Little RV on the Prairie

So.  We're still in Utah.

We're most definitely here against our will.  :sigh:  I've had a day to get over the shock and terror of recent events so I'm just going to summarize here and be done with it:

While at the mechanic in Cedar City we got oil changes on the RV and SUV.  As we were driving out back towards Pioche the SUV's engine seized.  They did not put any oil in it.  I guess the mechanic got distracted and forgot that last part.  :sighs again:

So yes.  The engine in our SUV was destroyed.

They are replacing the engine (without any fight from us, to their credit).  So we are stuck in Utah for another two weeks without our follow car.

Last night they paid for us to stay in a nearby KOA.  I saw that the cost was $68/night and I felt bad, so we moved out of there to boondock.  Yes, I know they screwed up, but they were good with us through mostly the whole repair situation.  Mistakes happen.  They're already paying upwards of $3,000 for a replacement Nissan Armada engine + labor.  I wasn't going to twist the knife by making them pay another $1,000 for us to stay two weeks at that expensive KOA.  Especially when we normally boondock anyway.

I hunted out a boondock that would not require us to travel upwards at a right angle the way it felt like when we were navigating the Dixie National Forest.  We're at Parowan Gap near a petrogylph site.  I guess petrogylphs are pictures carved in the rock by ancient people.  We didn't take pictures of that so let me describe it:  it's a rock with pictures on it carved by ancient people.

Here we are, sans SUV.

We planned on boondocking in the petroglyph site's parking lot.  It was full with a bunch of white vans from Texas for some reason.  There really wasn't any place there to park a 31' RV.  So we drove down a dirt road and found a level area in some grass by a fire pit.  Much more private and remote than the petroglyph parking lot.  It's BLM (Bureau of Land Management) so we can camp free here for up to 14 days.  Rumor has it there's a TA Center nearby where we can do our dumps and take showers (hopefully get water also).

Loneliness and desolation surrounds us.  Here's a tree symbolic of my state of mind.

This is 14 miles from the repair shop so we'll probably just hang out here until we get the car back.  The mechanic asked if we could continue our RV travels for two weeks while they work on the car.  I said no.  We need our follow car.  We're in the boonies and big RVs are not a suitable vehicle for buying groceries and the like.

My mom and I both agree.  We have a great set-up.  We put the RV where we plan to live for a while, and we go exploring with our nimble little SUV.  Since we're two drivers I never have to tow, and the SUV is great.  It's easy for us to drive and...and...

OH GOD MY POOR LITTLE SUV!  HOW COULD THE FORGET TO PUT OIL IN IT!  I LOVE THAT CAR SO MUCH!  THEY DESTROYED MY BABY!!!

Ahem.  Okay.  We're fine.  Everything's fine.

Also...sheep?  Why are there sheep here?  One was shorn so they ain't feral. Free range sheep?

Committed to Boondocking

I write to you still stuck at the RV repair place in Cedar City.  They sent the shop the wrong part to fix our SUV, so it meant another day camping in their crowded parking lot.  The tank levels are good and the solar set-up is successfully sucking sun, the weather is 70s to 80s, so we're essentially fine. 

I mean...it's a free campground, just not a very pleasant one.  Still, within the sanctuary of the RV we have all the comforts of home...cuz it is home.  You wouldn't even know a crowded automotive center lot/use car sales lot is around us unless you looked out the windows.

I've had trouble deciding where to go next.  I want to squeeze the juice out of every life-grape, so I want to have some epic summer travels. I went and looked up festivals I might want to go to so we could aim the RV in that direction.  There was one in Salt Lake at the end of the month, so the idea was to head north in Utah.

My mother has vetoed that idea after this debacle.  I realize I have a few more considerations now:

• No more mountain climbing.  7,000 feet above sea level is our new max.
• We need a Verizon signal every where we go.

The first is due to the smoking brakes both our vehicles suffered.  I've researched how to prevent this in the future and I'm pretty sure I can shift to a lower gear to prevent me from having to use the brake as much.  Still...we don't want to climb above 7,000 feet due to risk of severe altitude sickness, especially by my senior citizen mother.

The second thing I thought would no longer be a concern due to my booster.  Ugh.  It's able to get me one more measly bar, and that doesn't cut where signals are weak.  I couldn't get online in Pioche except at non-peak hours.  That was not conducive to my work.  When we were in the Dixie National Forest I couldn't get ANY signal whatsoever.  I don't want to deal with that again.

Utah is mostly tiny towns between Cedar City and Salt Lake.  I will have Verizon problems more than likely if I continue on our planned route.  We've decided to turn around.  We're going back to Nevada.

The current plan is to boondock our way to Carson City where my mother's doctor is.  She has some health issues to address, and I will see if he can treat mine with my weak bronze Obamacare plan also.

We feel comfortable in Nevada.  It's really become a home state to us.  I know my way around Pahrump, Reno, Vegas, and many parts in between.  I think it's fine to return to last year's stomping grounds.

Yes, I want to travel and explore in our RV, but not at the expense of reliable internet or while having to travel to treacherous heights.  I also don't want to be driving the rig in large cities.  I'm playing it safe this summer.  Carson City, Sparks, Virginia City, and Lake Tahoe.  That's our plan of action for now. 

Maybe next year I'll get adventurous again.  I'm not going to push myself out of my comfort zone unless I really want to.  I have nothing to prove to myself.  If I'm happy that's all that matters, and I know I'm usually happy in Nevada.

I want to mention that across the street to this automotive center is a pawn shop and I sold my old hitch and sway bars for $40.  @-@  I'm pretty proud of that.  I'm glad I don't have to lug them around anymore.

If you're interested in my writing, and are okay with smutty yet well-plotted paranormal romance, my new novel came out two days ago:

Mated to the Jaguars: Paranormal M/F/M Menage

Craziness...and Dixie National Forest

We stayed 8 days at the free campground in Pioche and then planned to go to the Dixie National Forest near Cedar City.

Okay...this area is gorgeous.  Breathtaking.  The mountains were textured walls of rock around us with cedar and pine growing precariously on any smidgen of dirt the roots could find on sheer precipices.  Some mountains were red.  Some were grey with pockholes.  Some were piles of boulders that looked like the Rock Biter from Never Ending Story.  Some were bluish.  Around that were seas of glorious green...

I should have took pictures, because they would have been amazing.  I'm sorry I let you down, but I have a good excuse.

We're going up the mountain road into the forest and climbing...and climbing...and climbing.  I'm not kidding.  It's 20+ miles of a 6% grade upwards.  My mom does not do well with heights.  On one side of us is hugegantic mountain rock wall.  On the other side is a steep (and I mean STEEP) drop into a verdant valley that dives for what has to be MILES downward.  We climbed to the fricking clouds for God's sake!

After huffing and puffing upwards for 20 miles, with nothing but incline ahead of us, I started to fear we would get altitude sickness.  I'm not being overly dramatic, either.  When I pulled over my mother looked green.  At first I thought it was because she'd looked to her right and seen the drop.  Fortunately that's her blind eye and she'd been oblivious to the bottomless pit.  She said she was having trouble breathing.

Well, right as we started the climb was the first camp site.  Small.  Close to the road.  Not very level.  But it seemed a better option than pushing higher.  I said let's go down ten miles and just camp there.  Where we were was too high, and we still have 4 miles to go.

On the way down my mom could see the drop and slowed down to drive extra careful.  I had to slow down too, but the camper wanted to fly down the hill.  So I had to ride on the break to make sure I didn't lose her.

After a while I'm smelling smoke.  Is there a forest fire?

I ask my mom if she smells smoke on the walkie-talkie but the mountains are messing us up.  If we're around a curve from each other she can't hear me.

I passed the campground and pull into a recreation area to turn around.  A white car pulls next to me.

"Your brakes are on fire."

...

...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

My mom pulls next to me wondering why we stopped.  I go to the back of the RV and I smell it. 

Oh my God...what have I done?

My mom says to call a tow truck.  I say we go up the mountain a little and pull into the camp site.  This place we're at is private property (some resort business) and there are signs all around saying no overnight parking.

She says no.  She says her brakes caught fire once and they incinerated away.  In her mind I had no brakes left.

But I knew I had *something* because I'd managed to stop to make the turn. 

We agreed that we would go up to the camp site, get online, and see about what to do.  We just couldn't stay where we were.

So we get there and I open my computer to see if there's mobile RV service that can come up and fix my brakes.

Hey...guess what?  You'll never guess. 

We had no Internet. 

There was no bars on the hotspot.  My mom's phone couldn't get a bar either.  We had no satellite for the TV either.

UGH. 

Well, there was one thing that got a signal...GARMIN!  Yes, my annoying little GPS was able to fight through the mountains.  She told us that there was an RV service center we could go to in Cedar City.

So we spent the night in the campground with the plan to drive into town tomorrow to be able to use Internet again.  (I had work to do). 

The place we were at was beautiful.  If beauty was our priority we would have loved it.  But I need to work.

This morning we went to A-Kicking Tire Truck & Automotive in Cedar City, formerly Desert Automotive and RV Service.  I can't recommend this place enough.  They really took care of.  One of the owners told us to bring in the RV and they'd service it within the hour.

So we drove back up the mountain and I got the RV and brought it there.  I told him to check the SUV's brakes first, because it smelled smokey too.

We needed new rooters.  Our brake pads were fine for another three months, maybe.  I told him him to go ahead and replace them.  As they're doing this they find that a calper melted and cracked.  Okay, so we only had one brake working on one side.  Argh.  We had him change the oil, too, since it was due.  So we're up to $400+ on the SUV and they haven't even looked at the RV yet.

They changed the oil on the RV.  The manual says every 7,500 miles, but it was filthy and needed a change at under 4,000 miles.  I'm guessing we need to change it every time we do the SUV's oil.

Then they looked at the brakes.

They were fine.

@_@  WHAT?

"Your brakes look good.  You can tell they got hot, but they're still in great condition."

WHOOHOO!!!  So it was just the SUV that needed repairs.  We're glad we got that taken care of.  We want our vehicles to last, and for them to run well. 

The shop didn't have the calper we needed replaced.  We're camping in their parking lot until Monday when they get the part in.  It's concrete, noisy, exhaust smelling, with non-stop traffic going by...AND WE LOVE IT!

Because we have Internet again.  ;o;

Pioche Nevada (With the Free RV Park)

Pioche has been a treat for us because we've genuinely never been up this way before.  Pioche is on the way to no where and I can't think of a reason for anyone to want to come up this way unless it's to actually visit Pioche.  (Or you're a Mormon missionary on the way to Elko).

Why should you, the full-time RVer, visit Pioche?  Well, there's a free RV park across the street from the public pool on 4th and Hollywood that gives water, sewer, trash, and shade.  And while you're enjoying that free RV spot there's lots of touristy stuff to do/see in the small town.

Pioche is  a nice little old west defunct mining town of 600 people.

On the one hand you can claim it's like Tonopah because there's derelict buildings from the 1860s here and there.

On the other hand, it's not like Tonopah at all because it's a very nice well-maintained town that feels safe and quaint.  There's not too many eyesores.

As you head up Main Street you see the old Opera House, the old Gem Theater, and the Overland Hotel.  The Overland Hotel has a casino in it and is a tourist destination in and of itself because it's haunted and was featured on the show 'Ghost Adventurers' in 2014.

We didn't know this was the same Overland hotel we saw on that show until we read the flyer after we left.  It wasn't haunted in the casino.  @-@  My mom won $20.

Continuing up Main street (um...that's pretty much the only street with stuff on it) you get to this cafe which is inside one of the original 1860s buildings.

We had some hotdogs there today.  Here's what the inside looks like:

There's a lot of stuff from the 1860s in Pioche because that's when a Paiute Indian showed a Mormon Missionary where a silver mine was in exchange for food and clothes.  The silver mines turned out to be some of the biggest deposits in Nevada.  During the mining boom it was a town of 10,000 people.

There's lots of buildings left from the mining days.  That stone staircase is from the 1860s too.

Mining continued into the 1900s for lead and zinc.  That's when they put in tramways move ore cars.  They're still hanging all over the town.

Here's what they look like up close.

Main Street continues on, with cute touristy shops and stuff.  There were a few other tourists milling around.  A younger couple and an older couple.  So, it's not a crowded tourist destination by any means, but it does draw a smattering of people.

Living here all the time would be rough.  The closest grocery store is 12 miles away, and it's a market, not a super market.  I have no idea where people buy clothes or shoes here.  Thank God for the Internet and online ordering.  If you can't drive the only place to buy groceries is at a tiny gas station store that provides all the necessities.  It even had some expensive meats in a cooler.

 Behind said store is a mountain with a cross on it that my mom insisted I include a picture of.  Enjoy?

Oh, and below us is a yoke for oxen.  It was in the shop of the Overland hotel.  I think I took the picture because I thought it was a wagon tongue and was thinking, 'Hurr hurr, Oregon Trail.'  But I think it's actually a yoke.  So...the yoke was on me.

There's a bunch of cemeteries in Pioche.  A catholic one, a masonic one, and an old west one.  Here's the one from the 1860s.  Boothill Cemetery.

 Here's one of the graves.

. 

A FREE RV Park?!

Let's catch up! 

When we last visited with Searching Fulltime I was in my mom's pastor's yard boondocking in Pahrump.  We stayed there for two dump cycles or so and then moved into the Preferred RV Resort for three days.  It went from 85 degrees to over 100 degrees, so we couldn't boondock for the last three days we stayed in Pahrump.  We had wanted to move on, but suddenly our elusive doctors (mom's PCP and my psychiatrist) got appointments for us on the last few days, so we had to stay extra.

Here's one of the meals I make in the RV.  This is a Veggie Cheese Omelet

Here's how we do yogurt.  Vanilla yogurt from a tub, strawberry jam, and cut up apricots from our host's yard

We didn't get a kitten.  Our rational outweighed emotion.  The full-time RVing life is rough on our cats, and our house is small.  We already have three cats.  That's our max.  Besides that we would need to spay or neuter them and get their shots and yadda yadda yadda.  Just wasn't in the cards.

This guy seriously pulled at the heartstrings, tho.  Always ran up to us when we visited and would cry until she was snuggled.

Preferred RV Resort is a top notch park, very quiet, and satisfactory.  We stayed there for $16/night with Passport America.  We did our dump/water/shower/trash/laundry routine then stuck around to finish up our appointments. 

While we were in Pahrump we got Scrappy and Sultan lion shaves at our favorite groomer.  They're so much happier now.  Seriously, since we don't give them AC all the time this is a necessity.

22yo Sultan is not long for this world.  The groomer was extra gentle with him, and he likes to be groomed, unlike most cats.  As long as he doesn't seem in pain, continues eating and grooming, and continues to try to escape outside, we will keep him alive.  It's just a matter of time though.  I love him, and his death is going to really hit me hard.

Long Haired Scrappy gets extra frisky and happy after a grooming.  She's not suited to desert living, and shaves are mandatory for her. She goes from lethargic and whiny to a happy little monkey-cat every summer when she gets shaved.

Cat #3, Precious, is a young short hair who manages the heat fine and has heart attacks when we stand up near her.  She can't handle a trip to the groomer.

On the way out of Pahrump we had to fill up on propane again.  So according to this blog we go 15 days to a tank of propane.

Okay, so now it's June and we need to get the heck out of Dodge.  It was time to climb to a better climate.  I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out where to go.  California was out and we already did Reno/Sparks/Carson City. 

So North is the plan, but straight North is out since that’s Reno, and Northwest is out since that’s California.  So…Utah?  That was the thought, but St. George is the next stop from Pahrump and it’s just as hot as Pahrump.

I ended up going to Pioche Nevada.  It’s North East from Pahrump and the forecast said it would be in the 80s there.  But…even better than that…

THERE’S A FREE RV PARK!

I’m like…seriously?  That’s so awesome.  It’s a little park (RV park, not a city park) with ten spots that provide water and sewer.  That’s sweet!  We have our solar panels for electric, so we have everything we need…FOR FREE!  On top of that there’s showers across the street.  

Here we are.  Only three other campers here since it's in the middle of nowhere...but it's a high elevation so nice cool weather.  Plus we've got loads of greenery and scenery!

I couldn't get close to the sewer hole due to a boulder so I tied my short 'for dump stations' red sewer hose to my long smelly 'only use it if the other one can't reach' sewer hose and managed to get a connection.  :)

We’re going to stay the seven days here.  The views are great, even though it’s a little blink-and-you-miss-it town.  We stocked up on groceries in Pahrump.  This should be a nice quiet seven days to finish my latest novel and unwind from all the human interaction that happened in Pahrump.

Here's a public pool where it's said we'll be allowed to shower across the street from us.  ^-^

The view behind us is stunning, and this picture will not do it justice.

 

 

  You know, the Borax Bill Motorcross also gives free RV spots with water and sewer to whomever wants them for a certain amount of time.  This actually isn't the first 'free' RV park we've been too...but at Borax Bills we actually boondocked away from the free RV spots cuz it was quieter.  I'm wondering now why we drove all the way to the dump station every time we needed to dump instead of getting into one of those free empty spots.  We always had to stop at that RV park when we dumped for water anyway and the dump station was 4 miles away.  I wonder why...?