A Creepy Boondock

Usually when I say a boondock is creepy I mean that there are creepy people around or other signs that the place might not be safe.  This time I mean creepy in the traditional creepy sense...but we'll get to that later.

After a day and night of living out of water buckets we were itching to get going the next morning.  Unfortunately the wind was still making it feel like the RV was going to tip over at any moment.  I opened the curtain to my bedroom loft (the bunk above the cab) and saw my mom bundled in sweaters and coats with her winter boots on.  Yes...it got pretty dang cold.

She looked at me and said, "We are getting out of here TODAY."

I acquiesced and started climbing down to start my day.  That's when she pushed her cellphone in my face.  It was 2:15.  I kind of overslept.  D:

The reason was that I was finishing a book I've been struggling with for a few weeks and was up until the wee hours.  Leaving this late is a problem because the days are getting shorter and my mom can't drive when it's dark out.  She has vision in one eye only, and that eye has macular damage.  She's blinded by headlights and streetlights.  As you know I drive the RV and she follows me in the SUV.  We had to get to Pahrump before dark.

So we set out, and the wind wasn't quite as bad as I anticipated.  We stopped in Beatty Nevada to eat at a Dennys that was inside a casino.  See...that's a problem right there.  Daylight hours were slipping and the temptation is too great for us not to gamble for a little while after we ate.  I saw a billboard for a campground and figured we'd just pull in there for the night.  We couldn't boondock (go without hookups) another night because we had no water.

The billboard said the RV park was '2 minutes ahead'.  For people from outside the USA, that's how we estimate driving distance here.  If you ask someone how far away somewhere is an American will answer you in the amount of time it takes to drive there, not the actual distance.

Well two minutes passed and there was no sign of this RV park.  Next thing I know I'm driving into the Death Valley National Park.  x_x  Crap.  The shadows of the mountains are starting to get really long and I have no idea how we're going to make it.  I smack Garmin awake and demand for her to tell me where an RV park is.

I saw the Furnace Creek Death Valley campground and pull in.  These type of campgrounds usually don't have hook-ups, but they do usually have a dump station with potable water.  You give me that and I can camp anywhere.  I was desperate.

We ended up in a nice spot that did have full hookups.  It's a beautiful park.  These National Park or State Park campgrounds are really swanky.  We enjoyed the night of air conditioning at half-price with my mom's America the Beautiful card.

After a good night's rest we headed the rest of the way to Pahrump.  People, Death Valley is GORGEOUS.  And this is from a woman who sees beautiful mountain views on all sides.  The scenery down there, yellow cliffs, breathtakingly tall mountains with layers upon layers of smaller mountains before them...it's really worth the trip.

So we get to Pahrump and head for our old boondock here.  I know we camped in my mother's Pastor's yard last time, and we will eventually go there this time, but today I needed to do a lot of work and it can be tough with all the Pastor's grandkids.  They're great kids and I like entertaining them.  I just need to focus on work now.

Last time we used this boondock we were 50 feet from the highway.  I didn't want to camp there this time.  On our last day in Tonopah we went out to eat and came back to find people skulking around our RV.  -_-  They bolted fast when we showed up, and nothing was taken or damaged, but it shook me up.  I want to camp where people can't see me.

I started going down the winding dirt roads of this area of BLM.  I drove for a while, and eventually found a level spot near a lot of desert trees (not juniper, thank God) that mostly block us from the Highway a mile away.  You can see us if you're coming North, but not if you're coming South.

We set up the camper, got groceries, and came back.  As I'm unloading the groceries I turn around and BOOM!  A sheriff's car has pulled up.  @_@  WHAT THE HECK?!

I smile and give my friendliest "Hi!"  Because being super polite and friendly to cops always serves me well.  He says hi back and then leans into his car to speak on the radio.  I stand waiting.  After several minutes he pops his head back out and says, "Never mind.  I have a call to get to." 

And then he drove away.

@_@  Um.  Okay then.

I wasn't too frazzled because there is a BLM sign right by us.  This is definitely a legal camp.  I think he just saw us trying to hide and wanted to make sure we weren't cooking meth.  I really don't know though.

So I do a tour of our camp area, just scouting around to see what junk humanity has left before us...and I see this.

I turn to my left and see this...

What in the fricking...THEY'RE ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Wait...that one has writing on it.  Let's see what it says...

 'Beloved puppy?'  Oh.  It's a pet cemetery.  One of the 'caskets' has been dug up and the lid was torn off.  Probably by a coyote.

Okay, fine.  That's a lot less creepy than some Blair Witch shenanigans.  We'll let the puppies rest in peace.

Kitt'ns!

Okay, so let me start at the beginning.  Saturday night a black truck pulled into our boondock at 11pm.  I heard a door open and close.  Then it peeled away at 90 miles per hour.


I know people.  I'm thinking the same thing you're thinking.  They dropped off a gang member to do his initiation murder to the inhabitants of that lone RV there.

I turned on the RV headlights and watched vigilantly for an hour or so.  No one was out there.  But I was still on guard.

In the morning we saw the bag of trash they dropped off.  :eyes roll:

Anyway my mom left for church presuming there was still a murderer stalking our RV waiting for a good time to proceed with his gang initiation murder.  She asked her pastor if we could move the RV to his yard.  And by yard I mean gravel because this is the desert.  She came back informing me of the good news that she found a 'safe' spot for us.

Which was not well received because we were not murdered and we were three days out from our next dump.  I hate moving the RV when we're not going to dump.  We have to tear down, set up, and then tear down two days later AGAIN to go dump.

But she didn't feel safe, so I acquiesced.   

Yesterday we moved the RV to the pastor's house and will stay here for the rest of our time in Pahrump.  The pastor (who I don't get along with, long story) is in Phoenix for the next week, so the house is vacant.  We were given the key by his sweet wife (who I do get along with) for microwave and shower access.  It was very kind of them.

So here we are:

To the right is their house which I didn't photograph out of respect for their privacy.

Okay, so we got here yesterday, set up, then spent the night.  This morning I trolled around their house for a trash bin.  I know that trash is picked up once a week, and if they have the bin from the local service then they have the service.  I'll put my trash in it and then bring it to the curb before they get back.

As I go around the back of the house I realize that our hosts failed to mention...well, this:

Okay, my pictures suck, but they have two mama cats and a HEAP of kittens on their back porch!  Like ten.

@_@  Why wouldn't you tell us that!?

We saw one of the mama cats out hunting and thought she belong to someone else. 

There was a very small amount of kibble and the water dish had dropped too low for the kittens to access.  What the heck!

The mama cats ran when I came up, but when I returned with food they jumped back on the porch and feasted.  The babies ate huge mouthfuls of food.  They were all really hungry.

It's dangerous for these darlings to be outside all the time with all the coyotes we have.  I'm going to go back and make sure all the wet food is gone so I don't attract any.

And...I really think I'll be leaving here with a kitten.  We just can't help ourselves.

Lakeside Casino and RV Resort in Pahrump

I don't know if I told you this already, but we decided that we're going to check into RV parks every time we have to dump.  Because when we dump it's also time to take showers and do laundry.  Dump stations are cheap, even free some times, but outside of swanky state parks we don't get the amenities we need. 

"But Milly," you say, "aren't you too cheap to pay for a night at an RV park every time you need to dump?" 

Yes I'm cheap.  Proud of it too.  And you should have enough faith in me to know that I found a way to stay at RV parks four or five times a month while STILL being cheap.

I got Passport America!  It's a club that gives you 50% off on a multitude of RV parks.  There's three in Pahrump.  I found I could stay at the swanky Lakeside Casino for only $15.  That's the same that I would pay at a dump station with water in many places.  But this also gives me laundry (not free, but access) and showers.

Well, I sure figured it out, didn't I?  It's smooth sailing from here on.  Yes, sir, one cheap night at Lakeside Casino will put us right for the next 4 to 5 days and then it's back to our sweet little boondock.  :pats self on the back:

My mom:  We're only staying one day at the RV park?

Me:  Well, yes.  We're just dumping, taking water, showering, and doing laundry.

My mom:  That's a lot of laundry!

Me:  @_@  Yes, but, it's not going to take more than a day to--

My mom:  So I have to spend the whole time we're there doing laundry? 

Me:  But...well, I can do the laundry if you want, there's just no need for us to--

My mom:  Why can't we spend two nights there?

Me:  Why would we--

My mom:  I have to spend my whole time doing laundry while you goof around fishing at the lake?!  I'm tired, Yamila.  I'm still sick from the mothballs.

Me:  But...we're only staying there to--

My mom: SO WE CAN'T STAY TWO NIGHTS?!

Em...yeah.  So there's a very nice casino attached to this RV park.  My mom was not okay with only seeing to the necessities when a nice casino would be beckoning her.

:SIGH:  So I paid for two nights here.  And because tomorrow is Friday I had to pay the weekend rate.  My cheap dump station plan went from $15 to $38.  -_-  DANG IT!  And after I was nice enough not to mention that she broke the handle on the screen door.

Anyway, Lakeside is a gorgeous RV park with an artificial lake that's stocked with fish.  And yes.  I will be fishing here.    The casino is the best one in Pahrump, too.  Last time we were here I won $760 on Keno.  It has a restaurant that used to be nice, with $5 buffets, but the $5 buffet was gone and the service went down hill.  Meh.  It's still a nice RV park.

Hey...an Evo.  I wonder if it's our old one...

Camp Milly

The primary reason we camped two weeks at Borax Bills was so we could visit my brother and his wife and kids in the Los Angeles area.  We were finally given the okay to visit him last weekend.  With our semi-annual visit out of the way it's time to travel northeast.

We want to head towards Utah via Pahrump Nevada.  Pahrump is where we had our home before we went full time.  It's where our mail is delivered, and my mom's church is here.  It's also at a high enough elevation not to be too hot right now.  It's a good place to finish out the month of May for us.  I didn't exactly know where we were going to boondock, but I knew the area well enough to know we could figure that out once we got here.

However, Pahrump was an over 3 hour drive away.  I don't like driving so long to get to one camp.  It's rough on my mother who drives our SUV behind me.  It's also rough on the budget.  Gassing up two vehicles (especially in California) is a huge chunk of change.  Since we always have to be somewhere anyway, I say let's spend one dump cycle at a midway point.  It stretches out the journey and lowers the amount of gas we use to fuel our lifestyle by adding days between refueling. 

That was the plan anyway, but how?   God, I tell you, it is a pretty pathetic state of affairs when you get into inland California.  I'm talking the Mojave desert east of LA.  We wanted to stay somewhere where we could buy groceries from an actual supermarket, not a little mom and pop affair where bread would be $6.  We were bone dry on provisions when we got home from visiting my bro.  We also wanted a boondock.  If we camped at an RV park that negates the savings we'd make on fuel.

There were two ways to go from California City to Pahrump.  The high road has ZERO metropolitan areas.  It's all tiny little settlements of a few hundred people, and a gas station if you're lucky.  If we were cool with going this direction I would have stocked up with groceries at the Stater Brothers outside California city and boondocked in Searles Valley.

I'm not fine with taking the high road, however.  Death Valley is already in 3 digit temperatures.  It's the hottest place in the United States.  I do not want to drive through there in May, with my cats baking in the RV behind me.  Searles Valley had to be baking too.  It's a VALLEY.  The lower the topography the hotter it is.  I wouldn't want to spend four days there.

That left the low road, which is better anyway because it's more direct.  The only Metropolitan area between Cal City and Pahrump through this route is Barstow.  And let's face it people...no one wants to spend any time in Barstow.  I'm happy to go to the Popeyes chicken place every time I drive through (fricking love Popeyes) but I don't want to stay there.  There are no good, safe boondocks there anyway.

The next modestly populated town is Baker, but it's tiny and has little to offer.  On top of that my theory is that the town is called Baker because it's always baking.  The world's largest thermometer is it's main attraction.  It was reading over 100 degrees when we passed through.

So, SCREW IT!  We drove all the way to Pahrump.

My cat Sultan is not doing well.  The vet says he has arthritis in his back hips and it's just been getting worse.  He has a lot of trouble walking.  When we drive he usually hides under the dinette.  For some reason, this time he decided to go behind the couch.  And he jumped from the top of the couch, not the armrest.  I cringed as I started our journey to hear him plop with flailing legs.

What's that mess of rags in the corner behind him?  That's where we stuff the slide hole to keep bugs out.  The edging ripped off leaving a gaping hole.  It's going to be a pain in the ass to fix.

When we arrived in Pahrump he didn't come out for dinner.  But neither did our Tortie, Precious.  Some times they take a while to decompress after a long journey.  We opened all the windows and left them to buy groceries (and mothballs, grrr...my favorite shirt!).

So now it's evening and he's still not coming out.  We hear him clawing desperately, trying to climb just with his front paws.  I squeeze my arms behind the couch and dig him out.  Poor baby.  He drank a cat bowl's worth of water and ate all the food in his dish.  I hope he realizes he's too old to be going places where he has to climb out.  How old?  Well...we got him in 1999 and he was not a kitten.

Okay, so after taking a left in Baker we headed up to Pahrump via Shoshone.  Shoshone is where my mom would drive to buy California lotto tickets when we used to live in Pahrump.  We stopped there for her last batch of tickets for a while (she's a woman over 60, she buys lotto tickets, it's the law).

I mentioned to her that as we drive up highway 372 on our last leg to Pahrump we should keep our eyes open for possible boondocks.  I know that this is BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land because there's a huge sign on the south side that says 'Your Public Lands.'  That means BLM and that means we can camp free for 14 days.  (Right?)

As we're driving I see a little level area off to the side of the road RIGHT BEHIND the 'Your Public Lands' sign.  SWEET!  I plan on making this our boondock after swinging into town to buy propane.

Here's the long ass lonely highway from Shoshone to Pahrump

And here we are boondocking at this sweet little spot on the side of it.

This is too close to the highway to be a proper campsite.  It's just a small open area of dirt with some public works ditch to the side.

The closed off ditch.  Definite signs of flooding below.

I have driven this highway many times when I lived in Pahrump to ferry my mom for her lotto tickets.  I've never seen anyone camping here.  I'm still confident that I'm allowed to camp here because of the 'Your Public Lands' sign right beside us.  Still, it's not an ideal camping spot if you didn't want to be here for some reason.  Too close to the road meaning noise and less safety.  No hiking.  No amenities.  (But close to Death Valley).

AND YET...this fricking morning two matching class C Leprechaun motorhomes pulled in here looking to mosy up beside us!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!  They saw me camped here and apparently thought I had a good idea.  They drove around the little area several minutes looking for a level spot for both of them.  This little cropping of dirt could probably support one more camper, but not three.  They ended up moving on.

I COULDN'T BELIEVE THAT!

'This Place Feels Like Home'

The title to this post is a quote from my mother.  We're at the Treasure Resort in Pahrump, and have decided to stay here until the end of November (weather permitting).  It's easily the nicest RV park that we stay at.  And since we lived in Pahrump for 2 years prior to going full-time, my mom attends her old church here and knows how to drive herself around on her own.

Things have changed since we were here last April.  Namely...

There's a casino in the cafe here now!!!  And that suits us fine.  We like to play the games now and then.  Having a smoke free casino right were we live is Awesome!!!

I've also taken up bird watching.  A lot of humming birds were buzzing in front of my window, likely because a past resident had a feeder for them.  I went out to get them one and decided to get a regular feeder too.

Here's the view out my window now.


It turns out that lots of people have humming bird feeders, but I haven't seen any seed feeders besides ours.  And boy has it been a hit!!  Gorgeous pink birds have been stuffing their beaks while larger birds dig through the litter on the ground to get what they drop.

I'm trying to get a good picture of the pink males of these birds but it's so hard!!!  Hopefully one came out.  They're so beautiful!

We're still on the Personal Trainer Diet, and will remain on it forever probably.  I've had to modify things due to weakness.  My body isn't able to do straight Atkins without a large intestine.  I had to take two days off to recover my strength.  Now I'm starting again with a new plan my body can handle.  BANZAI!!!

One more attempt to photograph that pink bird....

Languishing in Pahrump

We are at the Treasure Resort in Pahrump, NV, taking advantage of their full gym for a month to kick our weightloss into high gear.  I had a drink last night and gained two pounds along with a puffy face!  Won't be cheating with alcohol ever again!  My diet, The Personal Trainer Diet, that sends you all the food, is still perfect for me.  Delicious food.  Cheap.  And my appetite no longer spikes due to blood sugar.  I saw it spike last night after I cheated with a drink.  I don't want to go back to that roller coaster.

If you've been thinking about trying this diet, today (October 11) is the day to do it since they're doing $100 off.  That means $269 gets you a month worth of food (and it's really delicious!)  I say that's cheaper than buying groceries.  Please check it out with my link:  http://bit.ly/1PTOkqG

Home Again...

I say we're home again because we're back in Pahrump, NV, where we used to live.  We'll be spending a month here using the sweet gym at the Nevada Treasure Resort to kick our weightloss (thanks to the Personal Trainer Diet) into high gear.

I felt bad about not regaling you with pictures from Tonopah.  So here are pictures from the next town south of Tonopah, Goldfield, NV.  What's Goldfield all about?  Here's the plaque in front of the courthouse (above) to tell you:

It's a nice stone carved plaque, but honestly, this is a boom/bust town currently in it's bust cycle, the way Tonopah is.  Here's the typical buildings you see there:

I peeked inside one of these derelict mining era buildings and here's what I saw:

So...yay?  Don't say I never give you pictures!

We stopped there for breakfast on the way down to Pahrump.  The pickings were slim, but we still managed to get two omelets for our trouble.  One wonders how people get by in tiny 'no supermarket' towns like these.  It was a little depressing.