Catching up the blog from Las Vegas!

Since we've been in Las Vegas Ted got a hair cut, Max got a rabies shot (and much needed) haircut will be done today, took the tire that lost the tread in and got a new tire at half price ($300 tires of course for the big truck) so that was great and I learned something about tires.  They have a DOT (date of tire) on the inside.  Our one year old tire from Arizona (replacement tire for tire destroyed in bearing failure) was actually 5 years old!  Which they told us was probably the reason for the tread problem.  If the tire had really been a year old it would have been 100% replacement.  Apparently tires (especially the large ones) aren't sold as quickly and go to distribution centers where they may or may not be rotated by date!  Something to look out for.  Our new one was made the 7th week of 2011!  We also bought another new tire for the RV which will be put on before we leave tomorrow.

We have visited our friends David and Debbie Hawkins that live here in Vegas.  They had us for dinner last night.  Debbie made an awesome "poached turkey" and great trimmings!  It was fun to catch up on what they've been doing.  Max loves to go visit them, he has the run of the house and gets a few "goodies" to eat!  David is busy with the end of tax season so we appreciated getting to see them.

To catch up after we left Lone Pine we headed to Death Valley over the huge Panamint Mountains on March 19th:

We had a great time in Death Valley.  On Thursday we had a great St. Patrick's Day dinner at the campground!  My dessert wasn't pretty but tasted good.  Made a HUGE mess in my refrigerator!!!  On Friday we took  a drive through Titus Canyon visiting Leadfield Ghost Town.  It was really cold in the mountains!

On Saturday Jim, Della, Ted and I went to the Furnace Creek Inn for lunch.  We had a delicious lunch, checked out the gift shop and stayed out of the wind!  Then we went over to the Village and looked in their gift shop.  All that shopping made us hungry again and so we had dessert in the cafe!  YUM!

In spite of the wind we managed to have happy hour in our RV's.  There were 14 of us camped there so that was cozy!  We all had a good time and enjoyed the Saturday evening full moon!

On Sunday we had a professional tour guide (a friend of one of the campers) take us to Gold Point for lunch.  We left Death Valley, through Beatty Nevada and as we climbed higher, saw more snow!  This place was in the middle of nowhere!  You have to phone ahead because they don't get people passing by, you have to know where you are going.  It was so rustic and so cool.  We head great hamburgers and fries!  The owner was quite a character and salesman.  You never saw so many antiques as in that place!  We found out they have an small RV park, maybe a day or two there next DV trip - or maybe not!

While in DV we had temperatures from 31 degrees to high 80's!  We had some sunshine, lots of wind, some clouds and a sprinkle or two!  No matter!  Our last night we got together and barbequed our steaks.  The wind died down but was a bit chilly.  After dinner we sat around the campfire and told some stories!  It was a fun ending to a fun week!

Our Death Valley curse hit before we got to Lone Pine with the tire tread, still have to get RV fixed!  We think our curse has spread to our friends.  Jim and Della lost their awning (it wasn't doing too well since it got frosted in Montana anyway) and Bill and Sally lost their hot water heater mid week (cold showers brrrrr).

Next blog will include stories from Valley of the fire!

Happy to have made it to Death Valley without any further trouble..."Ain't Life Grand!"