October 8, Day 51
Today is Columbus Day and Brent has the day off while the kids and Melissa have school. I cleaned the rig in the morning and drove to his house. Brad joined us and we went to a local Mexican restaurant. The food was great and very authentic. After lunch, Brad insisted that we go down a few doors and get a bubble tea. This is an Asian beverage consisting of milk, iced tea, and large tapioca pearls the size of peas. They provide it with a large diameter straw. When you suck up a tapioca pearl, it is like getting a ’hocker’ in you mouth. It is a bit of ‘gager‘, but interesting. After lunch, it was time for the end of the school day for Sam and Lilly, so we drove to their school to pick them up. They attend Valley Christian School. I had a chance to meet their teachers and tour Melissa’s classroom. The construction of California elementary schools is very different from the Midwest. For example, the cloak room consists of hooks on the outside of the building under the roof eave. The cafeteria eating area is a large tent. Brent, I, and the kids went to their place and began working on homework. Melissa had to stay for a while and then run errands. I stayed for dinner and then headed back to the campground.
October 9, Day 52
We took our time in the morning to give traffic a chance to clear before hitting the expressway. Brent stopped by before going to work to say goodbye. It was nice of him to go out of his way to do that. We expressed it to Barstow, CA to pick-up Rte 66 and tour a museum there only the learn that the museum is only open on weekends. So we took off on the ‘Mother Road’ which in this part of the country is mostly rough pavement allowing anywhere between 40 and 50 mph. We are essentially in the high dessert. There is hardly any traffic on the road. We might see another car coming toward us about every 15 minutes. There is nothing to see on either side of the road expect a few abandoned buildings and sometimes I40 which somewhat parallels Rte 66‘. We did see an ancient lava flow which was ’cool’. We stopped in Amboy to see one of the few remaining remnants of the era when the road was in its prime. The place is called Roy’s motel and diner. It is in good shape, but not really functioning. Ten miles east of Amboy, Will burned out a bearing on one of the wheels of her trailer. Calls to AAA have yet to yield anything specific. So, we are in what used to be Chambless and is now a group of abandoned buildings. We will camp here along side the road and deal with the issue in the morning. Brent called to check on us and I told him about the break down. He cautioned us to ‘lock-down’ because of the crazies that live in the dessert. We had a quiet night.
October 10, Day 53
I set my alarm clock to wake Will up at 5:00 a.m. so she could call her Michigan insurance agent at 8:00 a.m. eastern time. I went back to bed. She knocked on my door an hour and a half later to tell me all was set and the tow truck would be there within the hour. He actually made it in less because was on a tire change call on I40 when he got the call. He took off the damaged tire, tied up the suspension, and towed the rig to a shop in Needles. It took most of the day to make the repair and check the other wheels. He also fixed my electric stairs which stopped functioning this morning as well. While he was working on the project, we looked around the town. There is not much to see, it is a rather tawdry town. We did tour a railway station Harvey House facility that is going through an extension renovation. We had a chance to look at the project and the job superintendent even let me look at the drawings. We went to an Indian casino, but got called out by security because we left Cutie in the vehicle with the windows rolled down. Evidently, it is against the law to leave a pet in a vehicle in Arizona even if the windows are down. We are camped for the night in a park on the shores of Colorado River in the city of Needles. The park has a pool and Jacuzzi tub and pool of which we took full advantage.
October 11, Day 54
We drove north from Needles to Bolder City, NV. We toured the town which is very quaint. Bolder City is the community built specifically to house workman during the construction of the Hoover Dam. They have done a lot of work recently to upgrade the downtown area. There are a number of shops, restaurants, and hotels to support the tourist trade that come to visit the dam. We had lunch in café that we are told was featured on Food TV on their ‘Diners and Dives’ shows. The food was good. We hit a number of shops. One antique shop actually had antiques rather than ‘old junk’ in it. We are camping at a Lake Meade National Recreational campground. We are finally back in the ‘cheap seats’ after spending a lot of time in CA. It is nice to be paying $5 for camping rather than $30. Of course, we don’t have anything like electricity, showers, or the Pacific Ocean, but we can survive for a couple of days before things start getting a little ‘gamey’. Tomorrow we tour the Hoover Dam.
