Powell was one of the most beautiful places we have been.

Good friends Jeff and Diane with Peggy at Zion National Park.

Riding the Big Dog in Zion.

Zion was a really nice park. A lot to see and do.

We had a good time seeing some friends from home, Jim and Lee Ann, Jo and Darren on a bike run at the Black Hills Rally.

And then all the good places we have eaten on this journey. It has been a good time.

A good picture of Bryce Canyon.

Terry and Dan at his birthday party in Texas and all the other friend we met at Llano. The list is too long to make.

And then there is Betty's RV Park in Abbeville, LA with the legendry happy hour. We met a lot of good friends there. Like Jim and Nanc, we follow them on their blog and Betty herself. We always have a ton of fun there.

Let's not forget all the dog friends Cliff has met, here is JJ and Booger. I took them all for a walk one day, it was funny. Craig and Charlie were parked right next to us in Yellowstone.

Pam and Paul A.K.A. Double P. We met in Hurricane UT.

  Chris and John we also met in Hurricane.

We are still looking forward to the next year and hope we have as much fun as we did this year and can maybe hook up with some of our friends on the journey.  

 

Live Happy and Always Go Big. 

Mob Museum

We did some more tourist things here in Las Vegas. We went to the Mob Museum in the old downtown area. Then the Fremont Street thing. Stopped at Heifers and Hogs and had a pop. Had some lunch at Hennessey Pub on Fremont Street.   

Dan Capone in the Mob Museum.

Here is the St. Valentine's Day massacre wall. You can see the bullet holes in the wall.

 

We had to eat good before we left for the day. So breakfast on the BGE, with a Bloody Mary's of course!

 Funny thing, people lined up to get in at the Pawn Stars store. Half way down the block.

This is my favorite sign in Las Vegas so far.

Tonight we are going to see Ron White. That should be a laugh.

 

Throw-Back Picture of the Blog.

  Joe, Patty, Me and Peggy at Torch Lake. Back in the 80's. 

 

Live Happy and Always Go Big.

 

Big Dam

We took a trip to Hoover Dam and took the Dam tour. It was pretty cool. It is a huge Dam. The first thing is getting past a security check point. They checked all of our outside compartments and he talked about a strip search. That could of been fun.

 We had to park on the Arizona side of the dam. To do that you drive on the dam. That was pretty cool. $10 to park and $15 for the tour. 

 The water level is really low right now. The over flow spill way have only been used twice.

 The bridge above is the Pat Tillman memorial bridge. 

 There were 96 men killed building the dam. None of them are buried in the concrete.

 There are 17 generators inside the dam. The Dam is 726 feet tall and 1244 feet wide. It took 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete and 4 years to build it. 

 

There is a motorhome in the park that has a cool sign in it. That says "Retirement means to stop living at work and start working at living". So if you can, you should retire as soon as you can! Work is way over rated.

 

Throw-back Picture of the blog.

We were looking back at some old pictures and here is a good one. Peggy and I, Manchu, Danny and Heidi. I am going to have more throw-back pictures to come. Everyone should be a afraid.

 

 

Live Happy and Always Go Big.

Vegas

We are in Las Vegas at the Oasis RV resort. It's a nice park but the sites are a little close together. We have been down to the pool a couple of times. It is a salt water pool. They have two pools one kid pool and one adult pool with a hot tub, that is real nice. We really miss our hot tub that we had at home. 

 We have been to the strip only once so far.

I think we have this same shot from the last time we were here 10 years ago.

I went to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to watch the Red Bull Air Races. The weather was very hot in the sun at the track.

There was a stunt helicopter. He was doing flips with the helicopter. I have never seen anybody do that.

 The planes would take off and land right from the track in the infield. They has some big screens that would have the pilots view and a view of him flying the plane.

 The plane are going about 230 MPH. I did see some hit the pylons and still fly away.

We have been going out to dinner a lot so far, there are so many good places to go. We went to Naked City Pizza and had Beef on Weck. The only other place you can get that is in Buffalo, New York. I saw it on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, and it was a dive. But the food was killer. Peggy got a half and I got a full one and we both were full. We also went to another triple D place Bachi Burger. But it was not that good.

 

 

Live Happy and Always Go Big. 

Next Stop Vegas

We met some people that like it BIG too. His truck is bigger then mine! Bill and Audrey. They were parked right next to us. 

 Now that is a truck.

Peggy got a new humming bird feeder. I thing it is a little weird that there are humming birds here, there are no flowers around here for them to feed on.

Our next stop is Las Vegas. We are going to stay two weeks at a real nice resort right in town. So I went online and got us tickets to see Ron White. He is one of our favorite comedians. So I had to print out the tickets. This is SO much fun. The first ticket came out fine, Then the printer decided to run out of ink. the second ticket came out yellow. After a couple of try's and a few bad words, I had to go to town and spend 63 bucks to get the tickets printed out. That was so much fun. Sometimes I hate technology when it does not work. I have forgot that is what I did for a living. It was more fun when I got paid for it.

 

 

Live Happy and Always Go Big.    

 

Another Scary Road

We have move to Blake Ranch RV Park in Hackberry, AZ. It's just an exit with a truck stop and an RV park. But it is a nice RV park. They have a coy pond down by the office.

 Our Camp site.

It was Cliff's monthly bath day. He hates it.

 We took a day trip to Oatman. An authentic, western ghost town and mining camp named for pioneer Indian captive Olive Oatman. The town is known for the wild burros that wander the streets in town.

This baby one had a sticker on his head that read " STOP Do Not Feed Me Anything". The small ones are still nursing.

 

They had a shoot out in the streets. Only two cars got hit.

Oh the trip to get there was a real scary road. It is part of Route 66. It goes up some mountains to Oatman Pass. We did NOT take the same road back. We took the long way back.

 When the sign says 15 MPH I think we did 10 MPH in the big truck.

 This is a good shot of how scary the road is. It would have been fun on the Big Dog.

We stopped on the way and got the Big Truck washed, It needed it bad. We towed in the rain on our way here. That was the first time we have towed in the rain on this whole trip.

Meep Meep.

We have Road Runners running thru our camp site all the time. They are kind a cool.

 

 

Live Happy and Always Go Big.