EUREKA! (Nevada)

Apparently Life Magazine said the portion of Highway 50 that goes through Nevada is 'The Loneliest Road in America.'  All the highway signs have this written on it like it's a good thing?  (I guess?)

Source: Wikipedia

Meh.  I think the road from Las Vegas to Reno is 'lonelier' and a longer drive by several hours, but this road is more famous because it used to be the Pony Express.  Why am I talking about Highway 50?  I'll get to that...

Yes, we did the Cardinal RVing sin of staying at an overnight truck stop for two nights.   We were out of the way, there was plenty of room, and we spent lots of money at the gas station/store/restaurant.  Before anyone says, 'The reason there was alot of room is because other RVers respect the rules,' look at the pictures in the last post.  It's a dust pit.  Our RV got caked with the dust.  Loud trucks surrounded us and infused our air with the essence of diesel.  No fool would stay in such a place longer than they have to except for us.  And we needed the rest.

So now I needed to decide where to go.  I looked for Passport America RV parks.  The nearest ones were Tonopah to the west or Elko to the north.  I picked Tonopah since we want to go west to get to Carson City eventually.  The Passport America park there had loads of 1 star 'if you value your life don't stay here' reviews.  Ugh.  So Elko then. 

Elko (or Wells near Elko, rather) had two parks.  The choicest one was fully booked.  The 2nd choice had a disconnected number and didn't reply to my email.  Both parks only had 20 spots so I didn't want to go without a reservation.  Since I couldn't reach anyone, Elko was out.

UGH.  Where the heck do we go?  We need showers and to dump tanks.  I spent an hour looking at all the parks between Ely and Carson City.  Too expensive.  No shower.  Racist owners?  (What the heck?)  Too expensive.  Too far out of the way.  AHHH!

I find an RV park in Fallon Nevada attached to a casino (mom will be happy) and only $15/night (Milly will be happy).  But it's a four hour drive, and no showers.  AHHH!

I don't really see many other options.  In Ely there is a truck stop on an Indian Reservation (Native American Reservation?) that has showers as well as a free dump station with free potable water.  I figured if I dumped and got water and showered there I could head West with a little more room for winging it.

But I don't dump.  My mom and I just went there in the car and showered.  When I told her I wanted to go to a casino RV park in Fallon she said she would suffer through the four hour drive.  So...why dump when we'd be at an RV park that night? 

Silver Sage Truck Stop in Ely is a great place to shower.  $8.50 allowed my mother and I the use of a handicapped shower where we took turns.  Okay, shower done.  Now we don't need an RV park with a shower.

And so, we got onto Highway 50 and would be driving almost the entire stretch, from Ely to Fallon in one day.  Oh boy.  At least this would be our last long drive for a while.  Carson City is less than an hour away.

Before our fiasco with the SUV mechanic I had a plan to visit all the old west towns in northern Nevada.  There was a lot of mining in the 1850s and a lot of stuff is left over from that era.  I enjoy going to museums, checking out old buildings, reading historical markers--that's my thing.  But the lack of campgrounds in this area that meet my cheapo criteria, along with some major heat, got me to forget that plan.  We just want to get to Carson City and have RV hook-ups and amenities for a month.

HOWEVER...we did pass through Eureka today, which is said to be the best preserved old west town in Nevada.  And, dang it, I demanded a pit stop!  So here we are!

YAY!  Old-timey buildings!  Laura Ingalls probably bought a pound of butter and some salt-pork here in
eighteen-blah-diddy-blah!  COOL!

This is a cliff of coal behind the ice cream shop where we parked the RV.  So...yeah.  @-@

The museum was closed...how dare there.  I really wanted to see a chamber pot.

Here's an old abandoned hotel.  I bet it's haunted.  (C'mon, it's totally haunted.)

Unngghhh.  Would it be a TMI to tell you ancient crumbly masonry turns me on?

I find a lot of old timey buildings apply the 'paste rocks together with cement' technique.

Here's a chunk o' the main drag.  Probably was a shot-out right before we arrived.

Abandoned old-timey buildings are held up by the one new one.

This building is actually just a facade.  The whole thing had caved in, but the facade stays up due to the side buildings it's connected too.

Here's a closer look.  Doesn't it look OLD?  I mean...this thing has been around since before good hygiene.

This is the third opera house I've seen in an old west town.  Apparently opera was big back in the gun-slinger days.  There was that one episode of Bonanza about an opera house too...

I'm going to say it was a brothel.  I don't actually know.   The old timey buildings had numbers that correlated to a map of some sort.  I never got one.

Old-timey sidewalk.  :)

This is older than your mom.

If you sneezed on this building it would cave in.  (Hence the fence).

Can't have an old west town without a masonic temple.  :shudders:

Another view.

Okay!  I hope you enjoyed your tour of Eureka.  We spent all of half an hour here to picture up the blog some.  I wish I could have at least gotten into the museum.  It was late though.  My mom can't drive after dark.

Rest stops without bathrooms used to infuriate me...until I started driving a house around. 

We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

I know this blog has been a bummer for the last few weeks.  The crap is over, and loving life on the road continues!

Last night we stayed at the Walmart in Cedar City because it was too late for a long drive once the 2nd mechanic fixed the car.  Cedar City left a bad impression on us, and not just because of a monster in mechanic's clothing.  I've never had more people bump me with their shopping carts, bump me as they're getting by, try to cut me off while driving (I'm in a 31' motorhome, mind you) not care if they block you, and basically just act like shitty people. 

One 'nice' looking family all gathered around the tomato display to laugh at a mentally ill man who was talking to himself.  They were pointing to him to make sure their young children saw him and got to laugh.  Really.  My mother looked at me and said, "At this point, what did you expect?"

A truck driver yelled at me when I pulled into the back of Walmart to turn the RV around (it was the only space large enough to do it).  When I apologized out my window and said I would be out of his way in a sec--"JUST HURRY THE F**K UP!"  Yeah.  And I didn't get upset about it.  Once you know that this is the status quo you can't take it personal.  If this had happened anywhere else I would have been seriously pissed.  Here, I just shook my head and laughed.  Oh, Utah!

I will do everything in my power never to return here.

I decided to head for Ely Nevada.  Our ultimate goal is Carson City.  I have a nice campground there that I plan to stay at for a month of 'recovery.'  But I can't get there in one trip with my mom following, and I need to wait until I've gotten my royalty payments for the month.  So, I headed to Ely to enjoy another historic Nevada town.

Pioche is a junction point between Cedar City and Nevada.  I could have stayed at the free campground again, but we had a bad experience when paying to use the shower at the pool.  It left us disenchanted with the area. 

Free Campsites.net had a boondock between Ely and Eureka.  I thought this would be great because I want to explore both old west towns.  But when I got to Ely, after driving for hours, I was ready for the trip to be done for the day.  The boondock was still 37 miles away.  This is just too much driving.  We wanted to stay somewhere in town.

I started glancing around for a cheap campground or free boondock.  When we got gas at the Shell station I noticed a dirt lot where trucks were parked.  I asked the clerk and he told me no one cared if we spent the night there.  SOLD!

Nice, huh?  The SUV is hiding on the other side of us.  She's still traumatized after her ordeal.  Poor little car.

I'm trying to get the RV in the picture without showing our license plate

I really like this Shell station because it had 'large vehicle pumps' to the side.  I would have had a lot of trouble manuvering the smaller pumps.

I know that boondocks like this are 'one night' sort of affairs, but we are devastated from everything and really need to rest for a bit.  We're going to see if we can push it to two.  Don't tell anyone, okay?

Tomorrow I hope I'll have the energy to explore Ely and give you some pictures.  @-@

The Nightmare is Over

This is in regards to the fact that Cedar Pines Automotive and RV or A-Kicking Truck Tire & Automotive, whatever name this crooked sleaze operation goes by at the address of 1001 South Main Street in Cedar City Utah, did an oil change in my car WELL over a month ago and forgot to put oil in.  Destroyed my engine.  Destroyed my life for five weeks while being as cruel and obnoxious as possible during the repair ordeal.  After three weeks of dicking me around, they demanded I pay $1,200 for them to fix the engine they destroyed.  I got the police involved.  The police told them to fix it in two weeks or face charges with the County Attorney.  Today was the deadline.

I've been too upset to write during this horror show.  We've suffered for the loss of our follow car, and also the loss of a good chunk of our summer travel.  I haven't posted here much, but I stayed in the driving range of Cedar City, either Pioche or a campground in Caliente, in order to be able to retrieve my car when it was finally done.

The mechanic is a jackass.  He held it together when the police threatened him with charges, making false promises as usual, then he sent me a nasty email saying he will pick the deadline.  Not me or the police.  This is after he had our car for three weeks already.  We didn't get a loaner because he's a sleaze.  We didn't get any consideration to the fact he destroyed our beautiful car.

He would not talk to me on the phone.  Every call went to voicemail after a ring or two.  He talked to me by email.  Eventually the dunce, named Landon Pi1key, realized he was giving me a nice paper trail for court.  He changed the last name on his email to something else in the email he sent two weeks ago.

And that was the last time I heard from him.  I called this morning, and was swiped left to voicemail.  I emailed and got no reply.  So I drove the RV down there, fully prepared to get my vehicle towed out of this man's incompetent auto shop to someone who might actually know how to replace an engine.

I'm going to paste what I posted in Facebook now.  This covers it:




This morning was the deadline the police gave the mechanic to fix our car. I emailed the mechanic and didn't get an answer. I called and was immediately put to voicemail.

I called another mechanic to get him to tow the car out of the asshole mechanic for me. He said that the mechanic had closed their business. The shop was closed and empty and all the cars were moved out of there.

I get a pain in my shoulder like I did when I had my last three heart attacks. There's nothing I can do but drive the RV there. I feel my lunch coming up my throat as I drive. I just want to puke.

So we drove to Cedar City. Our car was sitting in the parking lot of the business across the street from the mechanic. There it was. My car. Sitting there. I used my spare key to unlock and open the door.

Then I put the key in the ignition.

It turned on.

I didn't know how well it would function, but for now it was driveable.

I look across the street and I see that the mechanic is still open and all the cars are still clogging his lot like usual. I see the asshole I dealt with on the phone walking around. The other mechanic was wrong.

I went into the mechanic to get the keys. "Why didn't you call me?"

I get a contract shoved into my face. Waive all liability for future problems on the engine and acknowledge anything that goes wrong is my fault because I wouldn't pay them the $1,200.

"Sign this or we're not giving you the keys."

I see the keys sitting in front of him on my mom's red key chain. I snatch them and say I'm not signing anythign.

We bolted out of there. I drove the RV and my mom drove the car. I try to find a place to turn around to bring it to another mechanic, but I can't. Finally I find a mechanic in a neighborhood. I park the RV on the street and have her pull in to this nice looking Mexican mechanic/house.

She had been honking at me nonstop during the drive. She was overheating. All her lights were lit up. She wanted me to pull over, but I was determined to get her to another mechanic.

The mechanic gets us into his service shop right away. He works for an hour and then drives away with our car. He's gone another forty minutes. Then he parks and comes into the waiting room.

"Yeah, that's a good engine. They just had it hooked up wrong."

What?

"And they didn't put any coolant in it."

What?

"I put coolant in and drove it 45 miles away. It's running great. They just had to hook up the hoses correctly and put in coolant. The engine looks pretty new."

What??

"That will be $117."

THAT'S IT?!

It's over. It's finally over. Our car is back and running fine again. The hundred bucks was nothing compared to what we thought it was going to cost. The car is running like new again.

I cried. My mom cried. I'm still worked up and upset. I can't believe the nightmare has finally ended. THANK GOD!!!!  (End Facebook Post)

Of course I'm going to spread the word everywhere I can about this horrible mechanic.  One thing at a time.  My first goal is to get the heck out of Utah and never return!  We are boondocking in Cedar City somewhere, but will be out of this state ASAP tomorrow.

Hopefully my blog can get back to happy times.  I'm full of gratitude that this is over with and didn't wipe out my savings.  I'm ready to move on.

AND I'M SO HAPPY TO HAVE MY BEAUTIFUL CAR BACK!!! 

Remember the Alamo (Why You Shouldn't Use Your RV As A Car)

We have been without our follow car for a month now.  We're in remote rural areas, far from the Targets and Walmarts of the world.  Sometimes we take a half-mile walk to the gas station to get some convenience store groceries.  We really need our fricking car back.

Today we had to drive in the RV because we needed propane.  Once we got it we decided to use the RV as a car and go somewhere.  We felt like we deserved it during our ongoing hellish situation with the car.

We drove to Alamo Nevada, which isn't far from Area 51.  We stopped at one tourist spot on the side of highway 93, which I probably should have taken pictures of for you, since it was a nice building with aliens painted all over it.

I'm sorry.  I'm miserable over the fact that our car is most likely destroyed and there's little hope of us getting it back any time soon.  I haven't been able to write.  I'm drinking more than I should.  I'm in a funk. Please bear with me as a I don't take pictures for the blog.  Hopefully soon this can be over with.  (I won't go into detail but the mechanic asked for $1,200 to fix the engine he destroyed with the botched oil change after dicking us around for weeks.  Police got involve.  The bastards still have my broken car.)

Anywho, we didn't feel like going back to where we're camping yet, so we continued down 93 to the tiny town of Alamo.  Rumor has it there was a Mexican restaurant there if you got off the highway.

So we did.  We drove down a neighborhood street lined with houses. 

And then I stopped.  The wires crisscrossing the street were LOW.  Really low.  I didn't know if my 12' high RV was going to make it through. 

I went further with our satellite dipping just four inches below a wire.  If we'd bounced on a bump then we would have caught the wire.  This is crazy!

RVs can not be used as cars!  I have a high profile vehicle.  We were barely making it under those wires.  We tried to go back up another street to get out of there, but I swear the wires were hanging even lower!  We turned around and slowly went back the way we came.

My RV drives so easily sometimes you forget you're in a gigantic tall house on wheels.  If I was day-dreaming I might have gotten caught on a wire today.  We can not use the RV as a car.  We need our car back.  We are asking for trouble every time we take the rig off main roads.

So, from now on I'm going to Remember the Alamo when I'm driving the RV.  That means to watch out for low hanging wires!

Continuing

Pioche is a beautiful town with nice, welcoming people.  One of those places where if someone sees you walking they offer you a ride and are actually a nice person being nice and not a creepo.

But we are stressed and upset over the car situation.  We still don't have it back, and have heard nothing.  I'm still holding out a slim hope that this will work out without drastic action.  My deadline for when I've reached 'enough is enough' status is marked on the calendar.

Pioche is small enough that everything downtown is walkable, and that's basically just two restaurants, some boutiques, some casino/hotel/bars, and a convenience store/gas station.  The last one is where we've been getting the odd supply. 

The walk to said convenience store is a short half mile, but it feels like we're climbing up a 90 degree angle.  My mom made the steep walk twice already.  Once to visit the casino and once to do our huge backlog of laundry with my help.  The laundromat in town is an RV park laundry room that's open to the public.  These walks really knocked the wind out of her.  We don't have her good walker (the one she can sit down on) because it's in the back of the blankety blank SUV.  She has to take frequent breaks standing up, red faced and gasping.  She's just not able to make any more walking trips.

We both need to lose weight.  We were well on the way on a good diet before this horrible situation.  And I know I can't make excuses for stuffing my face.  That's all on me, especially when I'm the cook, and my mom would diet if I made her.  It's just that when you're dealing with such a shit-storm you say 'screw it.'  I'm sure I've gained 15 pounds over this ordeal. 

If you pray, please send a prayer for our situation.  I'm a self-employed full-time RVer in reasonably good health, living the dream most people never get a chance to.  I shouldn't be feeling as miserable as I am right now.  These people have really screwed up our lives.