From the highest high to the lowest low!

February 23-26, 2017
Lakeside RV resort (and Casino) Pahrump, NV

February 26-28, 2017
Boondocking outside Death Valley NP

Hard to tell from this pic but that's a playground
right behind us!  Lakeside RV Resort, Pahrump

We were so happy to leave Las Vegas (the city) and had hoped we'd back to "camping" but not for our first stop at least!  While Lakeside RV resort is much better than where we were in terms of space and greenery and water and paths to walk, it's still an RV Park where that's all you see from all our windows!  We backed up to a playground which saw mostly teen antics and noises!!  It was quite loud at times but we were there over the weekend.

Balloon "glow" in Pahrump

We chose Pahrump and this park because they were having a hot air balloon festival over the weekend and this park was Passport America (so 50% off!) and had wifi.  I think we could have found boondocking  spots nearby but we wanted to try out a 10 out of 10 rated park with wifi to continue with taxes and other internet stuff.

On the exploring front:  We froze ourselves going to the evening hot air balloon "glow" but it was GREAT!  We had coffee and gyros and funnel cake and visited the vendor booths.  Loved the small town feel and festivities!

It was cold in our boondocking spot at 3000+ elevation
but down here in Death Valley NP - NICE!

We took a day trip from Pahrump to Death Valley NP to see if we wanted to stay in the park or elsewhere.  We scouted road conditions and campground cost/quality.  We were disappointed that we finally were going to stay in a National Park and one campground was full, the second one was basically a parking lot (not even hookups) and the third was only slightly better than the parking lot (with fire rings) but generators aren't allowed which wouldn't be a problem with our solar but it's so cold we need to run the furnace quite a lot.  Basically, we decided it wasn't worth the extra miles into the park to turn around and go back to head south later.  So we tried a boondocking site near the top of the rim before descending into the park.

We look so tiny (and alone!) down there!
Boondocking outside Death Valley NP

The boondocking spot was great - nice roads going in and apparently it was going to be an RV park so it had concrete pads and level places to park and really spread out.  There were 3-4 others there during our stay.  Very quiet and dark and great night viewing of stars since the moon wasn't out!

As usual these pics don't do the park justice!  But try we do!
We took many more pictures but since we're on limited data
plan, we'll forgo posting them here!

Death Valley NP:  I'm not sure how these parks can be so much the same (here in the desert SW) and yet be so different but always WONDERFUL!   I'm going to have to work on my words and try to come up with adjectives that can convey the feelings you have when visiting such larger-than-life places.  It's the combination of fresh air, sunshine (and not hot!), exercise and such different  landscape and geology.  We are learning so much at the visitor centers and museums along the way - it almost feels like being back at school but on a field trip!

So funny because this looks like
a typical Oregon coast pic but that's
salt way down below which we later
walked on.  View from Dante's View.

Highlights:  Night time hot air balloon "glow", Death Valley NP, Pahrump museum (Nuclear testing section especially), wine tasting and lunch!  I (Ellen) bought a yoga mat and am slowly starting that up as a daily practice and it feels great!

Lowlights:  Figuring out propane for our small BBQ.  [We later determined our BBQ regulator was clogged - back in business!]

Things we didn't do this time:  We wanted to join the star gazing Saturday night nearby but it was cloudy (and far away).  It also didn't work out to see the hot air balloons  early in the morning (except from a distance) but we were ok with that having seen them late in the day/evening on Friday night.  So many things in Death Valley NP were closed - super disappointing.   Especially wanted to see Devil's Golf Course and Salt Creek trail which had pupfish(?!).

Things we've (re)learned:  Did I say Casino's are awful mainly because of the smoke?

Things we're (still) wondering:  Now that we have full batteries (for real this time - we think!), how much capacity do they really have and will we be able to keep the volts above the 50% AND will the trimetric readings and the volts align?!   Stay tuned - we should be able to answer this in the next blog!