REFRIGERATOR UPDATE-WORKING AGAIN
About midnight last night the refrigerator started cooling again. Relief!
THANK GOODNESS FOR THERMOMETERS
We rely heavily on 2 remote thermometers. These are the kind where the sensor is placed at the location you want to measure and the display is placed where you can easily read it. The display also has a sensor in it so it measures the temperature where the display is placed, too. So it measures 2 places at once and we have 2 sets of these.
We have one sensor in the refrigerator. The display is attached with Velcro on the wall just outside the refrigerator. That’s how we know when the refrigerator is going out or heating up. The sensor inside the refrigerator starts to go up.
We also have a sensor outside the RV, right above the door. It reads the current outside temperature. We have the display portion mounted inside the RV, right above the door. So, when you look at the display, you see the current outside and inside temperature. We use this one to tell how hot or cold it’s getting. At night, if the temperature drops below 40 degrees we turn on the Arctic Pacs which are warming pads for our tanks. These tanks hold our grey (sink) and black (pee/poop) water. They have no insulation and are exposed under the RV.
You’d think we could “just go online” and find out the current temperature but often we don’t have online access or their weather station is in a nearby town, not in the mountains or canyon.
We didn’t realize how much we rely on these readings until we lost the outside sensor above the door on a very bumpy road several months ago. We ended up ordering a replacement right away!
VALLEY OF FIRE STATE PARK, Overton, NV
We’ve been here before with Terry’s sister and brother-in-law and had a blast. We were encouraged to return by a little white envelope a friend gave us with suggested stops in Nevada. So, here we are! Thank you Steve and Marcia for the suggestion!
Valley of Fire was Nevada’s first state park. It consists of all these different colored rock formations, most of which are beautiful red Aztec sandstone. On several hikes and vistas there are petroglyphs similar to what we saw at Fremont Indian State Park in Utah.
The closest gas or groceries are in Overton about 10 miles away. To be able to camp here, you have to arrive early because the campgrounds are first-come. Sites open up usually between 9-11 am and are filled by mid-afternoon. Weekdays are much easier than weekends.
We lucked out getting a site with power. We were arriving around 4:30 pm so we called ahead to see if there were any left. There were 4 power sites and 7 regular sites left! For first-come campsites, our usual plan is to camp right outside the park the night before then arrive early the next day as soon as sites open up. We’d planned to “boondock” (self-contained camping on open land) at Snowbird Mesa (aka Poverty Flats), 4 miles south of Overton on BLM land but we didn’t have to do it. We passed it on our way into the park. It’s a pretty neat flat, mesa area overlooking the surrounding valley. No facilities, just land and sky.
PUBLIC LANDS (BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT-BLM, NATIONAL FORESTS, ETC)
We’re so fortunate that people had the foresight long ago to set aside land for the public-all of us to use. A lot of this land is not developed except for maybe a dirt road or a very primitive campground or picnic area. We’ve seen BLM lands being used a lot on our travels, especially recently in Colorado and Utah where people are camping, fishing, hunting, hiking, snowmobiling and ATVing. In Idaho, we saw people fishing on the riverbanks in the national forests. We are so grateful to those individuals and groups that made this possible for future generations like us. Yes, it has to be managed so no one activity is done to excess but to have access to land which has become increasingly more expensive and out of reach to many people is a gift we should all treasure.
CHANGE OF PLANS
We got up at 7:30 am which is EARLY for us so we could leave and try to beat the high winds/rain forecasted to arrive later in the day but the winds have already arrived. We decided to stay here another day. That’s an advantage of first-come campgrounds! Once you’re parked, you can stay as along as you want, up until their max number of days allowed. In other campgrounds we’ve been forced to leave due to lack of availability to extend our stay. In Destin, FL we were able to stay by campsite hopping. We’d grab whatever campsite was available just so we could stay another few days.
A NEW EXPERIENCE-COMPANY FROM GERMANY!
The storm arrived and it’s been windy and raining. Two sites down, surrounded by RVs were 2 people camping in a small backpacking tent huddled under the awning over their picnic table. They looked cold. We’ve been there before! A long, long time ago in New Orleans we were in line all night waiting to get into the King Tut exhibit. It was winter and it was cold and rainy. Someone in an RV offered us a cup of hot something and invited us inside to drink it. It was wonderful! So, we invited these two people over for something warm to drink.
Turns out, they were two young men from Germany. They were one week into a four week trip visiting our western national parks. Instead of wanting hot tea/coffee/hot chocolate, they brought 4 beers to share and we chatted for about an hour.
Camping: Valley of Fire State Park, Atlatl Campground, Overton, NV
Electricity, water, dump station, showers, Verizon 0-1 1x/LTE, first-come, cash/check only