December 27, 2003
I took the road to Pahrump, Nv. From there I took the road over to Las Vegas. OH MY GAWD is it growing and ugly. Miles and miles of housing developments with all the same kind of houses, town houses, apartments, or condo’s. Fortunately the road went south of most of LV and is right on the edge of the newer developments. It seems like everybody is driving some sort of new cool little sports car as well as all sorts of expensive suv’s and lots of Hummers. I happened to pass by a radio shack store and stopped to see if there was a wireless hookup around. He said try the starbucks across the street. I went over and they did have wireless and there was a guy there using it that was somewhat helpful. The deal is that they have the wireless system, but to be able to use it you have to sign up with t-mobile or something for a month for thirty bucks before you can use it. I open up my laptop and sure enough it found the connection and when I clicked on it the home page of the t-mobile came up with instructions for payment. The way it hooked up right away evidently to the internet, makes me think that there was some sort of special password or something that I needed at Beatty. I still have yet to find a geek that knows. I found the library in Boulder City and was able to use their computer to do some email. I have several emails to send using my earthlink program but cant do it with out hooking up this laptop.
I camped way out in the desert south of Boulder City, Nv on 26th. I just started out taking a nice side road and then a small gravel road off of that one. I was a mile or two down that one when I realized it was just a road next to a buried pipe line. It was just a deep trench that looked like it was going to go on for miles and miles. I finally found a small chance to escape and get turned around. Ely and I had a good camp way out there at the turn around spot. The lights of Las Vegas were bright over the hill and the radio stations were coming in great. I even kept the radio on all night listening to Art Bell. It is the first time I have listened to him and he hasn’t faded in and faded out. It happened that Richard C. Hogland was on being interviewed who is a real jerk. One email Art read was from a guy that said he would rather be poked in the eye with an ice pick than listen to Richard C Hogland. If it hadn’t been coming in so good I would have turned it off as well. He does know quite a bit about Mars for sure, but his manner is so irritating.
I drove down to Laughlin, Nv which is on the Colorado River and is absolutely amazing how much it has grown. Actually the whole area is growing like mad. Almost everything
is new. The whole area is just like LA or LV and it sure isn’t anyplace for me to be. I crossed the river to Bullhead city and it is almost the same. There are quite a few homes built right along the river on both sides that come down to the river and their own boat dock. I’ll bet they are pricey. The hills are filling up with houses and trailers too. I talked with some gals at the info station in bullhead and they said the population doubles in winter with snowbirds. She said it is often around 120 in the summer. I don’t think it is probably that humid down here as there are few lawns. She said that on her patio she registered 130 for the highest she has seen. Five hundred ten feet in elevation.
I am camped on a small section of the origional Route 66. I think it is about 2 miles long and is someplace around Needles, Calif. The freeway has taken most of the road over and this is just a little connecting piece. It is getting somewhat hard to find good private camp sites, I think because there is so much camping pressure down here.
December 28, 2003
It sounds like I got down south just in time. A guy I talked to said that Elko had two feet of snow and Ken said he had eight inches or so. I just heard on the radio that more snow was forecast for central Nevada. The radio guy said that the temperature just dropped four degrees to 28 degrees in Las Vegas. It is a little chilly here this morning too but not to freezing.
Now I am camped on the bank of the Colorado at Big River, just across the river from Parker, AZ. There are lots of big houses being built and I am between a huge one on the left and a new construction on the right. This lot has been leveled off and I imagine it will be built on soon. I doubt if I will be able to stay here long, but we’ll see. Ely went for a dip and swim in the river. There are a few ducks on the river and the water is very clear. I would guess that it is about the size of the Yellowstone in early summer. The water comes out of Parker dam just upstream from here, so it is very cold and I imagine that is why it is clear as well.
I finally got a chance to get my jewelry tools out and the pile of stuff under the table organized some. I got out a collapsible table that I got in Beatty. When I was at the Clinic there I saw an incubator out by the dumpster. I asked if they were throwing it away and they said yes. I took the incubator off this nifty collapsible table that is made out of aluminum with casters. It is really nicely built and the way if folded up, makes it easy to store in the back of the truck. Yesterday I found a piece of ¾” plywood with a linoleum top that fits the top where the incubator was. I found it is the perfect height when I sit in the doorway of the pod. I also brought along my little stool and that will be good for working on the table as well. I had it set up this afternoon outside the pod with the door facing south and on the bank of the river. I have been watching the ducks go by and just noticed that the river has dropped almost a foot in the last few hours I have been here.
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Well, I cooked a killer pizza tonight. I bought one of Safeway’s frozen cheese pizza’s with extra cheese. I dolled it up with some extremely hot jalapeno sauce, extra high grate Tillamook cheddar cheese, lots of ham pieces and bits of pineapple. I looked at the prospect of making pizza crust from scratch and gave up on the idea. This seems like a pretty good alternative and I have to thank Ken in Silver Peak for the idea. When I was there we went down to Kenney’s bar and he added some stuff to one of the cheap bar pizza’s and it was much better. The main problem is that it was at the bar, which I can hardly stand the smell. When I went into the Casino’s to check out if they had internet connections, it makes me want to barf when I walk in.
I walked out to look at the river again as it is just sunset and I see that it has come back up. They must be varying the flow by making electricity on demand. I suppose everyone is cooking supper and they need extra juice. I’ll have to check out later and see if the river goes back down after supper and everyone is safely ensconced in front of the TV and those lucky bastards that have internet connections…..
This is the first camp in quite a while where I have not been able to get National Public Radio. I have been listing all along the way in Nevada to KNPR out of LV. They don’t play the damn Opera and symphony music all day. They have very interesting programs with a few repeats during the day. I have been trying to keep up on the BSE mad cow developments. They had a guy on explaining about the futures market and how the price has been going down limits and no one is buying. Must be pretty scary out there in futures land.