February 11 through February 17, 2005

Friday February 11:

Matt called us with news about a recall on the RV propane tank; the bracket welds could break, dropping the tank to the road.... YIKES!  It was raining steadily, so I suited up and inspected the tank to see if it was the Brunner Engineering & Mfg. model 1546 that was recalled.  It was their make, but even with a mirror I could not see the model number without removing the regulator shroud.  The tank was still solidly mounted, however, and the welds looked good, without cracks!  :-))  I hung out in Camping World among a large crowd of customers watching for my  waste tank vent covers to appear, and bought cabinet door latches to replace some failed ones. When a helpful clerk agreed to go back and look to dig them out of the pile of unsorted incoming stuff, I bought two RV-360 "wind vane" sewer tank vent covers, which had come in this morning. Claire came in and we looked over the new toilets.  They had an attractive Thetford model 34071 low China Bowl (guaranteed for life) toilet for around $169.The china bowl adds a bit of weight compared to plastic, but surprisingly little, and is easier to clean than plastic.  The best part of it, it looks like it would accept replacement home style toilet seats!  Ours is failing with the special thin plastic moulded seat cracking, and replacement seats are unacceptably costly.   We decided to replace ours with that when it fails. I bought extra roof sealant to install the vent covers, and screened fresh water hose washers to keep sand out of our water tank, then we were on our way.  The Adam Bible info center at Lake Mead recreation area had a flower book that Claire bought.  They also had info (when I asked) about access to a hot spring via a hike on the 3 mile White Rock Canyon trail starting in a dirt parking lot on the west side of US 93, 4.2 miles south of Hoover Dam.  We moved to Boulder campground and selected site 15, well up from the lake with a view of the lake between the bushes. It was still raining steadily at bedtime.

Saturday February 12:

The rain had pretty much stopped by dawn, but it was still mostly cloudy.  It allowed us to walk along the beach in the early afternoon.  

The lake is still much below full even after all this rain they've had this winter.  An accommodating person took one of the rare pictures we have with both of us included.

The lake attracts wintering waterfowl.

 I guess these coots were Arizona snowbirds before we RVers took up the migratory lifestyle, and the nickname..  :-)  I returned to install the RV 360 vent.  This installation was unusual ONLY in that it went well.  :-)  I did deviate from instructions and did NOT remove the base of the old vent from the rubber roof;  I just removed the screws and cracked the sun weakened old vertical parts off with a vice grips, then sealed the new cover over the old one.  The mechanical connection of the new one is to the vent pipe, with 3 sheet metal screws drilled through the pipes to hold it.  I did notice there was a leak to the RV interior through a carelessly cut oversized opening in the roof for the vent pipe.  The opening was sealed from weather by the vent cover...but sewer gases could certainly go from the vent pipe down into the coach... I wonder if this was the root cause of our occasional rank smells?  It looks fine, and turns to follow a very gentle breeze.....

However, upon returning inside I notice a weak smell of tank odor...have we been taken by the wily RV merchants of hype?  :-(  Later, as the RV vents to the outside, I notice an unusual freshness in the air.  That whiff would prove to be the last of tank odor we'd get, and was probably due to fumes being forced down through the roof hole as I sealed it.  For whatever reason, this thing WORKS, whether it sucks fumes from the tank by Venturi action of the wind as advertised, or whether its installation sealed the unsealed roof hole around the vent pipe as I suspect, we are VERY happy with our new RV-360 black tank vent!!  Our noses know....  :-)  Anybody with tank odors should check that their vent pipe is thoroughly sealed against any air passage AT THE ROOF SURFACE, inside the vent cover.  THEN if odors persist it would be worth springing for $30 for the RV-360...  :-)  Our spirits are much buoyed by the improving weather.  TV here is unavailable, as the reflections from the mountains produce unacceptable ghosting at all antenna orientations.  Claire reads while I turn in.

Sunday February 13:

Today is sunny, and I started by taking the shroud off of the propane tank regulator and confirming we indeed HAVE the recalled model 1546 tank.  Then I took the time to get the creeper out and located and soldered back a broken wire on the gray tank level sensor;  I suspected it was broken when the gray tank showed constant empty.  It normally shows constant full….caused by waste buildup on the sensor probes in the tank.  Why did I feel I needed to fix it....dunno, it gives us no information either way.  :-)   I noted the large number of these Oleander bushes in this campground....

They are attractive, and the NPS says they are for windbreaks....but cautions that they are quite poisonous, not to use them for firewood, ESPECIALLY for cooking food, nor use water that puddles under them.....  There is a different attitude here in the west; in the east they would pull all the Oleander out.  I guess here there is just more dangerous stuff we must learn to live with?  Dunno, but I keep marveling at the differences.   Since I had  the creeper out, and a good black topped site to use it, I decided to install Matt's Christmas present of at least two years ago...the improvised transmission fluid temperature sensor sold as "Pyrex Accessories Digital Probe Thermometer #16484", a remote reading oven meat thermometer with stainless steel probe.  I  hose clamped it to the transmission's  hot output fluid cooling line after cleaning the tube with a green 3M pot scratcher, then sealed it with LOTS of silicon seal as weather seal and perhaps to help the heat transfer to the probe as well by insulating it a bit from the air stream.  The cable was covered with shrink tube for weather protection, and run under the engine cover gasket and into the coach.  This exposed another new problem; the engine cover inside the coach could not be removed.  One bolt's captive nut had spun loose, and would not allow the bolt to loosen even when the nut was grabbed with a vise grip.  :-((((   I was able to raise the cover enough to get Claire's arm through to reach the cable, but this problem will need FIXING; probably drilling out of the bolt head and complete replacement of the four captive nuts!  I ran out of energy before completing the splicing of the single shielded cable to extend the length to that needed for good viewing of the sensor from the driving position (this energy drained quite suddenly when my first splice turned out to be shorted).  :-((  I turned in very early.

Monday February 14:

I awoke at first light, and finished splicing the cable.  When the engine cover was reinstalled, one nut was either missing or stripped out.  This installation technique is TOTALLY inadequate, as the bolts were covered with rug strands and glue, impeding the proper threading of the bolts into the blind captive nuts.  I  cleaned the threads with mineral spirits, chased the threads, and greased the bolts, but we must do much more to make this cover attachment scheme work properly. We plan to go on the six mile round trip White Rock Canyon hike today, taking a soak in the Arizona Hot Spring at the midway point…  The crossing of the dam is easy, with the search of the motorhome painless;  we just have to open storage compartments and show there is nothing nasty attached on our propane tank.  The parking lot for the trail head has much more room than described, but the driveway is steep downhill and bumpy.  We find a comfortable level spot to park, and start out.  The trail is sloping gently but steadily downward.

It soon becomes coarse sandy wash bottom, with steep rock walls

The walking is a bit harder here, through the loose sand.  The canyon walls deepen, and we see the white boulders washed down that give the canyon its name.  

We also see signs to climb to safety in the event of a flash flood...but gee Mr Ranger, we do not levitate too well.  :-)  We reach the river in safety, and it is certainly beautiful.

So far this hike is well worth doing just for the scenery.  but NOW we have a hot spring coming too!!  :-))  We hiked south along the river, observing this iron ring embedded in the rock.

It was used in the mid 1800's to pull steamships up the rapids that now do not exist due to the calming action of the dams on the river.  The hot spring was harder to find than I thought, but finally I topped a hill and looked down upon a narrow canyon with a little water running down it, and the sound of distant falling water emanating from it ; I descended the steep hill into the canyon, and the water was NOT cold!  :-) Walking through increasingly deep water, climbing over some wet slippery rocks, I found a 20 foot ladder reaching to a sandbagged pool, with two bathing suited young ladies looking down at me.  I guessed I'd found the hot spring, and they confirmed it.  I returned to get Claire, and met her at the entrance to the canyon, she having found a marked trail to it. We changed to our bathing suits in the canyon, suspecting little privacy at the pool.

This changing room was just fine, thank you!  The ladder up to the pool looked just fine, not really the ramshackle thing I had expected.

Claire beat me to the pool, as I had to plastic bag my camera and cellphone to climb the ladder, to avoid wetting them with the warm water splashing onto my only path up.  :-)  

I quickly followed her, stepping over the sandbags into a knee deep pool of NICE warm water.  We climbed up another rock waterfall that was sandbagged, into a still warmer pool with the two girls and a man on a sandbar above getting dressed to leave.  They were local from Las Vegas and came here often. The two Dalmatian dogs with them seemed to enjoy the place too. They had all seen our motorhome parked at the trail head, but had come by a shorter direct trail. I asked about it, but they said it was steeper, and might be hard to find for us.  They pointed out the location of the hot water source running put of a hole in the rock wall of the canyon, and said the water cooled from there.  They also mentioned that the place was REALLY neat at night.  :-)  They departed, and we found places on the sandbar and on rock ledges for our things.  

Claire was already soaking.

It's time to put this darn camera down and get WET!  I chose a place to submerge near the hot end of the top pool....mmmmmmm, GOOD!!  We noticed evidence of candle wax in crevices near the water's edge....so THAT is how folks enjoy this at night!!  :-)   We were not there long when another man appeared, stripped to his trunks on the sand bar and walked to the lower cooler pool. A few times he would walk to the dam forming our pool and chat, then return to his soak.  He remarked that he could not understand how we could stand the heat in this upper pool...I thought it was GREAT!   I could feel it fixing my sore back as I relaxed in it!!  :-)))  I remarked that I had seen no National Park guidelines on bathing suits being required here, and he said they were not....and said he had removed his shorts upon entering the lower pool, as he prefers to soak nude.  He said if kids are present, the folks stay suited, but adults used to hot springs generally do not.  I told him we had seen the girls suited, so assumed that was the norm.  He said that he was surprised they had been suited, as usually they are not.  I think they probably heard Claire and I hollering to each other, and suited up to avoid startling us... they WERE looking down at me as I approached, not a normal position for soaking, which indicates they were expecting us.   :-)   When we told Mike (as we introduced ourselves) that we were not offended by 'skinny' he proceeded to rebuild the sandbag dam on top of our pool, then returned to his cool pool to soak more, after offering to guide us out the short way.  As this gave me more soak time, I was happy that Claire agreed to the steeper climb he talked of.  The newly formed shallow pool above the dam Mike had just built was HOT!   It was almost too hot to stand in, but I laid down in it anyway, and soaked the heat into my back and shoulders....

The temperature here is said to be 128 degrees, and that feels positively THERAPEUTIC!  I could not have stood total immersion at the temperature, but just my back submerged was WONDERFUL.  Mike too soon emerged ready to start back, and I HAD to go...it was already too late to take the long way....  This steep narrow grotto seemed too hidden to ever see sunlight, but just as we were leaving a ray of sunshine played on the wall....

I took that as a sign we'd someday be back here....I'd sure HOPE to live to experience this great place again!!   We started up the narrow wash that the hot spring fed.  There were rocks to climb over that required effort, and on top of one, Mike who was leading announced there was a baby rattlesnake.

Mikes identification was confirmed by pictures in the book, compared after our return to my more distant than normal pictures of the critter in the wild... this snake looked to be about 18 inches long, while adults are 40 inches.  Just call me chicken, BUT the book does say "CAUTION: Most venomous and possibly most aggressive species in the SW"....   It did not LOOK aggressive until Mike got it's attention with my walking stick...then it coiled into striking position.

 It would have been hard to see on the rocks if mike had not been leading...but it certainly is a bad thing to miss!  This baby had very few rattles, and although the tail was vibrating it made no noise I could hear.  Mike assured us they are born with venom, and this guy could give us a world of hurt!  I'm happy I have the snake bite kit in my vest pocket, and even happier I did not have to use it!  Mike guided us over a trail he had made.

The flowers were wonderful! The path led directly over a hill through a pass that at the top looked down on our parked RV.   

Home is the l'il white blob in the center of this picture!  We are quite tired, and this route did involve more hill climbing than the longer one through White Rock Canyon wash, but there was less sand to climb through and it was shorter.  We slowed Mike down a LOT, and eventually he looked at his watch, said we could follow the trail back from here at our own pace, but he was late for an appointment and must move out.  We thanked him profusely, and he took off at a pace that soon had him lost in the distance.  We slowed to a MUCH more leisurely pace for the rest of the hike back....Claire almost immediately took a break for field repairs to her feet...

After removing the pebbles from her boots we moved on.  We had both been pushing ourselves to keep from delaying Mike more than necessary, but he had been stopping often to allow us to catch up, and I'm sure walked slower than his natural pace too..  We certainly enjoyed his trail, and since the GPS kept a track record for us, I'll try to share that info with you here.....but the risk of following these instructions is yours alone!

This has been one BIG day, but we are both overjoyed we did it....yes, we're totally pooped when we got back, and still had to drive back to the campground in the dark.  We are relieved there is no checkpoint going this way, and find our old spot unoccupied in the campground.  We violate one way rules and drive in the exit loop to make parking head in to out spot easy, have left over soup for dinner, and both COLLAPSE into bed.

Tuesday February 15:

We decided to stay an extra day here;  we are not in a hurry, and both of us think a day of rest is in order before tackling the significant hike from the available RV parking to the  dam tour site.  We drove to Boulder City to shop for groceries and look for a jewelry store that Claire remembered from last trip.  After some difficulty we find a McDonalds lot to park in, and I go in to ask if we may stay an hour while Claire shops.  By the time I joined her, she had seen it, and we returned to the Boulder campground.  The view of Lake Mead is inviting as we descend the grade toward the park turnoff.

This is a very pretty area and we do enjoy it. :-)

Wednesday February 16:

We departed Boulder CG for the final time this trip after showering, dumping and filling water.  We toured Hoover Dam after some pointed questions from our security inspector about whether we had crossed here before.  When he heard we had, two days ago, to see Arizona Hot Springs, and knew the details about that place, he seemed much easier with us.  I believe he knew we had crossed before, and thought it unusual enough to question.  He told us we could park anywhere on the Arizona side where we could fit; the "No Busses" signs were intended for tour busses, not us.  These leaning high tension towers bringing the power lines up from below the dam are striking to the eye as we approach.

I cannot think of anything but "leaning tower of power" when I see them....but I'm sure their design is only functional to keep sparks from flying as power is brought from the generators deep in the canyon below. The magnitude of this dam project is overwhelming, and must have been truly amazing when finished in 1935.  Even today, one of it's major activities is as a tourist attraction.  :-)

 This is depression era construction, and the four ornate water intake towers up stream of the dam (to Claire's left in the picture) would not be built that way today.  They are beautiful to look at, but more modern dams have them included in the dam structure to lower the cost. The US93 highway over the dam is two lane, with frequent stops for pedestrians crossing the road.  The new bridge over the river below the dam is expected to open in 2007.   We saw lots of construction of  new ramps ongoing as we drove to the dam.

 Although no announcements have been made yet, I would expect casual traffic on the existing road over the dam will then cease, to increase security of the dam at lower cost, as it has at other dams along the river.  We drove across it this year with our motorhome, but expect this opportunity will end in a few years when facilities are built to allow tourism but still block vehicle traffic on the dam. We found free parking a few lots up from the pay garage and parked near another motorhome.  We started for the dam tour, but Claire decided to go back for something.  As soon as she returned, I remembered I had my pocketknife on my key ring, so I went back with that.....  The walk across the dam revealed part of the tour industry working on the lake above the dam....

The boat is self explanatory, especially since the stern paddlewheel does not appear to turn.  :-)   The white "bathtub ring" is mineral deposits from a full lake, last happening in 1983. This photo shows what the dam looks like in full discharge during flood conditions.....

That water flow is pretty scary!!  Today conditions are much calmer.   These fish are quite visible from the dam sidewalk many feet above....

I am awed by the size they must be..... Later a tour guide said there are carp and catfish in here that are often seen....as well as bass and trout.  We paid our $8 each senior rate for the tour, and the airport style screening went easily.  After an orientation lecture heavy on facts & figures, we descended on an elevator built in the 1990's to the only part of the dam interior now open to visitors; one of the two powerhouses at the base of the dam.  

Security concerns have halted tours inside the dam structure itself.  This powerhouse shown is on the Arizona side, similar to the one we saw on the Nevada side, a portion of which is just visible at the bottom of the picture.  The structure was very well constructed, as might be expected with inexpensive depression era labor.  

The floors are original terrazzo, and still gleam.  .   One interesting thing to me is the lack of reinforcing steel in the dam; it is concrete only, with some LARGE aggregate (some rocks included in the concrete are 10 inches or more in diameter).  There are cooling pipes buried in each concrete section that carried ice water to shorten the curing time of a poured block of concrete from nearly a month to 3 days.  This allowed the adjoining blocks to be poured much sooner, greatly speeding dam construction.   The working conditions for the men building the dam were oppressive, since there were many more seeking employment than jobs available.  The men worked seven days a week, no holidays, no sick days, and if they missed one day's work for ANY reason they were fired.  Many only lasted a month or two before becoming exhausted, but others were lined up to take their place, many submitting applications under multiple names to increase their probability of being selected. The pay scales are interesting, lest we forget what has happened to our economy over the years....

 In summer the heat here is up to 120 degrees, and in winter it gets below freezing at times, and the work was heavy outdoor labor under dangerous conditions.  Today the National Park Service recommends against hiking June through September...but these guys performed heavy labor year round!   There are a LARGE number of tourists here, and a large part of the dam tour is "tourist trappy", but the tour fee is used wholly to fund the Bureau of Reclamation tour costs, and most years they are self supporting.  Just after 9/11 they required some support from dam power generation funds as tourism dried up, but it has since recovered.  The dam as a whole is self supporting, requiring no government funds to sustain it.  Maintenance and security is funded through power sales and tour fees.  The new highway bridge is being built by Arizona and Nevada with federal matching funds under the federal Interstate highway program. The tour concluded in the old visitor's center, with this room filling three dimensional model of the Colorado River water distribution system that was especially fascinating to Claire.....

Claire has been wondering about the overall water system distribution infrastructure ever since we first came out here.  I took enough pictures to see details of the paths of the various canals, aqueducts and dams to allow us to figure out what flows into what in the future.  There was no book available showing that info.  We paid tourist prices for a soft ice cream, then proceeded to drive the 70 miles to Kingman.  We could not help thinking about the FUN we had at Arizona Hot Spring when we passed the trail head parking area.....

There are vehicles parked there, and I can imagine the fun time they are having.....some reason for another trip out here!  Near dusk we found a new Super Walmart in Kingman, a block from the standard one listed in our book, but they would NOT let us park overnight due to a city ordnance they said would be enforced.  We bought a few supplies, and moved to Flying J for the night after dark.  The Kingman Flying J has little room to park, and we chose a place near the entrance as the best of a poor situation, after a truck driver complained when we parked back end overhanging the sidewalk to the truck parking area in the rear, to save space.  Kingman is a place we will try to avoid staying at in the future....when we were here two years ago, it was frustrating trying to buy gas due to the crowd, and police were called to manage some disputes over position in the fueling line.  :-((  This place is just not set up to serve all the visitors it gets as the closest  major fueling point on I-40 on the Arizona side of  high fuel cost California.  Dinner is warmed up soup.  We had a noisy night's sleep, but it was uninterrupted, so it was good!  

Thursday February 17:

It is COOL this morning, 45.5, but we are at 3460 ft elevation.  We've been pampered for weeks at elevations not often exceeding 1200 ft.  Claire went to Flying J to check on availability of dump and water, and returned saying we could shower again today. :-)  It is 10:30 by the time we start our dump and fill chores, and 11:30 when we finish with full propane, gasoline and water and empty waste tanks.  This Flying J is very crowded still, all pumps busy seemingly all the time, and there is always waiting.  The attendant came out as we stopped filling water at the gas pumps to report that we had spilled WATER, not the gallons of gasoline that someone had feared when they sent him out .....yeah, right, we'd dump gallons of $1.80 gasoline on the concrete?  Oh well, at least they will watch for those that would...  :-)  We start our drive, stopping at the nearby Bashas supermarket to look, on the chance they might have some buffalo meat....no buffalo, high prices, and the only bargain we found was another plastic food container on sale, but we are happy for that.  There is rain in the forecast, but little falls on us; there is plenty of water flowing in the usually dry washes though....

We find lots of Joshua trees growing along part of the drive, and stop at a roadside rest for pictures.

 We had not gone high enough in Joshua Tree National park to see them this time, but here they are magnificent, and with multiple blooms too!  :-))  

These are said to be heavily fragrant especially at dusk or dawn, but perhaps these are not open enough yet...we do not notice. The sky darkens as the day progresses; as rain is forecast we look for it to start soon.  The rivers run heavily, and the Hassayampa is undercutting US 93 where it flowed near the highway; construction equipment was on the job dumping heavy rocks.  We return to suburban development.  In Surprise AZ we find a welcome surprise; a large Super Walmart greets us, and we are really ready to stop.  We have 10 or 15 miles to go to the one in Phoenix, and this one has no signs posted against us.  We park, ask inside and receive permission to stay.  As Claire prepares dinner, the security guard asks us to move to the other end of the parking lot before 11PM to make it easier for the sweeper to operate.  We do so after dinner.  It's my night for dishes, then to bed.  Claire enjoys TV after her 5 days of depravation on Lake Mead.

PLANS:  We are in Tucson, where we will spend a few days, then continue moving southeast through Arizona, intending to see Bisbee, then visit the Hot Wells Dunes again, near Bowie AZ  where we will pick up mail.  Then we will head through El Paso, where I have never been and on to some time in Big Bend National Park on the Mexican border.  The rain is kinda limiting our outdoor activities again this weekend....but it CANNOT last forever here in the desert...can it?  :-)