Days 34-38: Getting into Hot Water

Let me start by saying that the folks at Hi Desert RV Resort in Winnemucca were great and David knew as much about my trailer as I do. I discovered several things I was doing wrong and several more that I could improve. I had a great meal on Wednesday 9/11 at the Martin Hotel. It was Basque family style and I was seated with four ladies from Salem, Oregon who were on a road trip. They were all about the same age as me. One was a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Two were school teachers. The fourth said she'd had a lot of careers, but everyone agreed she was in real estate. We laughed and told stories all evening and then headed out to play a while in the casino. I lost my twenty dollar limit and went back to my trailer and instantly asleep, rocked by the winds.

I worked most of the morning and early afternoon on "Bread for the Pharaoh" and we got "The Shiva Paradox" off to print for a proof. great accomplishments, so I decided to spend the afternoon doing some maintenance on the trailer. I had a broken light lens on the trailer, so I started by replacing it. I got a better connection for my sewer hose and got that connected along with some bio-digestive stuff to put in the black water tank. I got a couple of tape strips to help determine how much LP gas is in the tank. Then I decided to tackle the problem of the leaky joint on the hot water heater. I got some plumbing joint tape, but I decided to start off by just seeing if I could tighten the joint a little. I don't have many tools, so I just reached in with my fingers to see if it was loose.

It broke off in my fingers and water started spraying everywhere. I got all the water turned off, drained the tank, and then spent a good bit of the rest of the day sopping up the water off the floor. I also got the little piece off the pipe, but couldn't get the rest out of the joint in the water heater. Turns out it's some kind of plastic valve that prevents the water from running backward into the tank. And I was out of luck. I couldn't turn the water back on because without that valve, there was nothing to stop the water from flowing out that part of the tank.

I did some online research and discovered a Lance dealer in Reno--Sprad RV. I sent them an email and then followed up with a call indicating that I'd be in Reno by 1:00 on Friday and I needed an emergency repair. I took off early (8:00) Friday morning and during one of the rare times when I had cell service, the dealer called and said they were booked out a week for service. I said I was sure it would only take ten minutes to fix and I had no water in my trailer until I could get it fixed. (And no other Lance dealers between here and Palm Springs.) They told me to come on in.

Well, it took a little more than ten minutes, but I got a new valve and several little extras from their store. I grabbed a spot at Riverside RV Park in Reno and slept for a while. Then I decided to make a night of it. I went to The Nugget in Sparks and won enough playing blackjack to pay for a nice meal. With drinks and a show, of course, I way overspent what I'd won. Oh well. I crashed for the night and on Saturday moved out to Fernley, the beginning of what AAA calls "The loneliest highway in America," U.S. Hwy 50. To me, it was an opportunity to get my filthy truck and trailer washed!

These guys bring full 18-wheel rigs into their carwash and six of them attack the job. There were so many bugs and so much crap on the trailer that it was in bad need of a wash. As a bonus, the bike got clean, too.

I stayed at Desert Rose RV Park on Hwy 50, pointed toward Fallon, but on Sunday I decided to do some exploring and loop back to pick up the part of 95 that I missed by going straight into Reno. They might say that 50 is the loneliest highway, but that stretch of 95, and in fact the rest of it all the way to Las Vegas, is pretty barren.

I kept thinking that Judeo-Christian myths say God created the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh day, this is where he sat down.

In this bleak desert, though there was also water. I was surprised to come around a curve and see water as far as I could see, but still no greenery around it. This is "Twenty-mile beach" at Lake Walker. And yes, it's really water, not a mirage.

I'd decided to drive about 200 miles on Monday to Tonopah and get there early enough so I could claim one of the first-come first-served RV spots at the Model-T Casino. I pulled in and looked at the available spaces and decided to drive another 100 miles to Beatty. I'd been told there was a much nicer park there. I called ahead and was told sure they had room for me.

Believe it or not, the second picture is vastly superior to the first. And another trailer did pull in before full dark. The restrooms/showers were very nice and I had a little shade in the morning.

I was headed for Las Vegas on Tuesday, but while I was looking in the office and the maps, I discovered that I was just a few miles from Death Valley National Park. I always thought of that as all in California, but it turns out that a) part of it is in Nevada and b) I was only fifteen miles from California. So I got up early and was on the road by 7:00 to go to Death Valley. Wow! It's gorgeous. The climb up to Daylight Pass wasn't bad, but going down to Hell's Gate was hard on the poor truck. Some of the grades are so steep that (like Hells Canyon) I was in second gear so I wouldn't burn out the brakes. At least this road was paved. I only went about half-way down to the desert floor, but the temperature went up close to twenty degrees in the hour it took me to get there. At 8:00 it was near 90.

 

I got into Vegas about 1:00 in the afternoon and am camped here for a couple nights while I try to finish BFTP. Then I'll be headed into California for real. It has been hot everyplace and the headwind so strong coming down from Tonopah (6,000 feet) to Vegas (2,000 feet) that the truck has traveled in 4th or 5th gear (instead of 6th at 60 mph) most of the way. North of Vegas, the wind was so strong that I actually felt the trailer pulling at me and trying to swerve on the road. It's been really stable in all kinds of wind prior to this one. Haven't been able to use the awning at night for several days. I don't want to become a kite!