Peggy woke up feeling a bit under the weather so we canceled all the plans we had not made and spent the day lounging around the RV park. Peggy split the day between eyeballing the phone and the TV and I watched 2/3 of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was not exciting but it sure was relaxing.

Today we had the RV mobile repairman named Jim from Happy Hal’s Mobile RV Repair arrive. Back on October 29th, we started getting indications on our truck’s message center that the trailer wiring was gunnybag. We called for a mobile repairman when we arrived in Las Vegas and today Jim showed up at 10:00 AM, just a half hour later than scheduled.
Jim fooled around with a volt meter for a while and then changed the umbilical that goes between our F-250 and our trailer. Still no trailer brakes. After some more fooling around, he found a blown fuse in the truck’s engine compartment. I went to the local O’Reilly’s and bought some fuses to replace the blown unit but by that time, Jim had to go to his next appointment. We have a tentative appointment for him to come back. I extended our visit here in Las Vegas RV Resort until he can show again. Rats! I wish the problem would go away so we can continue our fooling around.

Today we took another trip through Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. We found a highway system that runs all the way around the Vegas metro area and took it instead of driving straight through the city. The roundabout way may be quite a bit longer in terms of mileage but in terms of time, it is much shorter. Stay out of downtown around here.
In almost record time, we arrived at the entrance station for Red Rock Canyon and showed them our ancient human federal park pass and were passed free of charge. We then stopped in at the park visitor center where there are interpretive displays, maps, restrooms, water and a gift shop.
After finding the circuitous way out of the visitor center, we started on the amazing 13 mile loop road through this gorgeous area. In addition to magnificent rock formations, we were fortunate enough to spot some reptiles, birds and a very brave kit fox who was invading a picnic area where some assholes had left their trash at their picnic table. It was maybe 10 feet from the picnic table to the secure trash container but, apparently, the folks who left their trash at the table were too terrific to get their garbage into the trash can. It made for superb fox viewing but the bagged garbage didn’t look like regular fox fare so one of the folks standing with us headed into the table, cleaned up the torn-apart bags and packaging and disposed of it properly. The fox found some stuff still sticking to the table and spent quite a bit of time licking up the residue. Good picture opportunities although I’m pretty sure it ain’t good for the fox.
There are other great views available around Red Rock Canyon like Red Spring which is just down the road. This area was all created by a massive upthrust fault 600 million years ago and, although I wouldn’t care to be there when the fault was being created, it certainly left a magnificent landscape that we can enjoy now.
Wew took a few pictures in Red Rock Canyon and you can see some of them if you click here
The first 3 pictures are actually from yesterday but I’m too stupid to figure out how to properly file them.

Our journey today was undefined when we departed from Las Vegas RV Resort. We drove south on Boulder Highway which is a highway as far as width is concerned but the myriad of signals make progress along the road drudgery. After about 10 miles and some frustration about slow progress, we ran out of signals and city and the road became US-93. We continued on 93 to Hoover Dam. The west end of the dam is in Nevada and the east end is in Arizona.
Hoover Dam is 86 years old but it was certainly an amazing engineering project. It was built is a very rocky gorge through which the Colorado River used to run unimpeded. Lake Mead is the artificial lake created by the dam and it looks like a bright blue gem in the midst of colorful Mojave Desert valleys and mountains. We crossed the dam twice before leaving the area and heading along the north shore of Lake Mead on, surprisingly, a road named Northshore Road. We followed it for about 50 miles until we entered Valley of Fire State Park.
Valley of Fire is an amazing area filled with massive spectacular colorful rock formations. There is a visitor center within the park that has tons of interpretive information about how the formations were created where we stopped and got the scoop. The park offers both primitive and RV camp spots but even day visitors will have ample places to hike between the magnificent formations.
We completed our circle back to Las Vegas by driving west from Valley of Fire to I-15 and turning south for about half an hour. Then we turned off on Las Vegas city roads which had the same sort of signal concentration we encountered thia morning when we left town.
The loop through the Hoover Dam area, Lake Mead, Northshore Road and Valley of Fire took us about five hours but the road runs through amazing desert landscapes and is definitely worth the trip.
We got a few pix of this stuff and you can see them if you click here

We ended up spending almost the whole month of October fooling around in San Diego. We were reunited with some of our old friends and cronies, got to see our kids, serviced the truck and the fifth wheel and spent too much dining out. It was great. We finally departed on October 28.
Now we are in Las Vegas RV Resort / Thousand Trails which is a very tight park with trailers and motor homes parked in big phalanxes, side by side with spaces about 18 or 20 feet wide. There are full hookups, 30 or 50 amp power and paved roads. Initially, I thought there were no animals of any type around but right after the sun went below the mountains to the west, the delightful sounds from flocks of birds in the park trees could be heard over the TV. The lights here are amazing at night unless you are trying any stargazing.
The night before last we spent in Shady Oasis Kampground in Victorville. It is shady but it is also located right next to I-15 which is open for business 24/7. There are also nearby train tracks with multiple grade crossings so the air horn concerts can be quite lengthy. Victorville and adjacent Apple Valley are located in between some gorgeous rock formations but we only stayed for one night so we didn’t go into either town.
As we pulled into Shady Oasis, the message center on the dash of the truck indicated there was some kind of wiring fault on the trailer. The message came and went and the trailer brakes were working when we left Victorville. We headed north on I-15, passing through some breathtaking desert scenery, zipping by a town called Zzyzx and passing by the world’s largest thermometer in Baker, CA. After scurrying across the Mojave to Vegas, the nasty message started to come back and by the time I pulled into the park, we had no trailer brakes. We set up the trailer, turned on the air conditioning and called a mobile RV repairman.
Today, since we were free of the trailer, we took a spin to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. It is located west of Vegas and offers a pretty spectacular 13 mile drive through very pretty and colorful dry desert canyons and mountains. It was midday during our pass through today so the only animals we saw were a lizard and some pet dogs. We will come back either in the early AM or near dusk to see if we can spot more critters.
Back in the RV park this evening, the birds put on another performance and it was quite nice. There was also a truly magnificent sunset out the trailer back window. Mountains and pink clouds in the distance and razor wire on top of a masonry wall in the foreground. It appears unlikely we will encounter intruders coming from that way.
There are some pictures from the last two days you can see if you click here

We have had our Barbarian Invader trailer set up for two weeks at Pio Pico TT near Jamul, CA. We have performed some maintenance on the trailer by ourselves but it is going into the shop on the 21st for the yearly brake check/replacement, wheel bearing re-pack and a sniff at the equalizer(?) between the axles. I have completely replaced the drinking water system to make our lives easier and wetter.
I performed the every other month battery service in the trailer. We replaced the microwave oven that failed at Monument Valley last June when our electrical system went kaput. The original model microwave that came with the Invader is no longer available, of course, but we did find a model that would fit in the same cabinet space and would accommodate the trim without being ugly. We acquired a ladder that will support my massive weight without collapsing at the most embarrassing moment. I should be able to conveniently access the roof now without taxing the cheesy, flimsy ladder screwed to the body panel at the back of the trailer.
We will also be taking Charlotte Taylor Wilson, our beloved Ford F-250 in for a yearly check-up which looks like it will at least involve new ball joints which no longer are built with the ability to be lubricated. Charlotte has faithfully pulled us around 70,000 miles in the last 26 months and, hopefully, keeping on top of maintenance will get a few more thousand miles out of her.
We also got to see many friends still living in our hometown of San Diego. We were fortunate in that we got to enjoy the marriage of our friends, the Merbacks’ son, Trevor, to Gina, a longtime crony of Kathleen, my son Sam’s fiance. We probably drank too much liquor a few times but we’ll get over it.
When we finally leave Pio Pico on about the 28th, we suspect we are going east, maybe to Arizona, New Mexico and, perhaps, Texas before we come back to go to Mexico for a week in early December. I hope we get out of California for another year or so after that. We do love the road.