Quickly Traveling West, Avoiding Storms…

We packed up and left Eastbank Corps of Engineers Park just after 10:00 am and two minutes later we were back in Florida continuing our trek east across the panhandle. Three hours later we were in Alabama and pulled into a park we have stayed before called Wilderness RV Park. It is a no frills spot just fine for a one night stop over.

It was overcast but warm so we drove over to check out the town of Fairhope. We had heard good things about the town so we decided to check it out. It was a quaint little coastal town and we found a city park with a nice pier that we walked to the end of. While exploring the town and while driving through a neighborhood we stumbled upon a Hollywood film crew. A google search revealed it will be a movie called The Best Friend and will star Casey Affleck and Dakota Johnson! It will be fun to look for the movie release knowing we were in town while they were filming it. Anyway, we ended our town tour at Fairhope Brewing Company and enjoyed a couple of nice brews.

We drove back to the park and when morning came a cold front was about to come through so we pushed on westward. After several hours we pulled into a park called Mcleod Park Campground in Kiln, MS leaving us on 44 miles from our next stop. We stopped here so we could check out this interesting little county park and since rain was in the forecast, we wanted to be close to our next stop in case the skies were unfriendly to us…

We checked with the attendant who told to pick any empty site then come back and pay. We found a fabulous one right on the water! We backed into the site and paid after setting up. It was overcast and threatening to rain. With the weather being very dicey we decided to spend the day checking out the new casino nearby.

As with most casinos the Scarlet Pearl Casino offered us $10. free play as new members. Not only that but we were also told we could have a free lunch buffet if we wanted but we had to hurry before it closed. Hurry, we did! The normally $19.95 per person buffet was really good and included items such as stuffed flounder, boiled shrimp, boiled clams, fried shrimp, roasted turkey and much much more…

Needless to say we overate and then we remembered dessert!!! We rarely eat dessert but had to check out what they had. Wow, big mistake as we got a huge plate of tantalizing desserts and ate even more before we left. We rarely eat at buffets for the simple reason that we typical eat way too much but we would highly recommend this buffet if you like this sort of thing.

We gambled with our free play on their video poker machines and left with a little over $20. It was a great day at the casino for us… Our next stop will be at Fontaineblue State Park in Louisiana.

NOTE: We are now at Betty’s RV park for a month before continuing on toward Texas…

Visiting RV Friends in Illinois…

Our next stop on our way to North Carolina was a small diversion south to visit RV friends in Newton Illinois. The drive on the back roads of Illinois was a bit rough but we came through it unscathed and eventually found our way to Mike and BJ’s farm near Newton. Mike was there to greet us and to position us in front of his barn.

After hugs and greetings we hooked up to electricity, water and sewer… That’s right! We had full hookups at their farm. How sweet is that! We plan to stay two days but will keep an eye on the weather as we are in the mid-west and weather can change in an instant.

Mike and BJ built a small cabin adjacent to their farm. Why would they do this? Well there is a pond on the property so they figured building a cabin in the shade of the trees near the water would be a nice place to be in the afternoon and evening. Kind of like a getaway right next door. It is amazing because it does feel like a getaway while sitting on the porch enjoying the breeze  watching the water and sipping an adult beverage .

While we didn’t do a whole lot but relax and eat a lot of great food, it sure was exceptionally nice to sit around and chat with our friends. We built a nice camp fire nightly and one thing I loved about the cabin was sitting on its front porch staring out over the fire to the pond… very serene. Another bonus was the cabin has lots of fishing poles set up and ready to use. This allowed me to partake in one of my passions as I fished everyday we were there and caught a lot of crappie and bluegill as well as a few large mouth bass. What fun!

The day we were supposed to leave it was raining and rain was in the forecast for most of the day all the way to our planned next stop in Indianapolis. So we stayed one more day and called a campground in Indianapolis only to find it booked for the upcoming Indianapolis pre-season football game. We will have to find alternate plans while inside our RV this rainy day which will be perfect for planning our next move.

As luck would have it by us staying one more day we were able to also see more RV friends as they were back from Florida and came over to the cabin for dinner and drinks. It was great catching up with Diane and Steve even though we won’t see them on the road anymore since they recently sold their RV and bought a place in The Villages in Florida. It was interesting to learn about the villages through their experiences. Sharon wants to visit to see what it is like firsthand.

Finally the next morning we had good weather and pushed on to a longer than normal distance as we drove about 260 miles (normally takes us three days to drive this far). We pulled into Rising Star Casino RV Park for a one night stay. We enjoyed their really nice park and the pool/gym/spa facilities accessible to us as guests. We were only there one night then moved over to Cincinnati, Ohio for a three night stay at the FMCA campground.

NOTE: We are now at the FMCA Campground in Cincinnati Ohio. We will stop for one o more night in Ohio before crossing the state of West Virginia…

Meandering Through Texas, No More Red Chili…

Wow, all I can say is in the future I will make sure I book well in advance for stays in Texas during the weeks of spring break for all the kiddos. We have had a heck of a time finding places to stay on our way across Texas this time!

We left the fun Las Cruces area and only drove a short distance down to El Paso where we stayed one night at the Sunland Casino and Racetrack in Sunland New Mexico. We are actually only about a block west of the Texas state line. When we checked in with the security desk at the casino they told us there would be horse racing later that day.

We drove over to the New Mexico State University campus and strolled around. We had been here before but enjoyed our walk nonetheless. We had a few hours until race time so we drove over to our favorite Mexican grocery chain called El Super where we ate a taco at their cocina (kitchen). We also loaded up on our favorites  from this furthest eastern store of their chain. We will sorely miss this grocery store but we at least can look forward to Texas’ HEB’s.

We ended the day by watching the horse races and checking out one of the local breweries here called Ode Brewing which had some nice beers. We also succumbed to our better judgement and ordered a bowl of their hand cut fries with cilantro ranch sauce…. YUM!!!

We left the Casino in New Mexico and headed east into Texas. As I have mentioned on several occasions we don’t like to drive very far as it takes away time for exploring during the day so we usually limit ourselves to under 150 miles. However, we left later in the day than normal since we have visited Van Horn before. A few hours later we pulled into a Passport America Park we have stayed at before in Van Horn called Desert Willow RV Park.    

We used the remainder of this day to do laundry and Sharon had her hair colored so now she is a happy camper. We made some pork pastor tacos from the meat we bought at El Super the day before and man were they yummy! We may have not won at the horse races but shopping at our last El Super was paying dividends in the wonderful dinner we had.

The night before we were to leave Van Horn I started checking where we would go next and the next morning Sharon called many of them only to find out there were no vacancies. Yikes!!! I did  finally find another (not so well rated) RV Park in Fort  Stockton about 140 miles east so we decided it couldn’t be all that bad so we hit the road….

NOTE: We are now in the town of Fort Stockton, Texas for two nights as we are waiting for a storm to pass through the town of Sonora Texas…

Pechanga Casino RV Resort, Disc Golf and Time to Move

We only stayed two nights at Pechanga Casino RV Resort and since we didn’t even get set up until 2:00 pm we didn’t do anything the first day except go over to check out the casino. This place is under major construction and we had a little difficulty finding the RV park but when completed this is going to be quite a nice casino based on the architectural renditions.

We were quite surprised to see Jacks or Better video poker machines with 9/6 odds which I haven’t seen in more than 10 years anywhere. But the little we played on them we certainly didn’t get the feel the slots were very loose so we cashed out our meager earnings and left. Back at the resort we found the pool and hot tub so we took advantage of the warm evening to take a nice soak before making some dinner.

The next day we found a nearby Disc Golf course in Mountain Pride Park. It was a bit tricky finding the course but what a nice and enjoyable course it was. The course was rolling terrain with enough vegetation to make players really need to pay attention where the disc lands or risk never finding it. We found it to be a very challenging and fun course which took a couple of hours to complete. What fun!

Next up for us was to check out a highly rated local brewery. The one we chose was the Electric Brewing Company and we found their variety of crafted beers both interesting and very tasty. We would certainly recommend this brewery when in this area. Upon our return home we had time to break out the grill and cook up some very tasty kabobs and grilled pineapple.

 

The next morning it was time to go and we lingered before leaving around lunchtime since there is a later than usual check in rule at our next destination at Mission Bay in San Diego. Traffic wasn’t too bad (well considering this is a large city) and we arrived at the park about 1:30 for the 2pm check-in. Luckily we were allowed to go directly to our site before 2:00 pm which had never happened in the past. We settled into our site and will be here for the month of November until December 4th. We are looking forward to relaxing in San Diego for our extended stay…

NOTE: We have now left Pechanga Casino RV Resort and have set up for the month of November at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego.

Celebrating Sharon’s Birthday in Hemet California…

We sure enjoyed our week stay in Pahrump, NV and could have spend some time there  but once again it was time to hit the road. We talked about where to go next and finally decided but it would involve a longer drive than normal. We travelled about 250 miles south and west into California. Why so far? Well it was because we really wanted to get past all the crazy Los Angeles traffic and congestion.

We made our way through the maze of roads until we finally pulled into  Golden Village Palms RV Resort in Hemet, California which was a new place for us! After setting up we checked out this fabulous resort and it is one of the nicest we have ever stayed in for sure. We booked a week at their special rate of $149.00 per week and what a bargain this turned out to be. It offers full hook-ups, free WIFI and cable along with top notch facilities including 3 separate pools and 3 hot tubs!!! There is shuffleboard, volleyball, pickleball, a spacious fitness room, a billiard room and lots of activities on the calendar.

We figure to spend a lot of time just relaxing at the resort but with Sharon’s birthday we had to come up with something fun to do.  I plotted out a route that would take us to three different casinos, two of which had rave reviews and planned a visit to the highest rated Greater LA Inland brewery called Hanger 24 Brewing. Since this was a little over a hundred mile loop it will also give us the opportunity to explore some of the surrounding area.

First up was the Morongo Casino Resort Spa and what a fancy Indian casino it was. We went inside and signed up for their players club and got $5.00 each in free play. We really didn’t find the type of video poker machines we wanted to play but still left the casino with $10.00 thanks to Sharon hitting a 4-of-a-kind on her machine .

Next up was the San Manuel Indian Casino and man we couldn’t believe how big this one was and how very crowded it was on a weekday before 5:000 pm. We signed up for their player’s club card and we awarded $20.00 each in free play (the most we have ever  gotten in free play). Even better, since it was Sharon’s birthday she was given another $25.00 in freeplay as well as a $10 food voucher.

We had a blast with the $65.00 in free play and Sharon hit another 4-of-a-kind  while we were there! By the time we finished playing with their money we cashed out a cool $64.25! Before we left we checked out the food vendors to see what we could get with her birthday voucher. The best treat we found was a couple of almond cream cannoli's which would be a perfect substitute for a birthday cake! They were very tasty and I almost forgot to take a picture before we gobbled them up!

Our next stop was for a cold craft beer at the Hanger 24 Brewery where we each ordered a Wet Hop IPA which was quite tasty. We engaged in conversation with a young couple from the area and had a few laughs before hitting the road back home. With one last stop at the Soboba Casino near Hemet we scored another $10.00 after using their free play,

Once back at the RV park we ended what was a great birthday full of entertainment with a soak in one of the park’s hot tubs. We were the only ones there and it was a perfect way to end another day on our road of retirement….

NOTE: We will be in Hemet California until the 30th and then will move to Temecula California for a few days.

The Great Escape from Wind and Chill…

Our overnight stay at the Bonanza Inn and Casino in Fallon, NV was uneventful. We did do a short walk around the town mostly made up of tired and worn buildings typical of many of these small towns in the Great Basin where harsh weather eventually takes it toll on everything. One of the casinos in town gave us some free play and we enjoyed using their money to gamble while also enjoying the complimentary beers. We do love Nevada because of the comped beverages while gambling.

The next morning we hit the road once again staying just behind the storms kicking up winds  to our south. Our goal was to seek warm weather and no wind. To do so meant we would only travel about 75 miles and we stopped in the town of Hawthorne Nevada where we pulled into the El Capitan Hotel and Casino RV park. At only $15 per night it was a bargain although there sure wasn’t much to see or do in Hawthorne.

Unfortunately the wind picked up again and we heard yet another wind warning advisory  We were thankful to be settled in and not traveling as gusts to 30-35 mph were common. Looking for something to do we found out about the highlight of Hawthorne which is the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum. It was only about a 15 minute walk from our RV park into the wind and dust so Sharon had to swap her contact lenses for her glasses to be able to survive the walk.

When we arrived we were sad to discover that the museum was closed on Sundays. Nonetheless there were some interesting munitions and an old tank outside that we enjoyed. This free museum is a neat little place to visit for travelers who pass through town.

The next morning after checking the weather it appeared we could make it to Beatty Nevada some 200 miles south so off we went. When we made it to Beatty we pulled over on the side of the road to check out their RV parks. The RV parks were not to our liking  so we found a good station to fill up with diesel and decided to continue south  to Pahrump Nevada.

After another 75 miles or so, we pulled into Preferred RV Resort (a Passport America Park) and were finally in the warm weather with no winds!

NOTE: We are now in Pahrump Nevada and glad to be back in shorts again… Will stay here at least three nights before moving towards San Diego for our November stay…