You're not in Arizona any more, Merlin

May 2, 2009
Twin Falls, Idaho

We had an interesting trip north from Yuma. As mentioned previously, we stayed the first night along I-10 just east of the Arizona-California border. From there, we followed US-95 north toward Las Vegas. Since we're planning to spend a few days in Vegas on the way home in the fall, our plan was to just "pass through" on this leg. As they say, "the best laid plans"...

Did you ever hear of the comedian Sam Kinison? He's dead, you know. Well, we found out that he died right along our route, on US-95 just near where the road crosses from California into Nevada. How did we learn this? Well, there's a railroad crossing right there in the middle of nowhere. The speed limit is 65. I slowed down to 30. We hit the tracks hard even so, and I was quite surprised at the impact. When we stopped for breakfast about 40 miles up the road, we put the bedroom slides out and found that one wouldn't come back in. Oh no! Let's check the fuse in the closet. Open the closet door and find every single hanger had jumped the rod. Gee, that must have been a bigger bump than I thought. Check the fuse block and nothing there, so better check the ones in the engine compartment. Wait a minute: what's wrong with the tow bar connecting the car to the coach? Why are the arms bent at a 30 degree angle??? Wow! I wonder what else those railroad tracks threw out of kilter?

Well, we put the clothes back up in the closet, we freed up the bedroom slide and it works fine now, and we made an unscheduled stop at the Camping World in Las Vegas for a new tow bar. Fortunately, swapping a tow bar is about as quick as a NASCAR pit stop (unlock from the coach, unhook the car, slide the tow bar from the hitch receiver, slide the new one in and lock the pin, reconnect the car, adjust the safety cables, and you're done. OK, maybe a bad NASCAR stop, but not much more than 5 minutes (and $1,000) later and you're on the road. Just in time to hit traffic all along I-15 and then find out that the exit for the truck stop where you need to fuel up is closed due to construction. A few detours later, and we're through civilization and heading north on US-93, our route from Vegas all the way to Montana.

Since we're trying to play things more by ear this trip, and to stay off the Interstates when possible, US-93 was a good choice. On the other hand, when you encounter a road called the Extraterrestrial Highway, you have to take it. This road runs by the location of the infamous "Area 51" - so they say. We stopped for dinner right near this site, at a small bar where the specialty is the "saucer burger" and the gene pool is pretty shallow. While we ate, we were entertained by the staff and locals mixing strange new cocktails with whatever they had behind the bar. We were thinking they'd been at it all day. But, they were friendly enough and told us we were welcome to park overnight in the field over yonder, where we slept like logs. Good deal.

From Area 51, we cut back to US-93 via US-6, and made it to Twin Falls, Idaho, as planned. We had a nice view of snow-covered mountains all around, and we ran into some light rain in several spots, with temperatures dropping into the 60s. With out blood being thinned from Arizona's spring, this was quite a shock to the system. Bring out the rain gear!

We're staying two nights here to break things up - we haven't stayed two nights in the same place since we left home on the 27th. It's a nice, older park, but the sites are generally level, we fit in the pull-thru, and the power works fine. That's all we need these days. Today, we hit a few stores to pick up essentials and puttered around the coach; nothing strenuous. Tomorrow, we're heading to Kalispell, Montana, where we'll spend a few days getting ready to cross into Canada. We're over our limit on booze, so I'll do an inventory and declare what we have and hope for the best.

Here's a link to some pictures from this part of the trip...