Well, maybe we shouldn't have left the desert after all. The 282 mile trip to Pahrump, Nevada, which is 7 miles inside Nevada from the California border, was completely uneventful---until we got one mile from the border. Then we had a blowout on the right rear tire of the rig. This one was the worst we've had in the sense of the damage it caused to the rig.
Then, we called AAA to get the tire changed to the spare, and ran into the dumbest (or the least well-trained) person we've ever encountered. After waiting forever to talk to someone, this person couldn't get anything right. Fortunately, we also called the Good Sam Roadside people simultaneously and they were terrific. When the Good Sam tow truck arrived, The AAA lady still had not figured out where we were. The tow people were great, and we were back on the road---for the remaining 8 miles of our trek.
We got a nice site at the Preferred RV Resort, where we have stayed twice before. The site is ostensibly a pull-thru but because it is too close to a fence we had to back in, which is always a challenge. Fortunately, our next-door neighbor, Roy, was a truck driver in his former life, and he ended up backing us in.
After setting up, I got on the phone to the insurance company to start the claim process to get the rig fixed, to the rig manufacturer to order the necessary repair parts, to the tire monitor manufacturer to order a new monitor to replace the one that was destroyed in the blowout, and to a dealer in Las Vegas to set up an appointment to deal with the (unrelated) problem with the truck's bed cover. After all that, I was exhausted, and opened a bottle of a nice Rioja. Delicious. We then took the dogs for a walk,
and, after I made mussels for dinner, we settled in for the night---until, that is, Ramsey needed me to take him on another walk. He's become such a good dog, it's actually fun to take a late night walk with him.
Friday we headed to Las Vegas (55 miles away) to see if the dealer there could actually do something for our truck bed cover. Action Truck Accessories is a family-owned and operated enterprise that's been around for a while.
The fellows there were terrific, and after about an hour of probing, prodding, dismantling, and reinstalling, the bed cover works perfectly again. The $60.00 charge was a lot better than the $$$$ it would have cost to replace it.
We celebrated by having dinner at the Nugget Hotel & Casino across the street from our RV park. We chose the buffet, rather than the steakhouse because: 1) The buffet was cheaper, and 2) The buffet was featuring seafood. It wasn't fancy, the crab legs were very skinny, and the shrimp were "peel-and-eat," which is a pain, but the dinner was fine, nonetheless. Then, we're not that hard to please. As of this morning, I had lost 15 pounds since the end of the gluttonous Hawaii cruise, but I probably retrieved a few of those at the trough tonight. Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day.
My initial challenge on Saturday was to piece together the parts we had retrieved from the blowout. The idea was to re-attach as much of the trim as possible to cover up the damage to that extent. We even went back to the scene of the blowout to scavenge more parts. After spending more that two hours matching and gluing shards, it was clear that this would not work. It had been fun, though.
Instead, the plan now is to get some paint that matches and simply cover the "blank" area. We'll see how that works.
We then walked into town to order some prescription refills for me and to pick up a film from the redbox. It is The Invisible Woman. We'll watch it on Sunday (Easter). Before dinner, I called Dennis and Jackie Dexter, our Denver friends.
Dennis was a fraternity brother of mine. It's always fun catching up with them. They travel a lot, but, unlike us, they stay for months in rented homes. Their last adventure was two months in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
After Becky walked the dogs (and watched the end of a local Easter Sunrise service along the way) we watched The Invisible Woman early on Sunday. It was a terribly British period piece (Ralph Fiennes was its star and director) and moved a little too slowly for me. Becky liked it a lot, though. And we saw an interesting side of Charles Dickens that was new to us.
In mid-afternoon, we tried to join some of the other RVers at our park for Easter dinner in the lodge, but we had failed to sign up and they were sold out. We ended up getting a cooked chicken and some crab salad at the local Smith's. Not exactly an elegant or festive dinner, but good enough. We then watched Odd Thomas, a strange, mostly teenybopper item from the redbox that was oddly engulfing.
Monday was a day for Becky to ride her bike (seven miles roundtrip) to the RV resort at the local winery---mainly to check out the pickleball scene there. Not much was happening, apparently. She came back with her equipment unused. We then went to The Home Depot to get the paint for our experiment, along with a few hardware items,
and I picked up some prescriptions at Walgreens. The rest of the day was very ordinary. The weather was beautiful; we expect some wind on Tuesday.
Tuesday, the wind came as expected. It prevented my going ahead with the plan to spray paint the damaged area on our rig. That was good, since the claims adjuster called later and told us not to fool with the area until he had taken official pictures of the damage. Becky got her hair done in the morning, while I fiddled. In the early afternoon, we took the dogs to a huge local park.
On the soccer field, Becky let Kelsey off-leash so she could run free for a while. Kelsey's so cute when she does that. It's obvious that she enjoys her new life. We know better than to let Ramsey off-leash.
There's not much to do in Pahrump, so, after walking the dogs, shopping for groceries, and playing some pickleball (Becky, not me), we pretty much watched movies for the next several days.
On Tuesday, Becky hit the market and brought home two DVDs from the redbox.. We watched the first one, The Best Man Holiday, a black-oriented film about a Christmas reunion of old friends at the home of one of the couples. Sort of a black version of The Big Chill, but, frankly, more complicated and more interesting It was very different to see the portrayal of successful African-Americans on their own turf, made by black people, not white liberals. Well worth the effort.
We had seen the second film, Inside Man, with Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, and some other well-known stars, some time ago, but, naturally, had forgotten everything about it. It was complicated and a little confusing at times, but enjoyable nonetheless. Denzel was fascinating as a hostage negotiator.
Late on Tuesday, we had a long phone chat with Terrell, the claims person from Progressive. He was very comforting in describing the process. (I haven't had an insurance claim in an eon, so it was rather new to me.) He was in Texas, and would contact an adjuster in Nevada. Wednesday was Ramsey's birthday and Becky gave both dogs some real bones we got from a butcher as a treat. They were in Heaven.
We then took them to the Lakeside Casino & RV Park---about five miles out of town---for a long walk on the beautiful grassy areas they have there.
Also on Wednesday, we heard from the adjuster, Alex, who said he would come see us Friday morning to assess the damage. After Becky took Kelsey to the vet Thursday morning for her second rattlesnake vaccination, we watched two more movies from the redbox, Home Run and The Gabby Douglas Story. Douglas was, naturally, the story of her struggle to become an Olympic gymnastics gold medalist. It was well-done and interesting. Fascinating to me was the fact that they found a pretty-close look-alike who expertly performed the moves in the film.
Home Run was a surprisingly good religious-centered film about redemption from drug and alcohol (and other) abuse problems.
Alex arrived at 7:30 Friday morning and did his adjuster thing. We celebrated by watching Flowers In The Attic and Grudge Match from the redbox. Flowers was an older film, and very creepy. Grudge Match was a must-miss. DeNiro and Stallone were actually hard to watch.
Saturday we went to Las Vegas to meet Paula Browne for lunch. (She worked with Becky many years ago in Santa Monica and has now been a commercial lender at Wells Fargo in LV for many years.) We met at Frank & Fina's Cocina, where we had last seen her in December of 2012. The food was excellent and Paula was her usual delightful self. It's always fun to see her.
Saturday night our RV park put on a fireworks show, celebrating something, that lasted for about two hours. It was dazzling, but the dogs didn't like the noise at all. They both ended up sleeping on our bed.
We set aside some time on Sunday to take a look at two kennels, knowing we would have to board the dogs at least once while in Pahrump. The first one was a loser, but the second, Jake's Big Dog, looked promising. Across the street was Sullivan's Pub, and it seemed appropriate to have a beer after such an arduous morning. It's really a local place, and two "regulars" were sitting at the bar when we entered. It turned out to be just fine, and we ended up having delicious hamburgers for lunch there.
The bartender, Carolynn, was very nice (she's lived in Pahrump for 15 years) and it turned out they have a tradition there on Sunday---the food is free, but a donation is accepted. I even played a little blackjack on a video machine at my seat, and broke even.
We also visited the Nevada Treasure RV Resort, a few miles out of town. It's a pretentious new place we've visited before. We went there just to have a different place to walk the dogs.
That afternoon, we watched two more redbox movies, Hours and Out Of The Furnace. Hours, starring Paul Walker in his last film, was a harrowing tale of survival after Hurricane Katrina left a newborn in an incubator at a local hospital which had been abandoned after the hospital became flooded. Very intense and engaging movie.
By contrast, Out Of The Furnace, starring Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson, was a confusing shoot-em-up involving bad people doing stupid things. I gave up on it about halfway through..
On Monday, our new Progressive claims man called to say he'd received and processed the estimates from Alex, and would send the estimates and our check immediately. We received all of that on Tuesday. Earlier on Monday, Becky and I took Ramsey and Kelsey for a long walk around town, then Becky went looking for pickleball players at the winery RV park---and found some. They were brand new at the game, but Becky was in Heaven, anyway.
Tuesday (the 29th) Becky met Amy Vanderpuy for lunch at the restaurant at the winery. Amy worked with us at Zion National Park in 2003, etc., and now lives and works in Henderson, Nevada, with her husband (who works at Area 51). They had a good time reminiscing, apparently.
While they were enjoying lunch, I undertook the painting project on the damaged part of our rig. It turned out fine, even though the paint color was very far from matching the surrounding area. At least the damaged area looked a little less intimidating.
We had set aside Thursday for a trek to Las Vegas to visit our storage facility where we have left our indispensable "stuff" for the last 11 years. The plan was to drop off some newer indispensable stuff we had accumulated and pick up some of the older indispensable stuff (essentially, clothes we hadn't worn in at least 11 years) to give to charity. The "operation" was successful, and we donated a truck full of stuff to the local Goodwill here in Pahrump.
We also had to stop at the Staples store there to see if they could fix a problem that had suddenly occurred on my notebook computer. The tech there, Alex, fixed it in about two minutes. It returned the next day, and Becky talked to Alex by phone, and he walked her through the simple procedure to work around the problem. He suggested that the problem needed a permanent fix, and to contact the manufacturer for the solution.
The day, though successful, was very long and tiring, and, after picking up the dogs at Jake's Big Dog, where we had stored Ramsey and Kelsey for the day, we had Panda Express for dinner.
Friday was mostly pickleball for Becky and relaxation for me. It was too hot to do much more than walk the dogs after Becky finished playing. Saturday evening, we watched Gimme Shelter from the redbox, starring Vanessa Hudgens and Brendan Fraser. It was a surprisingly good movie.
We had originally planned to leave Pahrump on Friday, May 9, but decided to go a day earlier and spend the night in Mesquite, Nevada. That way, we can get to St. George, Utah (only an hour from Mesquite) early Friday morning to scope out a couple of RV body repair places before settling in at our RV park. I sent some pictures of the damage to one of the places on Saturday, so they could get an advance idea of what we needed.
On Sunday, Becky played pickleball until it got too hot. For dinner we had filet mignon, washed down with a delicious Justin red ("Justification"), a combination of cabernet franc and merlot that arrived this week.
Then we settled in to watch Gloria from the redbox. It was a delightful and interesting import from Chile, and won the female star a first prize in Berlin recently.
Monday our new wheel and trim piece arrived, and I took the wheel to the local BigO Tires to mount a new tire and we will have them fix everything Thursday morning on our way out of town. I also attached the box containing the trim piece to the back of the rig. It's so long, there seems to be no other way to carry it. As soon as she saw it, Becky nixed that idea, saying it will ride inside quite nicely while we're on the road. (She hates it when we look like The Beverly Hillbillies going down the road.)
Tuesday, we had some wind and a little rain. That prevented pickleball for the day and allowed us to concentrate on paperwork, reading, paying bills, etc. Altogether it was a nice day---topped off with dinner of delicious salmon with a balsamic vinegar glaze from Becky's creative kitchen. Yummy.
Wednesday, Becky played pickleball again while I slowly prepared our rig to take us on the road to Mesquite Thursday morning. I can stretch a half-hour task into a whole day if I really try. That is especially so when Becky adds washing the windows to the to-do list. (Full disclosure: Becky did the washing, I held the ladder.) We did take Ramsey and Kelsey back to the large sports park. Ramsey gave himself a massage in the grass
and Kelsey galloped around off-leash.
Our Wednesday movie from the redbox was Labor Day, with Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin. Not a great movie, and in spite of how hard it was to believe the story, it was it was engaging and we happily stayed with it until the end.
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