The End... or Just a Beginning?

Well, after quite a lot of planning, our wild west RV adventure is over.  While we're all happy to be home, we also loved the many sights, hikes and fun times along the way... reminiscing along Rt. 66, seeing all the cheesy sites, gorgeous camp sites, unbelievable natural beauty, small towns, kids playing together and hanging out, exploring, etc.

If you've ever thought of doing an RV trip, do it.  Don't try to do too much, just take it easy, hit a few sites and enjoy the journey as well as the destination.  Take the time to enjoy each others company and not rushing around to arrive at an exact time. 

I don't think this is the end of RV'ing for us.  I have my eyes on a trip up to Glacier (Montana), Yellowstone and maybe the Badlands.  I think the look on Denise's face when I mentioned this, means it will be in about 4-5 yrs though.  :-)
-Scott

Day 13: Home!

Bye Arizona and rv'ing. Home here we come. We ate a yummy breakfast at the hotel and caught a shuttle to the airport, got on the airplane and went home. Hope you've enjoyed the blog!
-Lindsey

Ooooops!

Well, I spoke a bit too soon about not running into any minor or major issues... And this was potentially a big one.

We left Las Vegas on Saturday morning and headed to this old mining town called Oatman where they have a haunted hotel, donkeys in the middle of the street that you can feed etc.  Well, we had heard how neat this town was, but no one mentioned how difficult of a drive it is. 

So, Jerry was driving and Dee was navigating as we left the highway and jumped back on Rt. 66 to get to Oatman.  It was supposed to be a short 12 mile trek in.  About halfway up the mountain we noticed how there were some incredibly tight switchbacks that made us go about 10 mph around the turns... with a sheer drop off of either side.  Kinda scary.  Also about this point... all of a sudden the RV flashed a signal on the driver's side information read-out, "Critical - Engine Coolant Emergency"  (or something close to that) and then it shut down the engine.  No, I'm not joking.  It just shut down as we were in the middle of an already tight road.  Jerry slams on the brakes, and we are at a dead stop and no idea what is going on.  We applied the air brakes, and got everyone off and on the side of the road.  This road is not highly travelled, but there were a few cars now backed up behind us.  We squeezed them by, as we also attempted to see what was going on. 

We found that the engine was spewing coolant everywhere.  The problem was why.  We hadn't hit anything, and there was no warning.  Luckily, a couple of the cars the drove by were locals and they stopped and  called the Mohave County Sheriff, set out some flares etc.  We decided to move the RV off to a single lane as more cars were showing up.  We also were able to find a nice couple that took Dee, Denise and the girls into Oatman while Jerry and I stayed with the RV.  It was close to 100 degrees, so getting them to safety was pretty important.  At this time, we looked around... we had a sheer drop of about 400 ft on the right side, about 100 feet behind the RV was another sheer drop of 300 ft.  We were surrounded by a potentially cool movie scene of a car/RV falling off the slide of a cliff and exploding... only we weren't really excited for the scene to actually happen. 

So with the others off to Oatman, we tried and tried to pop the hood, but it wouldn't budge.  Finally the PoPo showed up and he was great.  He helped direct the traffic, and he arranged for a monster tow firm out of Kingman (30 minutes away) to come up and tow us out.  The only problem here is that the PoPo said there is a sign at the bottom of the mountain that said nothing longer than 30 ft. is advised to go up.  We were 42 ft!  Uh oh.  The problem this presented is that there is no way to turn the RV around and get towed down.  The only way is to tie it up and go up the mountain and into town... where the switchbacks only got worse. 

The tow guys showed up and they were able to get the RV all straightened out.  They had trouble with the hood as well, but finally got it open.  And then, the best news of this event.  The coolant hose had simply come off.  So, we re-attached the hose, and filled the reservoir with water from the RV tanks and within 15-20 minutes, had the RV back up in running condition! The tow truck guided us into Oatman, and I can say that without them, we would never have made it in.  The switchbacks were unbelievable.  But we finally made it!  We found the others... they had lunch, checked out the shops, petted the donkeys, etc... which was nice, but they were also concerned about how we were faring. 

We headed out quickly as we needed to get the RV back to Glendale which was a mere 4 hours away.  So, in the end, a safe trip... but wow, what a last day!.
-Scott

Day 12: Driving

Well, I have to hand it to dad. Dad:0 Fate:1. We left Vegas and drove three hours to Oatman. No one was paying much attention outside and we got jolted and hit the trailer hitch on something. About a minute later, we smelled something funky. We all started freaking out. We had to evacute the rv and stand on the hill and watch Papa try to move the rv a little up hill. We were sooo scared. Did I mention we were on scenic Route 66 on a mountain two laned road? Finally we figured out who had service on their phones and me, Kathryn, Sarah, mom, and Dede hitch hiked with this nice couple to Oatman. When we got there, after some wild driving, we went to Olive Oatman's Resturaunt and tried to get a hold of dad and Papa. Finally, after eating some food, we decided to walk around the town. Kathryn, me , and Dede walked out of one store and I looked down the road. Woahh how did those people get their rv here?? WAIT theres no other rv in the world that's solid white!! THAT'S OURS!!!!! We ran to mom and got reunited. One of the pipes in the rv had come apart. All was good. We arrived at the hotel and ordered pizza into the hotel. Dad handed the rv over to the owner and we said buh bye to our last two week home. Ohio here we come!

Day 11: LAS VEGAS!!

 What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. A quick overview. We finally found the Vegas sign (thanks to a pool guy) and took pictures. Then we checked into our rv park at Circus Circus. After buying dad a pair of pants for dinner ( you weren't allowed into the Wynn resturaunt without pants) we boarded the shuttle bus and headed for New York, New York. Dad and I rode the roller coaster (amazingggg!!) and walked around a little looking at the sights. We went back to the rv and freshened up and went to a lovely dinner at the Lakeside Resturant. It was reallyyy yummyy. There was a funny frog performance over the waterfall. Then, we took a very interesting bus ride to the Bellagio to watch the fountains. Someone got a hold of the intercom and was blaring heavy rap. Usually I like music but this was awwfulll. We waited to see the fountains (very beautiful) and attempted to make the Treasure Island pirate show. Everyone was soo tired that we decided to go back to the rv. We went back and hit the hay hard.

Day 10: Hoooover Dam

After having a very pleasent time in Zion, we left and headed for Vegas (BABYY) and Hoover Dam. Trust me, for those who know Papa, he asked me his very often random history questions. It was a day for surprizes because I actually got one right!! We walked to the Hoover Dam from our parking lot after eating lunch and went to the movie theater to watch a short film (closed captioning...blechh) and went on a tour through the generator rooms and through the underground. We finally got off of the tour and walked back to the rv. We climbed tons of tons of stairs. We got to the rv and just collapsed and all you could hear were the sighs of people trying to breathe. Then, we went to our rv park in Boulder City and went swimming. After that, we had a picnic of tacos....Stay tuned for tomorrow!

Tempting fate...

I realize I am jinxing myself, but after 10 or so days, we have had no mishaps with the... umm... sewage disposal.  When we pull in to our park, we hook up electric, water, and of course the lovely sewage line.  And again, we have not had any major, or even minor, explosions like that in the movie RV with Robin Williams.  We did get a picture of Lindsey pulling the plug, so I'm sure she's pleased with us for that.

So, fingers crossed that we make another few days... clean!
-Scott