Camping in Las Vegas

Our campground in Vegas was surprisingly easy to find & get into.  It is located at Sam's Town & Gambling Hall (of course!) on Boulder Highway. 

This is part of the indoor park at Sam's Town - it is a huge complex of shops, casino, bingo, theaters and restaurants.

with an indoor waterfall (notice the eagle perched on the left) &

a grizzly bear!  Both were animated as was...

the wolf who walked out to introduce the big watershow!

It was pretty!  It is Las Vegas!

Friday afternoon, we took the shuttle downtown to Fremont Street - old Las Vegas - to meet the kids.  It was a part of Vegas that I had never seen.

Always wondered what The Golden Nugget looked like!

The California Hotel looks like old Vegas.

And it was really fun to see all of the neon lights when night hit!

Robin (Johnny's mom) & I made some new friends!

 

Saturday evening, we celebrated Johnny's 30th birthday & Robin's 29th! (how did she do that?)

 

After several days of beautiful, warm weather, Sunday was cool and cloudy, so we met on the Strip and went to my favorite place in Vegas - Madame Toussand's Wax Museum.

Me & my bestie - Johnny Depp

Brooke & Alycia chatting up Hef

Giving Oprah some tips

 

Went back to the Strip to see the kids off.  Even in the cloudy weather, the hotels are amazing.

The Mirage

Inside, of course, the weather is beautiful.

One of the fountains at Caesar's Palace.

A dragon for the Chinese New Year.

Always great to see our kids!  It was also lots of fun to see Johnny's family - Robin & John, Bob & Jolena, and Brooke & Johnny's friends - Mel & Ray, Julia, Elena & Andrew! Love you all!

 

We heard that everyone made it back to frigid Minnesota & we took off for Leeds, Utah (just north of St. George) on Monday.  Will write more about that next time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Road to Sin City

It was time to head towards Las Vegas to meet the kids for Johnny's 30th birthday.  I have to admit, it was nice to leave the traffic & crowdedness of the Phoenix area.  Our first stop was at North Ranch SKP (Escapees) park.  Since we were just staying one night, we chose to dry camp (no hookups).  Boy, did we miss our electric heater - it got really cold that night. 

We left bright & early, because we were both so cold, heading northwest to Kingman, AZ, which is located on the historic Route 66.  The drive that morning was beautiful! 

These are Joshua Trees - in the Joshua Tree State Park of Arizona.

They are amazing, prehistoric looking trees - I have never seen anything like them.

There were also some beautiful mountain passes we drove through.

 

We had two days in Kingman, so we thought we would go down to the old part of town that sits next to one of the remaining sections of Route 66.

They had a fun little museum that chronicled Route 66 - how it had been a route followed by Native American tribes many years ago, the pioneers in wagon trains, then the desperate people during the Great Depression.  Huge numbers of them came to the west & California looking for work.  Sadly, only 8% of them stayed - there was no work.

Kingman also has silver mines & turquoise mines -

This has to be the biggest chunk of turquoise I have ever seen!

 

A beautiful, Zuni made, squash blossom necklace.

I laughed when I saw this diorama of the pregnant pioneer woman.  When I was in labor with Brooke (it was a long labor!), I was so tired, I was hallucinating that I was in a covered wagon & heard someone say "Throw her out, she's done for."

One of Kingman's famous sons is Andy Devine - a character actor a lot of us Baby Boomers know him from the shows "Andy's Gang" & "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok".  He sounded like he was as nice a man as they come & very humble about his success.

The drive to Las Vegas was again, surprisingly beautiful - the red rock and breath taking canyons in Lake Mead Recreation Area, and Lake Mead itself.

We are looking forward to our time in Vegas - catching up with the kids & their friends!

 

 

 

 

 

A Week in Mesa

Ron & I used to attend the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show each February to get out of the Minnesota winter.  We hadn't been for many years, but thought it might be fun to go again, so we headed toward Phoenix for the week.  Driving in city traffic was harrowing after not having to deal with it much on our travels, but we found our campground in Mesa - Palm Gardens RV Resort.

It is a lovely RV park - lots of Minnesotans & Canadians!

One of the two pools & the palm trees (not native, but they sure are pretty)

And there were orange, lemon, tangerine & grapefruit trees everywhere - yum!

Since the horse show didn't start until Thursday, we took the opportunity to go RV shopping.  There were hundreds of RVs to look at right along the street we were staying on.  It was great as we are hoping to upgrade our trailer sometime this year.

 

Scottsdale was only a short distance away, so off we went.  The show grounds are much bigger than we remembered.  There a many more arenas and everything seems bigger.  We were so happy to see our friends, Don & Sandi Holien.  They are the creators of all of the beautiful leather jackets I have worn for many years.  Always love-love-love to see them whether on the road or back in Minnesota.

Sculpture near the entrance of the show.

Arabian Costume horse in the warm up area.

Country English Pleasure horse in Wendell Arena. 

Me! The sculpture is made out of scrap metal parts.  There were several of these sculptures on the grounds & in the market place.  They were incredible!

 

We were also excited to be able to spend a day with Ron's brother, Dan and his wife, Chris, who were in Mesa visiting Chris's parents.  We went to the Mesa Flea Market (HUGE!!!) and then out to the Suspicion Mountains (yeah, I know, more pictures of mountains).

Dan & Chris

Views along the trail.

The view from the top.

Saguaro.

More cacti!

Ron & I on the trail!

We are on the move again - driving up to Las Vegas via Congress, AZ & Kingman, AZ.  We hope our weather holds, as it has been beautiful - sunny & warm!

 

 

Cochise Stronghold

On our last days in Benson, we wanted to go up to the mountain range we had been looking at all month.  They are called the Dragoons, and we had heard that the hiking was supposed to be outstanding.

What we didn't know was that the drive in was 17 miles of not so great dirt road! About half way in we wondered what we had gotten ourselves in to.

But we found a place to park at the end of the road and headed up the trail.

It was a beautiful hike up to the mountains.  They call this area the Cochise Stronghold because the Native American chief, Cochise and his band of Apaches, hid in this area, evading capture for many years. 

This is Council Rock, where it was originally said that the treaty with the Apaches was signed (later, it was found that it was not here, but it sounded cool!)

 

The trail crisscrossed this wonderful little mountain stream several times.

The higher we got, the more rapids and waterfalls. 

 

And the views were spectacular!

Next week, headed to Mesa (eastern suburb of Phoenix).