downtown and Fred’s poker tournaments.We walked over to check out the tournament times and enjoyed seeing the
zip lines under the domed cover of Fremont street and the
Heart Attack grill where French fries are fried in pure lard, the waitresses wear nursing uniforms and the customers wear hospital gowns.Tuesday, April 10 Fred took off to play poker and JoAnn Wilmoth Clark of Olivia’s WHS class picked up Olivia and took her to the Bellagio to see the sights. We first saw the
beautiful ceiling garden of blown glass flowers at least three feet in diameter.We wandered through the gardens looking at all the
pretty flowers on the ground and
in the air and even formed into a
picture. The flower
bees made Olivia think of our good friends, the Stroopes of Waxahachie. They have been in the bee business for generations.
After watching a brief display of the fountains in front of the hotel we walked back to the café near the gardens for a treat. We decided we would split a banana split, but the waiter didn’t hear us say, “Split” and “Share” and brought us two. Too bad for our
diets as we managed to talk our way through them both. After all we couldn’t take them home.Around the corner we moaned as we saw the
ceiling to floor, triple chocolate fountain, next to another sweet shop.Wednesday April 11 we drove north to the Indian Reservation that has had an abundance of Fred’s cigarettes in the past. Unfortunately in all those
packages, there were only four cartons of his brand. He was told there would be a truck Friday, but we will be long gone by then.We did stay to share an
Indian taco on fry bread.Back in town Olivia dropped Fred off at Binions Casino and she checked out another RV park nearby. It looks like a better one and closer to downtown, but it is almost under the big interstate exchange. Maybe too noisy.
the day before Fred won the morning Holdem tournament, but finished in the middle of the afternoon tournament. Today’s tournament took a long time to complete. Most everyone held onto their money. There were good players here. After the player who finished eighth left the table, the dealer said he was a professional. After nearly seven hours, Fred was eliminated - finishing fifth of 27 players. Not bad, he says he could have done better. All things considered, he was $90 ahead for the two days. He enjoys playing and trys to win.
This day the tournament went on from 2-9 pm. By 7 pm Olivia was beginning to worry about Fred. He had not called or showed up. At 8pm she called the hotel and asked for the poker room. They reported the tournament was still in progress. Meanwhile Fred was calling at the breaks to let Olivia know he was still playing, but got no answer.
Olivia was very glad to see Fred coming across the parking lot. That’s when Fred discovered he was calling the landline in Waxahachie! Poor eyesight strikes again. Duh!
Thursday, April 12 Fred was through gambling, it was a beautiful day and we packed up and headed Northwest. We had not considered the weather. We had nice weather all along and were not concerned. At Beatty we realized it was another 150 miles to our destination and we were pooped out. This little town had four RV parks so we chose one to crash in. As we signed in we asked about the road we had planned to take. We were told to check the internet for there was a storm heading our way.
The sun was out and we took advantage of it to explore the open air art museum in the ghost town of Rhyolite. We started with the
“Last Supper,” then the
“Pink Lady” made of cinder blocks. Fred liked the extra large
mosaic sofa and we thought of Betty Howard and Annette Tunnell and wondered if they would like to tackle this big a job.As we turned around we saw this
steel “miner with a penguin” and the a
“ghostly bike rider.”Friday, April 13 was spent piddling. During a trip into town we followed a sign for the largest candy store in Nevada. The store was large, with a good supply of expensive candies. Fred did check out
all of the assortment. The weather was cold and spitting rain. Our guess was an inch of rain overnight.Saturday, April 14, We woke up to a text message that we had far exceeded our data while roaming. In fact, everything on the iPhones had gone over. We had been learning how to use the things, but now we needed to quit using them unless we find ourselves in AT&T service or our month was up. Since we were not in AT&T area we couldn’t use our free weekend or roll over minutes.
Fortunately we only had two more days, but we were 100 mg over our roaming data.
We decided to go to lunch with our neighbors for clam chowder and pulled pork sandwich at KC restaurant. Some combination huh! This little restaurant makes all their food from scratch. Delish!
The sun had tried to come out, but the wind was still blowing a gale. We hoped to move on the next day.
Sunday, April 15 whoo hoo! We did our taxes before we left home! Hope all of you have finished your IRS obligation.
And we woke to a glorious sunny day with some wind, but not what we had been having. We packed up and headed north to cross the mountains into the valley of CA highway 365. While on 95 we crossed over Stonewall pass El 4686. It was a breeze.
When we turned off of 95 it wasn’t long until we saw
White Mountain, elevation over 14,246. It made us think of Denali in Alaska.We crossed Lida Summit Pass 7420 which had a good bit of
snow, that had been plowed, before crossing into California.Gilbert summit at 6374 had several wiggles and dips along with some snow on the mountains. As we started down the road narrowed and we saw a sign to
“yield to oncoming traffic!” Fortunately we didn’t meet anyone.The final pass was Fred’s waterloo. Westgard pass at 7313 wasn’t bad going up, but the 8 miles down the west side was hard driving. Olivia counted
107 curves, some big some little. She didn’t count the dips in between the curves. The steering wheel was in constant motion from left to right.The downhill stretch into Big Pine showed the
east side of the mountains of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks in all their glory.At this point the low coolant light came on and Fred started getting really antsy. The engine temperature was holding fine. It is hard on the rig to do all that climbing and going down, even without all the curves.
Olivia thinks Fred will ever do that road again.
Turning north to Bishop we found our next home at
Brown’s Town Camp CG in the south edge of town. It was in our research as a county park, but has been taken over by private company. Much to our dismay the price was almost to our limit. A golf course was between us and the mountains. We parked at the back end so no one would block our views. Olivia can look out both directions and see mountains.We love hearing from you, so email us at
olivia@bobheck.com or fredharrington@yahoo.com
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