Las Vegas Thousand Trails, Las Vegas, NV - March 26 - March 31, 2015

As we left the Boulder Beach Campground, we stopped at the Lake Mead Rec Area Visitor's Center.

Stamped our passport, browsed the place, and took one last picture of the Lake Mead area. You can just barely see our campground in the picture.

Then we drove across the bridge overlooking the Hoover Dam. Maybe next time, we will stop and do the tour. Things are limited when you don't have a Toad.

Through Henderson, with a stop at Walmart, and on up the Boulder Highway.

Here is the Thousand Trails sign.

The driveway to the check-in station.

Now this is a tight park.

Here we are, in space 71. Good thing we didn't have a toad. There was no place to park one at our site.

Even though it is crowded, there is a nice activity center and pool area.

And the Wifi even works pretty good there.

We haven't been to the downtown area or Strip yet. I have been doing a few things to the RV.

When I was inspecting the roof (which is in really good shape), someone did a crappy job of caulking. Look how thick it is.

So I peeled quite a bit off and laid down a nice amount of Dicor. Under the thick junk I took off, it really was sealed pretty well, it just looked ugly. Much better now.

Here is where my 4 solar panels will go.

We had a bit of an issue the other day. It could have been bad.

It happened in the cabinet that held the bedroom (dinosaur) tv. After removing the tv, I tucked the A/V cable and coax cable along the back wall and Donna turned the tv cabinet into a storage area.

While doing laundry, Donna smelled something burning and heard a sparking/arcing noise. We had sparks in the back of the cabinet. I reached in and pulled out the coax cable ... and ZAP!!! It arced against a screw in the side of the cabinet.

I got my multimeter out and determined that this particular sheetrock screw had 120 VAC on it. It looked factory installed. My guess is that it was screwed into an electrical Romex cable. After flipping breakers and determining which one it was, I removed power and turned the screw a few turns and then when I turned it back on, the screw was no longer hot.

Yep, it could have been pretty bad. I think it will all be ok now. I bet that there is a piece of Romex in the wall that has a little nick in the insulation. There should be nothing else in the wall that is grounded that would touch it. But it was pretty exciting there for awhile.

Oh, and all of a sudden, my Cannon EOS camera died. It won't come on at all. I measured the battery.. and it is good. Bummer. I did buy it a long time ago and have really used it. I think it cost $899.00 back then and was only a 8 Meg camera. But I have taken over 19,000 photos with it. I think I have gotten my money's worth out of it. Time to go shopping.
And finally some venting.

While at the Good Sam rally in Phoenix, I was walking through the vendor area and stopped at the Verizon Wireless booth to ask some questions about my recent smartphone problems. As I was walking away, the guy ran up to me and notified me that I could upgrade to the new style Jetpack at no cost. Really? I went back to his booth and he pulled out a new style Jetpack and activated it.
Cool??

It worked just as good as my old one, but I figured it had a newer battery in it so all is good. ??

Then my new VZ bill was available online so I went to check it out. I was not only charged $40.00 for my 'free' upgrade, but was now in a 2 year contract! OK, I'm getting excited now!

I called customer service 3 times and they pretty much told me I signed a contract and it is binding. They couldn't do anything.

I told them that IF the VZ Rep came up and told me that IF I exchanged my perfectly working Jetpack for a newer one, AND for just $40.00 too, I could now be under a 2 year contract. I don't think so!!!

Oh well. What can I do? I have the new Jetpack and I'm sure I will be with Verizon for the next two years, but it's the principle of the thing!

OK, I'm done venting.

Maybe tomorrow, we will take the bus into the hustle bustle of Vegas and walk our little legs off. Even though my big camera died, we have our smartphone cameras, and they work just fine.
Later....

Boulder Beach Campgound, Lake Mead, NV - March 25 - March 26, 2015

I wanted to do a couple of days on Lake Mead before our stay at the Las Vegas TT. Even though the wind was blowing pretty good, we headed out. The first half of the 105 mile drive was not too much fun. We climbed 3000 feet up and out of the Mohave valley and the wind was a head wind and from the side. It definitely kept me awake.

But we made it.

We cruised around Lake Mead

and decided to stay at Boulder Beach CG. We got into the National Recreation Area for free using my Access Pass, then just $5.00 a night to boondock here. It is a nice area with trees and plenty of space around us.

Pretty close to the water... OK, we can see it from our site. The water is way down.

We walked around and took some pics.

Pretty blue.

Prickly Pear in bloom.

Water is way down.

A gorgeous area.

Then I had to take pics of the new rig now that Donna has got most of it all put away and organized.

Tomorrow... it's off to Vegas baby!

Organizing the Coach - March 17 - March 24, 2015

After 2 days of boondocking at the Avi Casino in 85+ degree heat

We decided to move on over to the RAT (Riverside Adventure Trails) and use our RPI membership. For $77.00, we now had full hookups and get to test out the coach with power.

I'm happy to say that everything is working just fine. Donna's brother is helping us to find a good toad to tow. We looked at a Jeep Wrangler, but it wasn't a good deal. We will continue looking as we move northward.

We did meet up with Smittys (Jan & Leonard) and went out to dinner at the Black Bear Diner in Bullhead City. Good food there! And their portions are Ginormous too!

While at the RAT, we went through just about everything we own. Getting rid of what we didn't need, or haven't used in the last year. Gene helped us move all the extra stuff over to his house, and we had a two day yard sale.

We did make about $150.00 on the sale. The rest goes to Goodwill.

Our storage compartments are starting to get organized.

Sunday, we went to the Harvest Bible Church, just down the road, with the Smittys.

A great service it was. We thank the Lord for the blessings He has bestowed on us and for watching over us as we travel the country.

Then we moved back over to the Avi Casino.

We will do 2 nights there again.

Tuesday, we took the rig into Paul Evert's RV Country for a couple of little things. They took care of everything really well. Then Gene took us out to lunch to the Black Bear Diner. Look at the size of the burger I had.

It was yumbo!

I still have to install the inverter and our solar setup. I need a combiner box to get the panels mounted on the roof, and I need to figure out how to wire from our Distribution Panel to the electrical compartment where the inverter will be installed. Our breaker box looks full.

I'll figure it out. Me and Google that is!

So here is some pics of the outside.

And some of the inside. These are sales pictures. As soon as we get organized more, I'll post our real ones.

When we bought our rig in Tucson, I had to cancel our reservations at the Thousand Trails in Cottonwood. We wanted to go there to visit with our friends Sherry & Jesse and see the area. We decided to go see Gene and start looking for a toad. A motorhome without a toad is pretty restricting. And we had an appointment with Paul Evert's RV Country for some work. We will be sure to make Cottonwood next year.

But we do still have reservations at the Thousand Trails in Las Vegas starting March 27th. So tomorrow, we lift jacks and head north a bit. Maybe a couple of days along Lake Mead before Vegas.

It's an adventure!