“Ok Ava, you can take that Las Vegas rock home as a souvenir.”

Of course before we headed out, we went back to Ava’s favorite buffet for one last meal. Amazingly, they were running a $5 lunch special. Ava is going to eat them out of business.

This is Mila vigorously nodding her head about the great deal we got.

The drive home is a long one. Not quite as long as last year when we drove 550 miles straight from Grand Canyon in one day. That might not be a lot for most of you, it is asking a lot for a couple of toddlers strapped to their car seats.

With the road behind us and memories of a great trip, we headed back towards California. On our way home, we decided that this would actually be a good time to drop the ole Mish off at the shop for some repairs.

During the trip, we noticed some leaks that will need to be repaired before it turned into bigger problems. One of the other major issue we encountered just as we were packing up to leave Vegas was that the black water flush valve was leaking into the inside. Lucky for us, it only lets in fresh water as we try to flush the tank and not the waste water.

We made it to C&G Trailers in Bellflower, CA late in the evening. With the girls snoozing away in the van, I dropped the keys in the mail slot and shut the doors on Mali Mish. The next trip can not come soon enough…

over and out,
dan

Circus Circus to adults is probably one of the most depressing places to be. There are no glamorous and classy shopping mall nor are there any 5 star restaurants. Instead, they rent spaces along the casino halls to outside vendors who sell cheap China-made goods and serve up McDonald’s fast food in the food court.

None of those things seem to bother the little ones once they saw all of the carnival games.

Just like any of the ‘adult’ casino games, pretty much all of these are rigged in their favor.

Lucky for us, we found a game that worked for us so we wouldn’t go home empty handed.

Ava got really into this one. She’s lucky they didn’t call security.

Two bugs, a Melody from Hello Kitty and a Chococat was the final loot we took away from this place. Don’t even ask how much money we spent to get them.

Before we left, the girls got to do two of their favorite things, at the same time: Riding a merry-go-round and eating ice cream. I wonder at what point in your life do you start to realize that Circus Circus is a dump?

The girls were pooped out from all the games.

Even Ava took a nap on the way back to the campground.

over and out,
dan

It was actually quite nice because the Orleans has a dedicated over-sized vehicle parking lot with plenty of space with no one there to bother you. We paid them a visit in the morning for a little breakfast, another buffet of course, before heading out for a legitimate campground.

At the north end of town, I did some research and found a brand spanking new county park with full hook up RV sites for a mere $20 a night. The caveat is that this park also doubles as a recreational shooting range.

Don’t be scared Mila. Those people with guns are not the buffet police looking for that little one who didn’t finish their mac and cheese last night, they are just here to blow off some steam.

In all seriousness, this is actually quite a little gem. The facility is so large, we are at the end of the shotgun range about a good 1/4 mile away from any other human being. There are almost 100 sites here and probably only 3 campers in the whole place.

We had initially thought about camping at the KOA on the strip but having walked through there a couple of years ago, we were not too impressed with the parking lot like environment and its steep prices. Now that we are more seasoned travelers, we are a little more adventurous with trying new places out.

Over the last several days, we have been trying to link up with our old friends Angela and Jimmy. They are also doing a tour of the southwest in their camper and driving through much of the same roads. Unfortunately we have not been able to link up. Finally here in Vegas, we managed to meet up for one night at the campground and headed out for a nice Japanese Tepanyaki dinner in north Las Vegas.

Don’t be scare little one, it’s not a real volcano.

over and out,
dan

As much as we enjoyed our stay here, it is time to pull up our stakes and move on.

The weather around Prescott today is just awesome. Puffy clouds all over the blue sky with no wind at all. It was so nice we decided to stick around just a little bit longer and get a quick bite to eat.

On our way out, we looked for a restaurant to stop to eat. We were craving Mexican food and lucky for us, we found Arturo’s Mexican Restaurant right down the road.

We didn’t know it while we were inside feasting away but we later found out that one of our blog readers from the area recognized our Airstream as they drove by. Since we are always behind as usual with updating the blog, while we were spending our time in Prescott, this blog still has us hanging out in Europe. Missy and her husband drove by and saw our Airstream on the side of the road and kindly sent us this Email:

I was traveling to Prescott AZ yesterday and saw your rig in Chino Valley Az. I was somewhat concerned since I thought you were still in Croatia. I wanted to touch base in case you did not know your rig was MIA. If it was you guys in the rig…. was the Mexican food any good?

We told Missy that she should have stopped by to say hello and that no one has stolen our trailer. We would have happily shared our table with a fellow Airstreamer. Our modest little niche blog has just a handful of readers and the chance that one of them would drive by and recognize our trailer while we are on the road is probably a one in a million. It felt great to know what people are looking out for us.

After our lunch we headed back up towards I-40 and on our way to Las Vegas. We have been to Las Vegas probably close to 100 times in our lives but have never once brought Mali Mish there. It never made sense to do it because hotels are so cheap that the extra gas money makes it not worth while.

The 252 miles from Prescott to Las Vegas takes through a part of Arizona and Nevada that we have never been through. It also happens to take us right across the Colorado River and over the world famous Hoover Dam.

We have never been to the Hoover Dam and didn’t really know what to expect.

I have always thought that the highway goes right across the dam but apparently not so. In fact, the security was pretty tight at the entrance that we had to stop and show the security personnel the inside of the Airstream as well as the cargo box.

There were a lot of tourists visiting dam and parking the van with the Airstream wasn’t easy.

When we did find places to park along the road, every parking spot wanted to charge us an arm and a leg just to get out and cruise for a minute.

We drove around and probably saw all we needed to see of the dam and snapped some photos of this engineering marvel from the car.

By now, we have spent a good 4 hours on the road and the girls are getting antsy and hungry. Time to wrap up this leg of our trip and head for a Las Vegas buffet.

With the strip in view, our collective stomachs started to growl in unison.

We stopped at our favorite Vegas casino, the Silverton. Ava is a big fan of their shrimp.

And their Halloween-themed aquarium in the lobby.

Being it was too late to check into a campsite, we needed to find a spot to boondock. Surprisingly, most casinos do not allow overnight parking here in Vegas. As opposed to various Indian casinos around the country who graciously embrace RV travelers in their parking lots for a nights stay in exchange for some business, Las Vegas appears to have a policy against us.

If there is a will, there is a way. We are going to sleep in a parking lot tonight whether Vegas likes it or not.

over and out,
dan

We headed into town to find ourselves some grub but didn’t really know where to go. Since Prescott was a last minute diversion on this trip, we had not spent any time researching placse to eat and things to do here.

We pulled into Prescott and parked near the the Courthouse Square at the middle of town. The first place we saw was the Prescott Brewing Company. We knew nothing about it and we were hungry so we gave it a shot. The food wasn’t bad but it was just like any other BrewCo type restaurants with the same lineup of  ’microbrews’. If we would have known that we were about to take a stroll down the historical ‘Whiskey Row’ of Prescott, we would have waited to eat at a real western saloon.

Like Matt’s Saloon here.

Or The Palace, oldest restaurant and bar in all of Arizona.

Whiskey row is a part of downtown Prescott that is filled with historical buildings that if they could talk, they would likely tell the most amazing western tales ever told.

Something that is a recurring theme in all of these old western towns is that so many of them have suffered a lot of destruction by fire. It makes any that are left standing today all that much more historically precious.

Yoda finally had a nice day of lounging around in the Airstream at the campsite while we were out of her way. We have put a lot of miles under us in these last few days and she is not a big fan of that.

Mila did not want to go to sleep tonight. She stood up in her crib wiggling around and making faces for hours while we caught up on work and the blog. I think the high altitude is finally getting to her. Time for us to get back down to sea level.

over and out,
dan