We Drive and We Drive

We enjoyed a very easy morning, sleeping in later than normal, drinking coffee, surfing the internet.  It’s a good thing this park has good wi-fi, our aircard isn’t working so well even with the booster! 

After breakfast and packing a lunch we were off.  The cowboy and I love to look at property in areas we like—Pahrump, NV was not one of them—Kingman, AZ is one area we like.  Mountains, trees and yes it is a little cooler than other parts of Arizona but I can live with 60 degrees and sunshine in January!  Miles and miles of ATV trails.  The historic downtown is really cool—a great visitors center and museum.  There are lots of restaurants—we had some really good burgers at Mr. D’s today and I resisted having a milkshake!  There are FOUR grocery stores, Home Depot, Wal Mart, Petsmart, etc.  There is even a quilt shop which I used the “despicable app” to find —I wasn’t impressed but it will do in a pinch!

Back at the RV park we discovered the water was shut off—seems they were repairing a leak—it wasn’t long before it was back on and we were in business. 

See the size of our site—nice! 

Before we left Montana Google+ starting backing up ALL my photos on this laptop—that’s a LOT of photos and every morning I would get this little message—“946 (or some number) photos left to backup”—if I inadvertently started this nightmare, I don’t know how I did it.  After reading the blog, Technomadia’s most recent post, I decided to check the usage on our aircard and was surprised to see how much we had used since leaving home.  I was puzzled and wondered if the Google+ auto backup feature was doing it—every time I loaded photos to Picasa, Google+ would auto-backup those photos.  I looked everywhere on Google for instructions on how to disable this and came up empty handed—seems it is common for Google+ to auto backup photos on androids and iPhones but not computers. 

So, I checked with my computer expert, Rick—he also had never heard of Google+ doing backup on computers, just phones but he sent me a few things to check—none of those suggestions worked and he offered to do some more checking for me.  So tonight I turned on the computer after being gone all day and there was this screen telling me Google+ was going to do a back-up and I saw RED!!!  So, I did another Google search—I had all ready done one a couple days ago but found only the phone disable instructions—and up popped this forum of irate people cursing Google+ for installing software on their computers without their knowledge.

Yep, software—and whether or not Google+ is doing it without the knowledge of computer owners, I have no idea—I could have inadvertently clicked somewhere telling Google+ it was OK to do so BUT, you can bet I went straight to my Control Panel and deleted that there software!  Done! 

And that’s it for our day in sunny Arizona!

We Move

We traveled a mere 162 miles today breezing through sin city, waving as we drove by.  Much to the cowboy’s dismay (he doesn’t like tall bridges) we crossed the new bridge which spans the Colorado River and bypasses Hoover Dam.  At 840 feet over the Colorado River—it’s one tall bridge, the second tallest in the US (the Royal Gorge bridge is taller) and cost $240 million to build.  The concrete side barriers are so tall you cannot see over them to the river below even sitting up as high as we do in the motorhome—so it wasn’t so bad (at least I didn’t think so). 

Out the driver side window you can see the river just over the top of the concrete barrier.

A scenic pit stop just after we crossed the bridge.

After getting set up at Blake Ranch RV Park and having lunch we took off in the jeep for a tour.  These guys decided to cross the road in front of us.  I never knew it was so beautiful around Kingman—mountains covered in cedars and pines surround you.  As Al says, we bumped, scraped, rocked and rolled up this little narrow mountain road—we had a blast and the scenery was spectacular!!

This is one of those rare RV parks—they state, “big rig friendly.”  They are most definitely big rig friendly, we did not have to unhook the trailer and I think we could have parked the jeep behind the trailer—a very long and wide site plus their interior roads are nice and wide.  It is a little closer to the freeway than we like to be but it will be OK for a few days.  And John, they take horses!

LED Lights and A Visit

The cowboy spent the morning being a contortionist—installing our new LED lights.  In 2010 while in the Quartzsite area, we checked out the LED lights being offered—our motorhome has mostly fluorescent tubes and in 2010, the price was $40/tube—we bought one!  To replace all the light bulbs in our motorhome at those prices would have cost us about $800!!  Now the LED lights are less expensive, still not cheap, but less expensive—Michael ordered 6 tubes for just a little less than $17 each and today he installed those.  Here he is installing the one under the bathroom cabinet--

Sunday lunch was delicious—I had marinated a pork tenderloin overnight and cooked it on the grill.  We also had Pioneer Woman crash hot potatoes, carrots and green beans—very, very good!

After lunch we took a drive—found what looks like a dry lake bed which went on for miles and miles—there were some guys out there flying a remote control helicopter.

Michael’s buddy Sarge told us to go and visit a friend of his—they used to work for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks together—so we did today.  We knocked on the door, a very pleasant lady opened the door, Michael said, “a guy named Sarge sent us” and she shut the door in our face!!

But, she opened it up right quick laughing—we spent about a hour visiting with Bruce and Diane—they live in Butte, MT when it is not cold and Diane has a daughter living in Las Vegas.  Very nice people, we wished we had gone to visit them earlier rather than the day before we were leaving!

Back home Michael began putting stuff away—the grill, etc. and I walked Ms. Emmi—it may be warm here during the day but when the sun goes behind that mountain, it gets cool!  Of course, not as cool as back home in Montana—that’s for sure!

More Scotty’s Castle

As there wasn’t a whole lot going on around here today I will tell you some more about Scotty.  Scotty became a legend, riding with Buffalo Bill, then touting his non-existent gold mine and finally bragging about the castle he was building in Death Valley.  All this notoriety brought total strangers to the Death Valley Ranch (its real name) where they were entertained by the Johnsons’ and Scotty.  The truth was, Scotty didn’t even live at the “castle.”  Albert Johnson built Scotty a little cabin on another ranch about 4 miles away where he could partake in the pass times he enjoyed and the Johnsons’ didn’t allow—drinking, card playing, etc.

To entertain his guests Albert Johnson built a music room--

This little instrument could be used to play the chimes in the clock tower-

The Johnsons’ began to have so many guests, another music room was built as an addition to the house and Albert purchased a $25,000 Welte organ—the organ could be played by an organist or by using paper music rolls.  Our guide let us hear two songs from the organ—totally delightful!!

Can you tell we enjoyed our tour immensely???

We are leaving here on Monday and Michael wanted to fill the motorhome with both diesel and propane so we went for a little drive this morning.  Back home I did a load of laundry in my little Splendide washer/dryer—it dries now, I am so thrilled!!  Ms. Emmi got to take us for several walks and tonight the cowboy took me out to dinner.  Pretty good day I would say!  Oh, and the cowboy changed out our propane regulator. 

Scotty’s Castle

Several readers told us not to miss Scotty’s Castle and are we ever glad we didn’t let the 114 mile one way trip deter us!!  An amazing place and an amazing story!  There was a guy, Walter Scott, he rode with Buffalo Bill in the Wild West Show.  He conned wealthy east coast men into investing in his non-existent gold mine in Death Valley and Albert Johnson was one of those investors.  But Johnson was a little smarter than any of the other investors—he came out to see the mine, realized he was being conned and didn’t care.  He and Scotty became the best of friends—in the castle brochure Johnson is quoted, “We have been partners for a long time.  Scott has a great appetite for money and I like to feed it.  He has always repaid me—in laughs.” 

Albert Johnson’s wife Bessie came out west from Chicago and she too fell in love with Death Valley—they decided to build a vacation home and thus Scotty’s Castle was born.  It was neither a castle nor did it belong to Scott but calling it Scotty’s Castle was just fine with the very private Johnson’s. 

The structure was started in 1929 and building was still going on in 1931.  Johnson recognized the power of owning water and built the house in Grapevine Canyon where above the house site is located a spring producing 300 gallons of water per minute.  The mechanics of the house were way ahead of its time—they had a solar hot water heating system:

A freeze damaged the solar heating structure beyond repair—it is in the budget for restoration.

The house never used candles or gas light fixtures, it always had electricity supplied by Pelton wheels powered by the water coming down the canyon.   The electricity fluctuated, making the lights dim and brighten, the Johnson’s didn’t like this so Mr. Johnson called up his friend Edison, as in Thomas Edison and ordered a huge bank of batteries—the Pelton wheels produced the electricity and it was stored in this bank of nickel iron batteries.  ALL the batteries had to be filled with water TWICE a day! 

Does this give our solar powered RV friends battery envy???

The plans for this house were just incredible—one of the non-completed designs was the swimming pool.  This photo shows only half of the pool—it was huge with a bridge going over the middle of it—it was to have been lined with beautiful blue tiles with special tiles around the top—many of these tiles are still stored in the basement tunnels. 

 

The depression and the creation of Death Valley National Monument put a halt to the construction efforts.  When surveyors came to mark the boundaries for the park it was discovered Mr. Johnson had built his house on land he didn’t own.  It took him six years to finally strike a deal to buy back the property from the US government—property he had all ready paid for once. 

Ornate blacksmithing!!

This place was simply awesome—that such a structure could have been built in the middle of nowhere using technology way before its time--Michael and I both so enjoyed both the tours we took—park rangers dress in period costume to give the tours and both rangers we had were outstanding!  We took a tour of the underground/mechanical workings and the house.  Tomorrow I’ll include some more photos and a little more of the story. 

Chores Day

Ms. Emmi was a little shaggy looking for desert living so into the shower she went (not willingly!) this morning and once she dried we set up a beauty parlor outside under the little carport we have with this site and Emmi got a haircut!

Here’s our next RV:

It was candy stripe pink—kind of cute but I don’t think the cowboy was too impressed!

Do you have trouble when binding quilts?? Paulette had a link to this Binding tutorial and while I bind my quilts using most of the methods shown in the YouTube video, there was one tip which blew my socks off—don’t stress out making those binding strips match perfectly when sewing the 45 degree angle—just lay the strips in a “cross” and stitch, eyeballing the 45 degree line and whacking off the excess—can’t wait to try this one!!

The search engine on my blog as well as other blogs I read has stopped working.  I mentioned it in last night’s blog hoping Rick had a solution—nope, his doesn’t work either.  But, Rick did have a suggestion—use the one which appears in the top blue bar located at the top of any blog using the Blogger platform.  I tried it and it does work—not as well as a blog specific search engine but it does work.

Well, if you want to know how to do anything—watch a YouTube video—I learned how to take a screen shot using my new iPad—now if I could just figure out how to get that photo uploaded into Picasa  I would be doing well!!  Recognize that “despicable quilt shop app” Paulette??  It worked like a charm except the quilt shop it led me to in Pahrump doesn’t exist—maybe.  Seems there is little if any zoning in Pahrump—there will be a street of beautiful, newer homes and one of them will have the garage closed in and there will be a business there—today I saw a shop which advertised makeup tattooing.  The quilt shop was supposedly just down the street from that particular house—new house, yard wasn’t even totally landscaped but no sign, nothing to indicate it was a quilt shop other than a package which had been delivered and left on the front porch—looked suspiciously like a roll of batting.  

The cowboy had a little episode today—seems he is tired of our bay doors falling due to worn out gas cylinder props—he gets whacked on top of the head causing the air to turn blue! So, he made a run to the local RV shop looking for those and a new propane regulator.  He found the gas props and the propane regulator will be in tomorrow.  Success! 

Has anyone read The Book Thief??  Oh, my—a very disturbing, stay with you kind of book, I am so glad I read it.  A young woman growing up in a foster home in Nazi Germany develops a love for books and turns to stealing in order to get those books she loves so much—the story is much deeper but I will let you read the book for yourself!  It’s the first book I’ve read on my iPad mini using the Kindle app—I loved it!

Death Valley

Early this morning we decided to take a drive over to Death Valley National Park—remote, barren, wild, scenic, dry, rocky, colorful—and full of tourists!  We were surprised to find Death Valley crowded so to speak—the visitor’s center was very crowded as were most of the pull-outs for scenic overlooks.  The park covers 3 million acres so “crowded” is a loosely used term but the areas for viewing the park by car were crowded.  We enjoyed our drive and will probably go back this week while we are here.

Rugged and scenic!

 

We thought this rock looked like a monster of some sort—see his slanting eyes and piggy nose?? 

Thanks to all of you who left comments about the anticipated birth of our great-grandchild—we think is is quite “great” too!

And, I finally solved the problem of the new iPad not wanting to connect with our Cradlepoint router.  Rick was right in that Cradlepoint routers have a problem with Apple devices.  Once I called Cradlepoint and was directed to re-configure the router settings the iPad connected immediately.  Yea, now I can download that quilt shop app Rick made so many disparaging remarks about!!  And Rick, how come the search engines on our blogs aren’t working??  Couldn’t search on my own blog yesterday and just tried to search your blog for the exact name you called the quilt shop app but your search engine isn’t working either??