Our son, John, is building a new web site about data mining. Here's the link.
https://sites.google.com/site/statisticsndatamining/
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Home Again
Tuesday, January 31
The Last Leg of our Trip
We broke camp this morning and were ready to move out at 7:30 a.m. (what a sacrifice Joe made). We only went a few hundred yards though, because there was a restaurant within walking distance of the campground and we decided to just stop and eat there (our original plan was that we were stopping when we got to I-10, Dave thought there was a convenience store with breakfast burritos there). The cook at this restaurant was a little slow, so it was 8:30 before we were back on the road, but it was good that we stopped because the place Dave was thinking of must have been on west of where we intersected I-10 -- we never did see it.
When we got to the exit for Hwy 85, Dave and Mazie took that bypass to miss Phoenix and headed toward Gila Bend. We drove on home, stopping to fuel just before we parked it, so we were home shortly after 11:00 a.m. Dave and Mazie had another 3 hours to go, but after their Costco stop in Tucson for fuel and a few groceries, they got home around 3:00.
We had things to do yet today -- our first stop was Taco Tuesday, then off to Walgreens to get Joe's prescription filled for his colonoscopy prep. But it was good to be home, and get through the mail, and start planning our next trip.
This trip was 16 days, 1075 miles, and 156.5 gallons of gas in the RV, not to mention the gas for the Explorer. The RV averaged 6.86 mpg, and the prices we paid for gas averaged out to $3.43. We figured we also drove about 100 miles a day in the cars in Death Valley, but Joe and Dave split that about in half because they took turns with the vehicles and the driving.
We can't say enough about how interesting and beautiful Death Valley National Park turned out to be. I would encourage anyone who enjoys that kind of beauty to spend a week there. Just don't do it in the summertime!
Final Blog
That's the end of the blog for this trip. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.
The Last Leg of our Trip
We broke camp this morning and were ready to move out at 7:30 a.m. (what a sacrifice Joe made). We only went a few hundred yards though, because there was a restaurant within walking distance of the campground and we decided to just stop and eat there (our original plan was that we were stopping when we got to I-10, Dave thought there was a convenience store with breakfast burritos there). The cook at this restaurant was a little slow, so it was 8:30 before we were back on the road, but it was good that we stopped because the place Dave was thinking of must have been on west of where we intersected I-10 -- we never did see it.
When we got to the exit for Hwy 85, Dave and Mazie took that bypass to miss Phoenix and headed toward Gila Bend. We drove on home, stopping to fuel just before we parked it, so we were home shortly after 11:00 a.m. Dave and Mazie had another 3 hours to go, but after their Costco stop in Tucson for fuel and a few groceries, they got home around 3:00.
We had things to do yet today -- our first stop was Taco Tuesday, then off to Walgreens to get Joe's prescription filled for his colonoscopy prep. But it was good to be home, and get through the mail, and start planning our next trip.
This trip was 16 days, 1075 miles, and 156.5 gallons of gas in the RV, not to mention the gas for the Explorer. The RV averaged 6.86 mpg, and the prices we paid for gas averaged out to $3.43. We figured we also drove about 100 miles a day in the cars in Death Valley, but Joe and Dave split that about in half because they took turns with the vehicles and the driving.
We can't say enough about how interesting and beautiful Death Valley National Park turned out to be. I would encourage anyone who enjoys that kind of beauty to spend a week there. Just don't do it in the summertime!
Final Blog
That's the end of the blog for this trip. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Alamo Lake
Monday, Jan. 30
Ar'gent
Here's our traveling princess, all ready to head out for today's adventure.
Alamo Lake
Our last adventure of this excellent adventure (at least we think it is) is a drive up to Alamo Lake State Park. The crappie fishing at Roosevelt Lake has been so poor in recent years, and now the bass and catfish have mercury in them, that Dave and Mazie thought they might look for better fishing grounds. They had been here about 10 years ago, but it was our first trip. But for years friends of theirs have been singing the praises of the crappie they catch here at Alamo, so we had to check it out.
We first checked out the campgrounds -- the first campground had water and electric, but there is one closer to the lake with full hookups. But the campsites there were smaller, so we liked the first one better. A little pricey though, $22 per night would add up pretty fast for us retired fisher-folk. We drove down to the boat ramp and saw a beaver swimming across, along with a cluster of about 10 fishing boats, and a few ducks.
We drove down to the dam, and there was a nice lookout here.
We read all the history of the dam, and even Ar'gent got a little exercise here.
We drove back to the other camping area, stopped at the ranger station/general store and asked some questions. But we concluded this was not for us -- too far off the beaten path (it's about 100 miles from Quartzsite, but probably 3 hours from home for us, and maybe 6 hours for the Johnsons), and it's a pretty small lake compared to Roosevelt. We assume it gets pretty busy out there during the crappie spawn, so we are probably better off staying with Roosevelt Lake.
There is one public campground in the area, Wayside, so we drove back to it, but it is mostly full of permanent, or long-term residents. We did have great hamburgers in the little restaurant/bar there. We had seen a lot of burro droppings on the road, but never did see any of the critters. They apparently mostly roam around at night, and stay in the shade of canyons during the day.
So we drove back to Salome, making one more side trip by another campground in the area. We were in farming country here, some nut farms (pistachio) and cotton fields.
We had a short day and were back in camp about 2:00 p.m. We got to relax a little, I helped Mazie a little on the computer, and Joe and Dave installed a new blind in their front window since theirs had broken in Pahrump, and they were able to find a replacement in Quartzsite. Then it was happy hour time, and suddenly the day was over. Heading home tomorrow!
Ar'gent
Here's our traveling princess, all ready to head out for today's adventure.
Alamo Lake
Our last adventure of this excellent adventure (at least we think it is) is a drive up to Alamo Lake State Park. The crappie fishing at Roosevelt Lake has been so poor in recent years, and now the bass and catfish have mercury in them, that Dave and Mazie thought they might look for better fishing grounds. They had been here about 10 years ago, but it was our first trip. But for years friends of theirs have been singing the praises of the crappie they catch here at Alamo, so we had to check it out.
We drove down to the dam, and there was a nice lookout here.
There is one public campground in the area, Wayside, so we drove back to it, but it is mostly full of permanent, or long-term residents. We did have great hamburgers in the little restaurant/bar there. We had seen a lot of burro droppings on the road, but never did see any of the critters. They apparently mostly roam around at night, and stay in the shade of canyons during the day.
So we drove back to Salome, making one more side trip by another campground in the area. We were in farming country here, some nut farms (pistachio) and cotton fields.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Heading to Quartzsite
Wednesday, Jan. 25
Leaving Pahrump
We had a lot of miles to make today, so we were up and moving fairly early. I brought in the slides on the RV and shifted the levers to bring up the leveling jacks when Joe thought he heard a strange noise underneath the RV. So he crawled under to check it out, and he was lying on a sprinkler, which suddenly decided to come on. Needless to say, he got a shower before he could get himself out of the spray. Dave was sitting in his drivers seat waiting on us to pull out, so he got the full show. He even asked Joe to repeat it because he enjoyed it so much. I got a wet leg out of it, which is the only picture I got. Joe said he got a wet everything.
Finally we got on the road, heading down around Vegas again, through Laughlin and Bullhead City, where we stopped and had lunch, and on to Lake Havasu City. We missed a turn coming down AZ 95 and ended up back in California, so we had to go through Needles, then back across the Colorado River, to get back to Hwy 95 again. Coming into Lake Havasu City, we had a nice view of the river, and the town. We've only been to this town once before, and it seemed to have developed a lot since then.
You can see from the palm trees that it was pretty windy here, and the wind pounded us all day. The drive along the river through here is very pretty, lots of campgrounds on both sides of the river on this road. As we started getting closer to Parker, we were driving right beside the river.
Quartzsite
We arrived in Quartzsite around 4:00 p.m., a long day, and about 300 miles -- to many miles for us retired folks. We fueled up at the truck stop, and the cashier got so confused she tried to pay me the $140.02 for the gas Joe pumped. It took a while to sort all that out -- a long while. When she started to hand me the cash, I said to her, "What are you doing?" I should have kept my mouth shut -- we would have come out almost $300 to the good. But I didn't, and after a co-worker, then her supervisor showed up, I finally got out of there. We drove on through Quartzsite and out into the desert to find our campsite. We were ready to be off the road, and it was still windy.
Thursday, we drove down to the big white tent to check out all the "bargains." Walked and walked, bought a few gadgets, then went back to camp and enjoyed a campfire until it got too cold (our campfire didn't put out a lot of heat).
Friday we went back to the shopping area. Jeff and Brenda were driving over after work today, so we were waiting on them. Brenda is the shopper so we knew we would be back down here tomorrow.
No matter where we travel, there are no better sunsets than Arizona has to offer. Quartzsite gave us a beautiful one.
With Brenda leading the way, we hit the shops again on Saturday. She walked our legs off, and Joe and Jeff went looking for a place to sit. Kettle corn is one of Brenda's vices, so she's enjoying some of that treat while we shop, and Jeff had a little ice cream while he waited on his wife (who had all the $$).
Today was Jeff's birthday, so Dave and Mazie hosted a fish fry and we celebrated around the campfire. Dave's fish (crappie) was awesome, Brenda brought an ice cream cake with her, and a grand time was had by all.
Sunday we went back to the shops for last minute things, then drove around Quartzsite a little to some of the other tents. Then back to camp to pack up and head down the road. One of our purchases was a power band that is supposed to help maintain our balance, so Jeff and Brenda both demonstrated their new talents.
And Brenda finally got to pick up some of her own rocks!
Finally, it was time for goodbyes. Jeff and Brenda had to head back to Mesa so they could go to work tomorrow. The Johnsons and the Froeschkes headed to Salome for 2 nights so we can run up to Alamo Lake and check out the crappie fishing tomorrow -- for future reference (although we do have fishing poles with us).
We retired 2 years ago last week -- January 22, 2010 was our last day of work. The next day we were in Quartzsite with the Dave and Mazie, and Jeff and Brenda, so this was a nice retirement anniversary reunion for all of us, or, in other words, back to the scene of the crime.
Leaving Pahrump
We had a lot of miles to make today, so we were up and moving fairly early. I brought in the slides on the RV and shifted the levers to bring up the leveling jacks when Joe thought he heard a strange noise underneath the RV. So he crawled under to check it out, and he was lying on a sprinkler, which suddenly decided to come on. Needless to say, he got a shower before he could get himself out of the spray. Dave was sitting in his drivers seat waiting on us to pull out, so he got the full show. He even asked Joe to repeat it because he enjoyed it so much. I got a wet leg out of it, which is the only picture I got. Joe said he got a wet everything.
You can see from the palm trees that it was pretty windy here, and the wind pounded us all day. The drive along the river through here is very pretty, lots of campgrounds on both sides of the river on this road. As we started getting closer to Parker, we were driving right beside the river.
We arrived in Quartzsite around 4:00 p.m., a long day, and about 300 miles -- to many miles for us retired folks. We fueled up at the truck stop, and the cashier got so confused she tried to pay me the $140.02 for the gas Joe pumped. It took a while to sort all that out -- a long while. When she started to hand me the cash, I said to her, "What are you doing?" I should have kept my mouth shut -- we would have come out almost $300 to the good. But I didn't, and after a co-worker, then her supervisor showed up, I finally got out of there. We drove on through Quartzsite and out into the desert to find our campsite. We were ready to be off the road, and it was still windy.
Thursday, we drove down to the big white tent to check out all the "bargains." Walked and walked, bought a few gadgets, then went back to camp and enjoyed a campfire until it got too cold (our campfire didn't put out a lot of heat).
No matter where we travel, there are no better sunsets than Arizona has to offer. Quartzsite gave us a beautiful one.
With Brenda leading the way, we hit the shops again on Saturday. She walked our legs off, and Joe and Jeff went looking for a place to sit. Kettle corn is one of Brenda's vices, so she's enjoying some of that treat while we shop, and Jeff had a little ice cream while he waited on his wife (who had all the $$).
Sunday we went back to the shops for last minute things, then drove around Quartzsite a little to some of the other tents. Then back to camp to pack up and head down the road. One of our purchases was a power band that is supposed to help maintain our balance, so Jeff and Brenda both demonstrated their new talents.
Finally, it was time for goodbyes. Jeff and Brenda had to head back to Mesa so they could go to work tomorrow. The Johnsons and the Froeschkes headed to Salome for 2 nights so we can run up to Alamo Lake and check out the crappie fishing tomorrow -- for future reference (although we do have fishing poles with us).
We retired 2 years ago last week -- January 22, 2010 was our last day of work. The next day we were in Quartzsite with the Dave and Mazie, and Jeff and Brenda, so this was a nice retirement anniversary reunion for all of us, or, in other words, back to the scene of the crime.
Leaving Death Valley
Tuesday, Jan. 24 - Day 7
Remember, you can click on any picture to enlarge it.
Leaving Death Valley
Today is the day we leave this beautiful park. Again, I can't say enough about what a surprise it was or how beautiful it was. You have to have the time, and take the time, to get off the main roads and drive the drives to the many points of interest, but every one of them was well worth the trip and the time. Dave even said he was not disappointed in any of our drives -- we all thought every point of interest lived up to its billing and its pictures.
We thought we would try for an early start this morning, so our target time was 8:00 to leave. Mazie had overslept yesterday, not that we had a definite starting out time then but it was daylight when she woke up, and she made Dave eat cold cereal for breakfast so she wouldn't hold us up. Isn't that bizarre! Anyway, she got David up at 4:00 a.m. this morning to make sure they were on time. Go figure. We had decided to have the breakfast buffet down at the Furnace Creek restaurant so we didn't have to mess with breakfast, so we were on the road, after Joe's diet coke stop up at the general store, by 8:00. When we pulled in to the restaurant, we drove past 2 test cars and the "pilot" car, all taped up so we couldn't tell the brand name. Mazie and I had never seen these before, but Joe had, and knew what they were -- cars that some manufacturer was having test driven up here. We could see the front seat was full of computers and stuff.
After we left the restaurant, I got on the phone to make us a reservation for tonight in Pahrump, and Joe missed the turn, so we had to find a place to turn around. But it worked out ok because we got to turn around at one of the points of interest we had missed -- Golden Canyon -- which was a wall of red rock. There was a trail here, but we didn't take the time to hike it.
As we are leaving the park, our heads are swiveling from side to side (and so was the RV) as we try to catch our last glimpses of the beautiful views here. We were still seeing snow in the mountains. It was cold this morning, and we are pretty sure there was snowfall last night at the higher elevations.
We chose the easiest route out of the park, with the least grade, Hwy 190 to State Line Road, then 160 into Pahrump. We made a fuel stop there ($3.199), then headed on through town out to our campground, Terrible's Lakeside Resort and Casino. This turned out to be a really nice campground, with a fishing lake (no license required), full facilities, and beautiful mountain views. And I even won a little in this casino. The food here was good too, and pretty reasonable.
When I called to make the reservations, I made sure they had laundry facilities as we had not been able to do laundry since we left home. So as soon as Joe stopped the RV, we carried our laundry over and I got started on it while he got us parked, leveled, and set up. As soon as my loads were out of the washer, Dave and Mazie started theirs. When we finished with the laundry, Mazie and I headed back into town to the grocery store, with a quick stop at one of the casinos in town. We went over to the restaurant at the campground for dinner -- prime rib (9.99) for Dave and Mazie. When we finished eating, Dave headed back to the RV but the other three of us stayed and played for a while. But this casino did not have Mazie's Bombs Away, so she and Joe didn't stay as long as I did, if you can believe that.
We will be heading to Quartzsite tomorrow, back in Arizona. So our Death Valley trip is over, but Quartzsite is always an adventure this time of year, so I'll do a little summary of our days there.
Remember, you can click on any picture to enlarge it.
Leaving Death Valley
Today is the day we leave this beautiful park. Again, I can't say enough about what a surprise it was or how beautiful it was. You have to have the time, and take the time, to get off the main roads and drive the drives to the many points of interest, but every one of them was well worth the trip and the time. Dave even said he was not disappointed in any of our drives -- we all thought every point of interest lived up to its billing and its pictures.
We thought we would try for an early start this morning, so our target time was 8:00 to leave. Mazie had overslept yesterday, not that we had a definite starting out time then but it was daylight when she woke up, and she made Dave eat cold cereal for breakfast so she wouldn't hold us up. Isn't that bizarre! Anyway, she got David up at 4:00 a.m. this morning to make sure they were on time. Go figure. We had decided to have the breakfast buffet down at the Furnace Creek restaurant so we didn't have to mess with breakfast, so we were on the road, after Joe's diet coke stop up at the general store, by 8:00. When we pulled in to the restaurant, we drove past 2 test cars and the "pilot" car, all taped up so we couldn't tell the brand name. Mazie and I had never seen these before, but Joe had, and knew what they were -- cars that some manufacturer was having test driven up here. We could see the front seat was full of computers and stuff.
After we left the restaurant, I got on the phone to make us a reservation for tonight in Pahrump, and Joe missed the turn, so we had to find a place to turn around. But it worked out ok because we got to turn around at one of the points of interest we had missed -- Golden Canyon -- which was a wall of red rock. There was a trail here, but we didn't take the time to hike it.
As we are leaving the park, our heads are swiveling from side to side (and so was the RV) as we try to catch our last glimpses of the beautiful views here. We were still seeing snow in the mountains. It was cold this morning, and we are pretty sure there was snowfall last night at the higher elevations.
We will be heading to Quartzsite tomorrow, back in Arizona. So our Death Valley trip is over, but Quartzsite is always an adventure this time of year, so I'll do a little summary of our days there.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Race Track
Monday, Jan. 23 - Day 6
Originally, we had planned to leave today, but we have seen so many wonderful sights here, and there was one major point of interest we hadn't got to yet, so we extended our time here by one day so we could go to the Racetrack. This was the coldest morning yet, and I checked the national weather, and it said Death Valley was going to be 31 degrees with light snow. There was fresh snow up on the mountains right behind the campground. Now Death Valley has a wide, wide range of elevation, so I assumed that must be somewhere up on the mountain top, and wouldn't affect us. Wrong. We were in the 31 degree temperature, following tracks in the snow.
Racetrack
This was a pretty long drive, probably 40 miles of pavement, then 30 miles of dirt road each way. As we were driving long, Dave looked out his window and said, "Look, there's a herd of rocks!"
We got lucky and caught up with 2 road graders so our dirt road improved as we drove along. The first, and maybe only, fork in the road was called "Teakettle Junction." Who knew that we should have brought our own teapot today!
We continued on, keeping the car heater running. Joe was able to drive a little faster once we hit the freshly-graded road, but it still took us about 2 hours to get to the Racetrack.
The Racetrack in in a dry lake bed, and this big rock formation was called the "Grandstand." We had to drive to the end of the lake bed to get to the area where the rocks fall down from the mountains behind and land out here.
It was very cold and windy here when we walked across this "lake." Dave opted to stay in the car, so it was the 3 of us braving the elements to see what there was to see. The surrounding mountains had snow and fog.
We met some other people out here and they told us most of the tracks were at the far end, so we walked some more. Joe brought his walking stick, but I thought it might make its own tracks, a no-no here, so I didn't bring mine. Joe was right and I was wrong. This ground was so hard-packed we didn't even make a dent. We finally got over to the area where there were more rocks, and sure enough, there were tracks by many of them. The rocks mysteriously slide across the dry lakebed. This is really a strange phenomenon and the scientists aren't even sure what happens. (I think they need web cams out here to see when they move.) One theory is that when it rains, the lake bottom gets really slippery, and the winds blow the rocks around.
Joe did a little experiment, poured some water on the ground and ran his finger around in it to show us how slick it was.
These two rocks looked like they had been racing.
Fortunately, the sun came out before we started our walk back, and it must have gotten at least 10 degrees warmer. I was taking my gloves off by the time we got back to the car.
Notice how pretty these mountains are in the sunlight. We didn't have much sun all week, and I'm sure a lot of our mountain views would have been even more spectacular with the sun on them.
We headed out of here, and all of a sudden it was snowing, little patches already accumulated along the side of the road, and in one spot, enough on the road to see.
The fog was back as well, and it wasn't so much right on the road, but visibility in the distance was reduced to almost zero. I know we get a little more excited about snow that some of our Midwestern friends and family, but that's just the way it is.
We don't know much about the vegetation here, but with all the elevation changes we go through every day, we have seen a lot of interesting plants. On this particular drive, along with Joshua trees, we saw several cacti, one of which looked like some kind of barrel cactus, but it had beautiful red blooms on it. So here's my "cactus in the snow" picture.
Originally, we had planned to leave today, but we have seen so many wonderful sights here, and there was one major point of interest we hadn't got to yet, so we extended our time here by one day so we could go to the Racetrack. This was the coldest morning yet, and I checked the national weather, and it said Death Valley was going to be 31 degrees with light snow. There was fresh snow up on the mountains right behind the campground. Now Death Valley has a wide, wide range of elevation, so I assumed that must be somewhere up on the mountain top, and wouldn't affect us. Wrong. We were in the 31 degree temperature, following tracks in the snow.
This was a pretty long drive, probably 40 miles of pavement, then 30 miles of dirt road each way. As we were driving long, Dave looked out his window and said, "Look, there's a herd of rocks!"
We got lucky and caught up with 2 road graders so our dirt road improved as we drove along. The first, and maybe only, fork in the road was called "Teakettle Junction." Who knew that we should have brought our own teapot today!
We continued on, keeping the car heater running. Joe was able to drive a little faster once we hit the freshly-graded road, but it still took us about 2 hours to get to the Racetrack.
Joe did a little experiment, poured some water on the ground and ran his finger around in it to show us how slick it was.
These two rocks looked like they had been racing.
Fortunately, the sun came out before we started our walk back, and it must have gotten at least 10 degrees warmer. I was taking my gloves off by the time we got back to the car.
Notice how pretty these mountains are in the sunlight. We didn't have much sun all week, and I'm sure a lot of our mountain views would have been even more spectacular with the sun on them.
We headed out of here, and all of a sudden it was snowing, little patches already accumulated along the side of the road, and in one spot, enough on the road to see.
The fog was back as well, and it wasn't so much right on the road, but visibility in the distance was reduced to almost zero. I know we get a little more excited about snow that some of our Midwestern friends and family, but that's just the way it is.
The dirt road back was a little smoother than coming out, and eventually we caught up with the road graders, just when we reached the pavement. So we headed on back to camp to begin the process of de-camping. Tomorrow we will leave this beautiful park.
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