91 miles took 5 hours!

7th – Day 28-33, Nov 20-25, Solstice Motorcoach Resort, Mesquite, NV

Friday, we left our house in Riverton at 7:30 AM. I drove the truck while Kevin worked from his laptop and our hotspot. The drive was easy with very little traffic. We got to the RV storage unit in Washington, UT, next to St George, at 11:30. It took about an hour to get everything hooked up; including airing up the tires. Then we drove to Mesquite, NV to  Solstice Motorcoach Resort. Now, this isn’t a resort as I think of a resort but it is one of our favorite campgrounds. The campsites are very wide, in fact, you  park your vehicle what equates to two parking spots over. It is gravel, with paved road. There are palm trees around what could be a water fountain and pond. No water there now. The view is stunning: we have what looks like the Wasatch front mtns to the east and then behind us to the west is a mesa. Beautiful. We quickly got set up and then Kevin sat outside and did more work. (No picnic table).

Oh hey, it is completely dark here at 4:45 PM! It is because we are on the border of the time zone. I think on Dec 21 it must be dark at 3:00! After work, we drove around part of Mesquite.

We found it interesting that there isn’t a lot of fast food places. 2 McDonalds, a Taco Bell, and a KFC. That is all. We got supper at McDonalds and ate in the truck. Then we went to Smiths grocery store. I didn’t bring food because we don’t have the fridge plugged in so it will take a little while for it to get cold.  Smiths was a shock! Crowded rows and out of a lot of food….including diet coke! We got a few things but it wasn’t a store I liked. We went to ACE Hardware for a few things. It is a darling store. Then we went to Walmart and it is a pretty nice store. They had diet coke. HAHA Then back to campsite.

Saturday I made eggs with pre-cooked turkey sausages. They were pretty good. We spent the day driving around Mesquite, NV, Scenic, AZ, and Beaver Dam, AZ. We really like Scenic; was surprised at all the gravel roads. We saw quite a few “pads” with electricity, water, and sewer for RVs. Interesting to us, for sure. We drove to the sign of Gold Butte National Monument on very rough roads. Will be back tomorrow. Back to campsite around 3:00, hung out and then had pulled pork sandwiches and potato salad for supper.

Sunday, same breakfast. Then we drove to Gold Butte National Monument. There was a ghost town called Gold Butte. It was an active gold mine in late 1800’s, early 1900’s. It was a great day. What we thought was rough roads yesterday, well, nothing compared to this day. Most of it was paved at one time, but now it is a truly washboard road. If we were true off-roaders, we would have “aired down” our tires – lowering the pressure in the tires to make for a smoother ride. There were no potholes, just that washboard surface. The area is unique and beautiful with different kinds of rock, sand and dirt. The Virgin River is so pretty; it meanders along the beautiful desert. We saw the beginning of Lake Mead.

We got out and climbed around Whitney Pockets – so unique! The rock at Whitney Pockets is rock-hard, unlike the sandstone that blows away.

We continued on heading for Gold Butte ghost town. At the end, we got to the ghost town.

We were a tiny bit disappointed in that there wasn’t foundations or anything like that to see. We read on the National Park sign that 2000 people lived there in the gold rush of 1906 but they lived in tents, so that is why there aren’t foundations to see. Two guys are buried there; they did live in a house and would feed people passing by. They died in 1958/1961. We ate a picnic lunch on the tailgate of our truck. That was fun. Then we walked a little ways and saw the opening of several gold mines.

We were there about an hour. On the way back, the road seemed even rougher, if that is possible. HAHA It took 1 hour and 10 minutes to drive 14 miles. What a great memory.  Oh, the only animals we saw the entire time was 2 wild donkeys. They just starred at us. 🙂

The road is an in/out road. We went 91 miles in 5 hours! So much fun. We thought about going to Valley of Fire but we will do that at another time. Back to the trailer in time to watch KC Chiefs beat LV Chargers.

Monday, Kevin worked and I did some sewing. He got me, for an early Christmas present, a SewEZi table (https://www.seweziusa.com/) and it is incredible!

Fits perfectly in our trailer. I had a lot of fun sewing.

When Kevin was done with work, we both took naps and then drove around Mesquite. A few months ago we found online a different campground that had opening for Christmas. It is cute with palm trees between each site. However, it is in the middle of the city right next to Smiths. It does’t have a view and so we decided to cancel that one and keep our reservation for Southern Utah RV Resort for dates in December. We had the reservations for Dec 18-28, the dates we were suppose to be gone on a cruise. Kevin checked and the exact same campsite was available Dec 28-31 so we took it.

Tuesday, Kevin worked and I did some sewing. Same as yesterday. Later Kevin went with me to two fabric stores. One was  Simply Quilt and found from Traveler’s Quilt Book. It was tiny with no more than 20 bolts of fabric. Very nice lady and I bought some white fabric. Then we drove to Stitch N Scrap. The lady there was extra nice and kept asking Kevin how to sign different words in ASL to help me. So kind! I got some fabric just because it is pretty, a rotor cutter container, Isulate-Bright, and a book about a quilter, novel. If you are in the area, check out this store: http://www.stitchnscrap.com

Later in the day, I checked the Southern Utah RV Resort’s website and low and behold, our same campsite was now available for Dec 31-Jan 3. We took it! HAHA So we have 3 reservations, in a row, all for the same site. Kevin called them and we reserved the activity room for Christmas Day, 11:00-3:00. Then we invited Mom & Dad to come for Christmas.

I suggested to Kevin that he try doing a puzzle. I think he would like it and it would be good exercise for his brain. We bought a cute one the other day at Ace Hardware. He started putting it together tonight. He worked on it for 2 hours and I was very impressed. Oh, this was after one game of Cribbage, which I finally won. 😉

Wednesday, “disembarkment day”… Always a sad day.