The Motorhomesteaders

We hope everyone had a very happy holiday season and we would like to welcome you to the new year! Now that we are through the holidays and we aren’t running around and visiting with friends and family, there is a little time to give a decent update on the trip.

When we left off, we were heading to Las Vegas! We pulled into Las Vegas, Nevada around noon on Saturday December 9th. We stayed at the Las Vegas Thousand Trails and Nate got to pull the first U-turn in the motorhome while towing the Jeep because that’s the way the map brought us in, needless to say everything worked out just fine. We got checked in and set up and had to get going pretty quick because we had made an appointment to get our dogs vaccinations updated. We had a little time to kill beforehand, so we went to a couple stores for some supplies while we waited. That evening we spent some time talking about how the trip has gone and updated the website and uploaded photos. The next day we went on to Nellis Air Force Base and went to the Base Exchange as well as the Information Tickets and Travel office to see what would be worth doing and seeing while we were there. There was a list of attractions and activities as well as tours experiences and museums that were all quite overwhelming so we decided to head back to the Jeep and talk about it all. Trying to decide became difficult because of how much there is to do, so we decided to do the only logical thing: Go to the closest American Legion and ask the bartender and patrons what we should do! If any American Legion members are ever in the Las Vegas area we recommend stopping by Las Vegas Post 8, Nevada. The bartender was very friendly and informative. She took the time to show Nate the property and their facility. After about an hour and a few beverages, we headed back out with lifted spirits and a decent list of things to do and see. We decided to visit the Mob Museum while we were on that end of town which had the added benefit of private parking, so we took advantage of the parking attendant and walked down to Freemont Street before going into the Mob Museum. The bartender at the American Legion said it was an interesting time and she did warn us that the later into the evening you arrive on Freemont, the more indelicate it will become. We walked to a food court area inside one of the casinos off Freemont and got some food and Elya got her first Dunkin Donuts experience with a iced tea and a Boston Crème Bismarck. We then walked down to Freemont Street. While we were there, we saw a lot of vendors and buskers out doing their thing. We had arrived just late enough that things were getting interesting and entertaining. After walking around a bit, we decided it was time to go to the museum. The Mob Museum is very interesting and a bit graphic, but it was a good time. There was so much to see it would warrant going a second time. After the museum it was time to head back but not before we drove down the Las Vegas Strip. The lights and the buildings are very impressive, again there was so much to see that we ended up taking a few trips down the strip over the few days we were there. The next day was December 12th and we drove up to Hoover Dam through the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. It was a nice drive along the lake shore although the level of the lake was quite low. We stopped at the Lake Mead Visitor’s Center on the way out of the recreation area for a couple souvenirs and then we were on our way to see Hoover Dam. Driving the winding road up to the dam there was an impressive amount of security checkpoints and personnel. Understandably so as the dam feeds electricity to customers in Arizona Nevada and California. We made it up to the parking area and walked across the dam to get some pictures then stopped in the gift shop for a couple more souvenirs. After we were done at the dam we headed back towards the big city. We swung back into the American Legion and visited with our new bartender friend for a few minutes then headed to Freemont Street to look around some more. We stopped in and grabbed a bite to eat at a place that had gambling machines near the food court and Nate played $22, of which the machine made very short work. Nate and Elya went on Slotzilla, a zipline ride nearly the length of Freemont Street, but not before depositing Lindsey at one of the fine establishments toward the end of the zipline where her feet could stay firmly planted on the ground.

The next day was December 13th and our last day so we needed to get in all of the things we hadn’t yet done. First we headed out early and went to the Las Vegas Harley Davidson for a couple t-shirts, then drove down the strip for a stop at the New York New York Casino so we could make a stop at Hershey’s Chocolate World. After spending a little bit of time there and looking at large amounts of chocolate, we headed on down the strip to the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, from the History Chanel’s “Pawn Stars.” We didn’t get to see or meet any of the guys from the show, but it was definitely interesting seeing the shop and all of the items they have there. We headed back to Freemont Street planning on going to the Irish pub that a good friend recommended, but a different option won out. We ended up going to Le Thai and had some of the best Thai food we’ve had. We will definitely be going back there if we ever make it back to Las Vegas. As we were leaving the restaurant, Lindsey was stopped by one of the customers and her son and she asked if Lindsey was from Longview, WA. Lindsey was wearing her sweatshirt from Ashtown Brewing Co. We had a short conversation with her and found out that she used to own one of the restaurants in Longview and she was in Las Vegas celebrating her son’s birthday. At this point we had done everything we wanted except one thing. Since the day we pulled into Las Vegas, Elya had been telling us about this place she heard about that had different styles of exhibits called Area 15, specifically MeowWolf’s Omega Mart. If you are as unaware of what that is as we were, lets just say it’s a full size super market that has a selection of prop type items that are for sale with odd names to them…then you walk through one of many “secret passage ways” that take you to an out of this world experience. To say that it is a barrage on the senses is an understatement. If you imagine what a child with a wild imagination would think is going on behind the freezer section in a grocery store you might not even be close to what it was. The transition between the front grocery side and the back was like stepping into a spaceship or onto a foreign planet. Bright colors flashing lights and rooms that seemed to have a theme of their own still on the spaceship idea. It wasn’t Nate or Lindsey’s favorite attraction, but Elya really seemed to enjoy it.

The next day was a travel day. We packed up and headed out to the state campground just south of Lake Havasu City, AZ, Cattail Cove State Park. One of the first things we noticed at the state line between Nevada and Arizona is that Arizona has the worst roads for driving a motorhome that we’ve come across so far. Nate even tried to get away from it by going to the frontage road instead of the highway, but that ended up just taking more time because the frontage road was not paved and resulted in having to do a 5 mile turnaround as there was no place to do another u-turn, but we made it finally to Havasu City and in to the campground. This was a beautiful campground on the lake with spacious sites and great facilities. The weather was cool at night and warm during the day and the campsites had fire pits! We stayed there for a couple days and had fires at night and looked at the stars. This was one of the first stays that felt a little more like camping than RVing and it was a nice change of pace. We have stayed in a couple state campgrounds so far but even though there are fire pits in the PNW campgrounds, they also came with unregulated fire extinguishing rain from above, so campfires were still a novelty at this point. While we were in Lake Havasu City we went into town and saw the London Bridge as well as the American Legion Post 81.

Smelling like campfire smoke and full of refreshments of steak dinner, smores and personal beverages of choice, we hit the hay on our last night there, the next day was our big destination for the beginning of the holiday season, Yuma!

We have been operating on this trip with one main destination in sight: Yuma for Christmas with the Bamer’s! After what seemed to be one of the longest straight-line roads we been on so far, Arizona State Highway 95 through Quartzsite, we pulled into Yuma Lakes RV Resort for what was going to be our longest one place stop. We got the motorhome set up and went to get some dinner. Then we made it over to the Bamer’s about 630 and had a great time catching up with our friends, Ron and Tammy. They were sitting by their propane fire pit when we pulled up, and it’s still a question as to who was more excited to see the others, us or them! After a few weeks on the road, it was definitely refreshing to see friends from home.

We sat by their propane fire pit and emptied the 5gal propane tank two or three times while we were with them over the next week or so, as well as a few beer cans and mixed drink cups.

Our time in Yuma was spent seeing a few of the local attractions as well but we spent a lot of time hanging out with our friends and meeting friends of theirs from their park. Lindsey and Elya got to attend the paint class on two occasions with Tammy, while Nate and Ron went for a drive and visited the local American Legion Post 19. Post 19 is so far the closest to Oregon’s Post 45 in friendliness and banter with the bartender and patrons that we’ve seen. We had several recommendations to visit the Yuma Territorial Prison Historic Park on the banks of the Colorado River. This was a very interesting place that had a lot of historical knowledge to offer. There was also a suggestion of Prison Hill Brewing in historic downtown Yuma. We had plans to go see some other places outside of the Yuma area but some issues with vehicles kept us closer in until Nate could get some parts and had a place to work on them. We were able to see the fighter jets from Yuma Marine Corp Air Station several times during the time we were there, but that wasn’t the only thing in the sky to catch your attention. Towards the north there is a rock formation called Castle Dome, which looks like a citadel on a hill from a distance. There is also a radar blimp or balloon that is tethered above it, and for those of you that know Nate, it was clearly an alien spacecraft for the longer part of the day, until Google proved otherwise. Christmas Day was a different experience being in the motorhome for sure. We had a little tree on the table with the presents, and we had our family time then headed over to the Bamer’s and enjoyed dinner at their park’s clubhouse, then drinks and revelry at their fire pit and watched for shooting stars. We also had the opportunity to meet up with our friends Tom and Teressa while we were in Yuma. They were both very helpful and a great source of information for us as we were getting started with our new adventure on the road as well as our next stops.

After Yuma we were headed to Queen Creek, Arizona to spend New Year’s with Lindsey’s sister and her husband. While we were there Nate had a chance to do the maintenance on the vehicles so that everything can continue to run smoothly. We met several amazing people and had some fun nights with them. NYE was an absolute blast. We had dinner with Lindsey’s sister, her husband and met some new friends, then headed over to another house for a bonfire and fireworks. After the holiday recovery period was up, it was time to go see things. We took a short drive out to Tortilla Flat, AZ. It’s small town in the Superstition Mountains and is the last surviving stagecoach stop along the Apache Trail, according to Wikipedia. We left there and headed to Goldfield, a ghost town tourist destination. Had a quick bite to eat and went to some of the attractions they had there. We also got to go to the World Wildlife Zoo, Aquarium and Safari Park north of Phoenix. This place was also quite impressive. We spent the entire day there and still didn’t get to see everything they had on display. Toward the end of our stay in Queen Creek we were able to take a trip up to the Grand Canyon. We stayed the night in Williams, AZ a small old town above Flagstaff on the historic Route 66 just about an hour from the Grand Canyon National Park. We got up early and headed north, with a stop at the closest Love’s truck stop to pick up a 12v heater. It had dropped down to about 17° the night before and one of the fixes Nate had to do was bypass the heater in the Jeep. Looking back at it he says he probably could have waited till after that portion of the trip to do that, but we made it up there and spent the whole day at the overlooks and the historic buildings on the south rim of the canyon. After we returned to Queen Creek we were getting ready to be on our way again. Nate changed the oil in the motorhome and buttoned up a few more minor maintenance items, Lindsey worked on getting the last few things in the motorhome done, and Elya spent time on her school work and playing with the dogs.

We said our goodbyes to Lindsey’s sister and her husband the night before we left and headed out towards Tucson the next morning.

We stayed at Kartchner Cavers State Park near Benson, AZ. This campground is tucked up right next to the mountains and Apache Peak. One might think that it would block the wind quite well, however it does not. We ended up pulling our slides in so it wouldn’t damage the awning covers because the wind gusts were over 65mph! The park does have some amazing views in every direction and is quite close to Tucson, Tombstone and Ft Huachuca. We were able to see one of the adobe brick houses that Nate’s grandfather and great grandfather built in Tucson back in the 1940’s that is still standing and lived in today! We also spent a day in Tombstone visiting the historic buildings and even witnessed a couple of gun fight reenactments. Of all the old historic towns and attractions we’ve seen so far, Tombstone is by far the most cost friendly experience. The people that worked in the different parts of the town seemed genuinely happy to be there and were happy to answer questions or offer information and history on the town. On our way back we swung into the American Legion Post 24 in Tombstone. Had some decent conversation and after a couple of libations, we were on our way. We also went Ft Huachuca and visited the fort’s history museum and the unmanned aerial vehicle museum as well.

Well, that about catches us up. It is January 14th, and we are now in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We had the opportunity to go to White Sands National Park and to Holloman AFB. The road to both may well rival AZ highway 95 through Quartzsite for long straight-line roads. Highway 70 is however, quite a bit less rough. White Sands is over 250 square miles of white gypsum sand. We drove out to the end and walked up a few of the dunes to take some pictures, then headed out to Holloman AFB. It was by far the least occupied of the installations we’ve visited, but we got a chance to walk through their airplane and UAV informative park.

Thanks for following along with us, until next time!

(photos will be on Instagram and here soon!)

The Motorhomesteaders