North Ranch to Henderson aka Picture Day

We left North Ranch RV Park a few minutes behind schedule today at 8:20 AM.  It was a little foggy the first twenty miles or so.  The weather was foggy, not me.  Ann got these pictures as the fog was lifting.

As we drove farther north on state highway 93 toward Wikieup, the scenery changed form mostly scrub brush and saguaro cactus to Joshua trees and green mesas.

We decided to stop in Kingman Arizona at the Flying J to get propane, have some breakfast, and to top off the gas tank.  Here is a street sign where we turned left to the Flying J.  Andy Devine was an actor who grew up in Kingman, and he is mentioned in some song I have heard, but cant remember the song?  Any help?  Anyone...Anyone...Buehler....Buehler..... 

 

After leaving Kingman we decided to go through Bullhead City and over to Nevada state highway 95 and then north to Las Vegas, so we wouldnt have to endure the slow down in traffic caused by the searching of vehicles before they are allowed to go over Hoover Dam.  The way we went is about twenty miles farther, but an easier drive.  Here is the turn off from Interstate 40 to highway 93 that goes north to highway 68, which goes west and turns into highway 163 once you cross into Nevada before you get to highway 95.

Here is a pic going north on 93 just before we got to 68 looking west at highway 68 as it traverses the valley and heads uphill to Union Pass at 3721 feet above sea level.

From Union Pass it is all downhill to Bullhead City; about 3200 feet down in about twelve miles at an average grade of 6%!

 

 

 

Here is a pic of the runaway truck ramp.  It is filled with soft gravel that is supposed to slow you down if you have to use it.  Nice that they have such nice things.

  

We finally arrived in Laughlin Nevada, and got to see the casinos, and and RV park right on the shore of Mojave Lake which separates Arizona and Nevada.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful except for this dust cloud that blew up just south of Henderson.  Luckily it wasnt too bad, and was gone by time we got to where it crossed the highway.

Ann took this pic because when she first saw the road going up the mountain, she thought it was the highway we were on and we would have to drive up it.

The plan today was to get an early(relative term) start, get somewhere close to Las Vegas by the time the NASCAR race started, stop and watch the race either by using local channels, or if not that then use the DirecTV system.  So when we got to the Railroad Pass Hotel and Casino on the south side of Henderson, we thought this would be a good place to stop and watch the race.  It was a good idea!  But after messing with the Directv dish for about half and hour and even moving to a different location in the parking lot, I finally got a signal on the tv, only to discover we had driven out of our "home area", and couldnt receive network channels, all this was after first attempting to get local channels on our over the air antenna.  A call to DirecTV confirmed that we were out of our home area, but we could get the east and west network feeds if we filled out a form they would send to us, return it, and then wait ten to fourteen days for them to approve it.  I know the Daytona 500, was long, but even the Paris to Dakar Rally doesnt take as long as this would take.

Then Ann had the idea of trying to see if the tv in the bedroom would be able to get any local channels.  Sure enough it was finding plenty of them.  So I tried again to get them on the front tv, and sure enough it worked!  Found the local Fox channel, and I was able to finally see the last 100 laps of the NASCAR race from Fontana, California. A pretty good race.  It was worth the wait and effort to get to see at least some of it.

After the race Ann had some work work to do, and I started working on this blog.  It takes quite a while to do a good blog with pictures, at least for me anyway!  In a few minutes we will probably go into the casino, make a cash donation, get some dinner(they have a $7.99 steak special form 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM), or depending on how things go, we may have to settle for the $1.00 Hot Dog, then call it a night.

Here are a couple of pics of the Railroad Pass Casino and Hotel.

Thats all for today.
Paul