Monday Oct 21, 2024 White Spar Campground (Prescott AZ) to Las Vegas

Very quiet campground given we are so close to Prescott. Coffee and then a quick stop at McD’s for the breakfast sandwich we were cheated out of yesterday. Today we go to Las Vegas, where Deb has not been and I was last there at a trade show 30 years ago. I also met our daughter there in 2015 and we rented a Harley and rode around for a week.

Before leaving town we went to Watson Lake / The Dells which is a beautiful lake with odd round rock formations. One or two people there. The campground is closed for the season but the boat launch and park are open. Nice to have the place to ourselves.

Rt 89 took us directly north until we hit I-40 at Ash Fork. This road is pretty remote so you have to watch your gas. I-40 was busy but quick and we did a quick side loop to Seligman, AZ which is an old Rt 66 town. Lots of 1950-60 Americana there.

Then back on the I-40 since we wanted to get to Las Vegas in time to go into the city and see the sights.

We got to the Las Vegas RV Resort around 2:00 and checked in. A friend recommended it and it is indeed very nice. Our van was the smallest thing here.

We got an Uber to the Sphere, which we decided not to do since we hadn’t planned on it and also were too cheap to pay the $100+ a head. Better done at a later trip. Then we walked “the strip”.

First stop was The Venetian where they have boats with singing drivers that will take you in and out of the compound. All the shops were new and the casino was full, like all of the casinos.

Next stop was The Paris where they have a really big Eiffel Tower. Looked pretty new and well done. Then the Flamingo which was a little run down, but still busy. Then we tried to stop at Caesars Palace where I had spent a week at 30 years ago but it was hard to tell how you even got in. Then the Bellagio and watched one of the fountain shows. We decided to get some dinner and then walk the strip again after dark. We had dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp on the third floor balcony which was a great place to watch all the action down on the strip.

After dinner we went back to the Ballagio and watched the fountain show again with all the lights. Pretty spectacular. The crowds were double what they had been earlier today and it was fun to see all the crazy people on the streets at night.

We ended up back at the Venetian where we called an Uber and rode back to the RV park.

At our quiet spot back at the park we realized that Las Vegas is meant to max out all of your senses. Sight, sound, smell, vision, the whole works. Contrast that to where we hope to end up tomorrow night, somewhere on Rt-50, the loneliest road in America.

Sunday Oct 20, 2024 Bisbee to Prescott

 

It’s been a while since our last camping trip, Colorado in July. I took the van out for a ride, which I try to do once a month or so. The heater likes to be run every month or so but I forgot that it also likes more than a quarter tank of gas in the tank. I tried to run the heater but it locked me out. This happened a couple of years ago and I had to cycle the power on it but it didn’t work this time, so I found and pulled the fuses for the heater to cycle power and magically the heater worked. I also filled the tank up before running it of course.

We are going to Sacramento to see the grand kids and will go via Prescott and Las Vegas since Deb has never been there. Then we’ill take the “loneliest road in America”, Rt 50 all the way across Nevada.

We packed up everything, clothes and food, toothbrush etc., loaded the van at the end of the driveway, put everything away down on the street and then we were off.

It felt good to be on the road again and today we are all highway, which is fine because Phoenix is really busy. We were going to get breakfast sandwiches and coffee at McD’s but they stopped breakfast 10 minutes before we got there so we got a Subway sub since it was 11:00 already. It’s Sunday so Tucson traffic was easy, and then the long stretch on I-10 to Phoenix. Google re-routed us a couple of times and we did not see any slowdowns all the way through Phoenix. Thanks again Google!

Then north on I-17 to Prescott. It was only in the 70’s in Phoenix and Tucson and the temperature dropped another 10-15 degrees as we climbed to Prescott that’s at 5300 ft elevation.

The road into Prescott is really really busy. They have all the chain stores out here which must be their “strip”. We had heard that it was exploding in population and that appears to be the case. We went to the downtown where the old city is and it was less commercial. Prescott is the county seat of Yavapi County (twice the population of our Cochise County}, and their courthouse is indeed twice the size of ours, at least. We walked up the famous Whiskey Row and checked out all the shops. Gave a dollar to a Santa that claims he makes Xmas stockings for Vets (looked legit) so maybe he does and maybe he had enough to buy a bottle. Nice guy either away.

Prescott has two colleges, Yavapi Community College and Prescott College so the town had a lot of younger folks wandering around. We were told to go to Bill’s Pizza place (Santa disagreed) and we split a large salad and a small pizza.

Then we drove the three miles to White Spar Campground which was ⅔ full with pit toilets for $14. A nice quiet night. Tomorrow Las Vegas!