In our nearly eleven years as fulltime RVers, we have stayed at many of the Escapees RV club campgrounds, from Washington state to Florida, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Arizona, to name just a few. One we had never visited was the Escapees Pair-A-Dice co-op in Pahrump, Nevada.

Pahrump is about 50 miles west of Las Vegas, via State Route 160, a good, mostly two lane road that passes through the Toiyabe National Forest, climbing from 2300 feet in Las Vegas to 5500 feet at Mountain Springs Summit, before dropping down to about 2300 feet in Pahrump. Locals call this drive “going over the hump.

Yesterday, after an excellent brunch at Blueberry Hill Restaurant, one of a small chain here in Las Vegas, we took the trip “over the hump” to Pahrump. I’m sure glad we never tried to make this trip in our old MCI bus conversion! The V-8 engine in Greg White’s Dodge pickup was getting a workout as we made the climb.

We know a lot of folks who really like Pahrump because it is quieter and much more laid back than busy Las Vegas. But I have to be honest and say that we were just not impressed. There is little, if anything aesthetically pleasing in the community, just a lot of businesses stretched out along the main highway, a casino or two, a scattering of RV parks, and lots of subdivisions springing up out of the desert.

The office was already closed for the day, but we drove through the Escapees RV park, which was pretty full. But the few people we saw out and about didn’t seem too welcoming as we drove past and waved. Basically, the campground is all gravel and dirt, with some desert landscaping. It’s just not our cup of tea.

We did stop to check out another RV park that had been recommended to us, Terrible’s Lakeside Casino RV Park, a short drive off the main highway, and not far from the Escapees park.

This place was was pretty impressive. Many of the RV sites are situated around a small man made lake, there was plenty of grass, and lots of trees to provide shade. The view of the snowcapped mountains in the distance added to the ambience. The only drawback some people would find is that is that there were a lot of kids running around, though they all seemed to be well behaved.

Pahrump is in Nye County, where prostitution is legal, and Pahrump is home to two legal brothels, the Chicken Ranch and Sheri’s Ranch, which are located next door to each other.  Well, who can go to Pahrump and not at least drive by to check something like that out?  Not us, obviously.

We stopped to take pictures of both houses of ill repute, and noted that both offered free tours, and that ladies are welcome. Terry and Jan decided that seeing the places from the road was probably just fine, thank you very much!

Business seemed to be rather slow, there were just a few cars in the parking lot at either place, and I don’t know how many were there just to shop the souvenir stores that both businesses have. But if you saw me there, that’s all I was doing, shopping for souvenirs! That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!

Actually Miss Terry is pretty open minded, and said I could go in and take the tour. But then she said something about me having to go into quarantine for 30 days afterwards, so I decided to pass.

Terry has the sharpest eyes of anybody I have ever known, and she constantly amazes me by pointing out wildlife I would never have seen as we zip down the highway. She spotted this hawk in a tree at the Chicken Ranch, and I told Greg it was probably a chicken hawk.  Hey, I have to get my material where I find it!

All too soon, or not soon enough, depending on whom of us you ask, it was time to get on down the road. So we waved goodbye to the brothels and headed back to Las Vegas. Judging by their signs, they’re friendly folks, aren’t they? They welcomed us to uhhh… return.

Bad Nick Doesn’t have time for such nonsense, so while we were out exploring the seamier side of life, he was home writing a new Bad Nick Blog titled Dumb A$$ Report, Vol. 2. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

Labor Day weekend. The last big hurrah of the summer traveling and camping season for most people.

It’s going to be a busy weekend here at Elkhart Campground. Already RVs of every size and description are pulling in, and campground owner Bobby Patel tells me they have a lot of camping sites reserved for the entire weekend.

For fulltime RVers like ourselves, most holiday weekends don’t matter much, except for the fact that we have to plan ahead and get a place to park before every campground and RV park fills up with weekend campers. Most fulltimers we know try to get into a park by Wednesday or Thursday before the holiday weekend, and sit tight until about Tuesday of the next week, staying off the highway until things settle down and everybody gets back home.

Besides all of the weekend campers, we have quite a few folks we know here at the campground. Ron and Brenda Speidel have been parked next to us for a couple of weeks now, helping us get moved and settled into our new motorhome. What would we do without these two? Dale and Terry pace have been here for several weeks now, and we have visited with them several times.

Howie and Norah Glover arrived a few days ago, and yesterday Ken and Billie Barker arrived from their home in Missouri, and yesterday Dave and Linda Sand arrived, though we have not had a chance to talk to them yet. Linda is very good about sending me many of the little Thought For The Day sayings I use at the bottom of this blog.

With most of the move completed from the bus, I have turned my attention to creating a website for Carlyle Lehman, the owner of Focal Wood Products in nearby Nappanee, Indiana. Carlyle, an accomplished Amish craftsman, is famous in RV circles for his excellent custom furniture, and he is building a custom desk for me and a desk/workstation for Miss Terry, along with a bookcase, for the Winnebago. If you have had Carlyle build anything for your RV, I would really appreciate any digital photos you might be willing to share for use in Carlyle’s website.

Because I don’t have enough irons in the fire, between publishing the Gypsy Journal, four websites, writing for the RV.Net Blog, and now three blogs of my own, I also get to brag about a new book that I co-authored with Christy Pinheiro titled The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit!

The book was published this week and is available on Amazon.com. Here is a link to the book’s website, for anyone interested in checking it out. If there is a book inside of you, get yourself a copy of our new book, and check out my self-publishing website, Publishing4Profit. I’ve supported myself by crunching words for most of my adult life, and it’s a lot more fun than working for a living.

But Bad Nick has been busy too. He just put up a new blog post titled Stick A Label On It. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

In a conversation with a new fulltimer the other day, he mentioned that the one thing he knows he’ll miss is his gardening hobby. Apparently he had a greenhouse at his former home and is well known for his roses, which have won ribbons in the county fair for years. He asked me what hobbies best fit into the RV lifestyle.

I guess growing prize winning roses might be difficult in an RV, but there are many hobbies that fit perfectly with the RV lifestyle. We have known many fulltime RVers with interesting hobbies, and many have customized their RVs to accommodate their hobbies and special interests.

Some of our personal hobbies include geocaching, reading, kayaking, crocheting and cooking (Terry), and target shooting. We know other fulltime RVers who are into woodcarving, bird watching, fishing, playing music, bicycling, volkswalking, photography, making stained glass, and quilting, to name just a few.

The RV lifestyle makes it easy to enjoy your hobbies and special interests. If you enjoy bird watching, you can travel to some of the best birding spots in the nation. RVing geocachers can hunt for caches at highway rest areas, as well as any place they visit, since caches can be found in every corner of America.

Musicians can take part in jam sessions at RV parks, and follow the blue grass festival circuit as they travel. There are woodcarving events all over the country that can be participated in, including an annual gathering at the Escapees North Ranch RV park in Congress, Arizona.

If golf is your thing, the RV lifestyle is perfect for you. Unlike golfers in northern climates, RVers can play any time of year, because they are (hopefully) not stuck someplace where it snows.

Genealogy is another hobby that is perfect for RVers. It is one thing to know that your great great uncle Angus is buried in a family plot on land he farmed in Missouri, and quite another to be able to travel to the old family farm and actually walk the land your ancestors tilled, and pay your respects in person at their gravesites.

Even though we cannot actively participate in some of the hobbies we enjoyed in our former lives, that doesn’t mean we can’t still have some involvement. I was into classic cars before we hit the road, and sold my four old cars when we became fulltimers. But every once in a while, we’ll see a car show and I can relive memories of my days behind the wheel of my old Corvette or one of my Mustangs.

So what are some of the hobbies and activities that you enjoy as you travel around this great land of ours, and how do they fit into the RV lifestyle?

Thought For The Day – Middle age is having a choice of two temptations and choosing the one that will get you home earlier.

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We spent part of yesterday visiting with Smokey and Pam Ridgely at Mark Twain Landing, which has an RV park and a huge water park. Smokey and Pam are workamping there this summer, and we wanted to see them before we left the area.

Bob and Molly Pinner had moved to Mark Twain Landing from the Corps of Engineers campground, and we ran into them at the RV park’s restaurant, where we joined them for lunch.

Paul, the restaurant’s cook, really knows how to turn out some great food, and our waitress, Tracy Grove, was an absolute delight. She is pretty, funny, and kept us laughing during our meal.

After lunch, Smokey gave us a behind the scenes tour of the water park. It has several pools, including a 500,000 gallon wave pool that uses huge fans to create waves that would be great for body surfing. There are also water slides, a “river” for floating on tubes, and wading pools for the little ones. Not to mention a lot of very pretty young ladies in bikinis. I’m not sure how much they are paying Smokey to hang out at the pool all day, but I suspect he’d actually pay the park instead, based upon some of the “scenery” around the pool.

Driving back to our campground, I realized that I had I goofed. When we arrived at Ray Behrens Corps of Engineers Campground we paid for a week, and for some reason I had it in my mind that we were due to leave today. It was not until I happened to glance at the tag hanging on the rear view mirror of our van that I realized that we were actually supposed to leave on Friday! Oops! A classic example of cranial-rectal inversion on my part.

Checkout time is 4 p.m., and it was about 3 p.m. when I realized my mistake, so we stopped at the ranger station and asked if we could pay for an extra night. The volunteer on duty said no problem, we were in a non-reservable site, so nobody was waiting for us to leave so they could come in.

Later in the afternoon we drove to the campground at Mark Twain Lake to visit with Ron and Brenda Speidel, who are camp hosting there for the month of June. They had a steady stream of campers coming in to register, and others stopping by to buy firewood.

Ron and Brenda enjoy volunteering at state parks, and it’s a pretty good gig. The work is easy, the hours are flexible, and they get a full hookup site in exchange for their work. So they get a month’s free camping in exchange for a few hours of light work every week registering campers. They don’t clean the restrooms or mow any grass, just check campers in, sell firewood, and answer questions. They said the park is busy on the weekends, but Monday through Thursday, they pretty much have the place to themselves.

With budgets cuts everywhere, state parks, Corps of Engineers campgrounds, and other facilities nationwide are always in need of help. If you are interested in learning more about volunteering, Ron and Brenda will be presenting an excellent seminar on it at our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally in Celina, Ohio September 28 – October 2. Make your plans to attend.

Thought For The Day – Having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world.

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Several people have been confused by when I post the blog, because now that we are in the Midwest, it appears online before midnight out west, with the next day’s date on it. This has come up before, so hopefully I can explain it.

I try to post the blog as close to midnight as I can local time, wherever we happen to be. That means that when we were in Arizona it went online about midnight Mountain time, or 3 a.m. Eastern time. I do the same thing here in Missouri, which means that it goes online about 9 p.m. in California, but with the next day’s date on it. A couple of readers have complained about that.

What can I say? I’m a night owl and do most of my writing at night. I’m too lazy to get up at the crack of dawn to post the blog in time to please the early birds, so I do it the night before.

This area around Mark Twain Lake has a multitude of geocaches just waiting to be found. Yesterday we hunted up a couple of virtual caches, including the neat old Union Covered Bridge, located a few miles from Paris, Missouri. We love covered bridges, but this old timer, built in 1871 and restored in 1967, is in pretty sad shape. There are holes in the sides and it has been closed to vehicle traffic since an overloaded truck broke a supporting beam in 1970. There are only four covered bridges left in Missouri, so I hope they save this wonderful old structure before it is too late.   

I have good news for wannabe RVers looking for ways to make money as they travel! Workamper News, the magazine devoted to helping RVers find jobs, has launched their new Workamper Dreamers Blog to help you make your dreams come true. The blog is aimed at helping you understand the workamping lifestyle and what to expect when you get out here and start looking for jobs that will fit into your mobile lifestyle. Check out the new blog, I think you’ll be impressed.

This is our last day at Ray Behrens Corps of Engineers Campground, and we will spend it touching base with our friends Smokey and Pam Ridgely and Ron and Brenda Speidel, who are working locally. Then it’s time to fire up our old bus and hit the road once again. We have to be in Goshen, Indiana late next week for the Heartland Owners Rally, and we want to get settled in at Elkhart Campground and have time to unwind before that starts.

Except for the poor Verizon cell phone service and the slow National Access air card signal, we really like it here, and we know this is one place we’ll return to again in our travels.

Thought For The Day – Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally