Home Again

So we have now arrived home, There are a number of posts which are saved to word or in draft form which will appear soon, however for the present this post concludes Trip 11, of our most enjoyable trips.
In brief, we spent nearly 2 weeks in Death Valley participating in the 49'er Encampment. Following this on Sunday 11th Nov we left for an overnighter in Pahrump. On Monday we quickly traveled East to Williams via the Kingman section of Route 66. We stopped for 2 nights there so that we could visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. On Wednesday we moved south to Phoenix, where we cleaned and organised the trailer, which was put into storage on Monday 19th Nov. We then flew to Oakland and spent a wonderful week with friends Debra and Rich, including a lovely Thanksgiving meal with Debras family and the Black Friday Bluegrass Party. Sadly on Tuesday 27th we said farewell to Debra and Rich and America. We flew home from San Francisco arriving home safely on Wednesday 28th at 5.00.

Black and Blue Grass Party

The day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday, nothing morbid about it - just a day when everyone goes shopping. Everyone except Debra, Rich and their friends who gather for a Bluegrass Party in thier back yard.
We loved being there and enjoyed playing bluegrass music and joining in with all the fun, oh and the food as well.

Packing up in Phoenix

Wednesday 14th November
We had a pleasant and quiet drive down to phoenix, stopping once for a drink in small café, where we weakened and indulged in a short stack of pancakes, which were very good, but also very big for a short stack (2 pancakes). We arrived at West Palm RV in good time, set up and had lunch, followed by a quick relax then off to the pool for a swim and jacooze. The temperature is now a much mor.e equitable 75 deg F.
We have worked for 4 days and cleaned and organised the rig, it has been placed in storage in Tempe, about 3.5 miles from the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix. We took a nice easy taxi ride to the airport and an uneventful flight saw us land at Oakland airport in the afternoon. Rich came and picked us up and we had a lovely reuniting with our friends in San Leandro.

South Rim of The Canyon

On Tuesday we woke up to find that the thermometer had plunged to 18.5 deg F! It was still sunny, but cold, cold, cold, still we are up over 7000ft. This prompted us to make the decision to go to the Grand Canyon today and push on to Phoenix tomorrow. We got out our warm clothes, packed our normal picnic lunch and set off, it is a 52 mile drive from Williams to the South Rim, on an almost dead straight road, across high desert scrub land, not the most interesting of journeys. We arrived at the GC, parked and walked to the edge at Mather Point, to once again be stunned by the beauty of the vista, now we can compare directly the North and South rims. We now favour the South as you can see more of the GC, you can see the Colorado at the bottom and with the sun behind us the view appears clearer. The downside is that there are many more people there (if that is not being too snobbish). After visiting the Mather Point we took the car and drove along the rim road to the west as far as Hermit Rest, where there is a small café and gift shop, so we could get a hot drink, as it was still cold. Having now seen the South Rim of the GC we now drove back along the same straight road to Williams. Having now accomplished one of our goals we felt happy to drive on to Phoenix the next day.

Route 66 - The Story Continues

Monday 12th Nov
We made the decision to take a long journey today, we would go to Kingman and then decide whether to go to Lake Havasu (and see London Bridge) as planned or take the longer ride to Williams and perhaps visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon – guess which we did, especially as it meant that we could cruise the longest section of Route 66 still drivable, from Kingman to Seligman, via Peach Springs. So we were back into taking pictures of Roadside Americana. We even stopped at The Rusty Bolt, a famous biker shop in Seligman, owned by Angelo Delgadillo, one of the inspirations behind Cars the Pixar movie. I went in and the guy showed me round, even showed me the Blue Peter Badge they were given when Blue Peter filmed there.
We arrived in Williams just as it was getting dark, set up at the Railroad camp RV park, where the Grand Canyon Railway runs through the middle of the campground and went to Denny’s for dinner. Phew a long day. We had driven a massive (for us) 288 miles.

Pahrump and the Curious Line for Lunch

Sunday 11th November
We now have to zoom down to Phoenix, some 500 miles away, to store the rig. Our first stage is to return to Pahrump, to Saddle West Casino, where we can empty and clean tanks. We arrived by lunch time, having driven via Shoshone, so that we could see the southern part of Death Valley. As we were leaving the trailer hitched we planned to eat first, then shop then go to the RV park. Where to eat? Casino Buffet of course, the best one in Pahrump being the Golden Nugget. So we pulled in by about 1.00 only to find the carpark full, still shouldn’t be a problem. We get inside and find a big line for the buffet. Why? On checking out we find that there is a meal special. $5.00 buffet and Veterans eat for free. Then we twigged, today, being the 11th November is Veterans Day and for whatever cynically dubious financial reason Casinos provide free buffet for Veterans and cheap buffet for others. So although the line was long we were happy to wait as there were many veterans in line to talk to. One even gave us a T-shirt that had been given to him by the casino. So it was more of a party than a queue for lunch. After lunch we shopped and camped.

The 49er Encampment

We have come to Death Valley for two reasons
Firstly because we want to explore the area, but secondly because there is a festival going on, called the 49ers Encampment, visiting now means that we can combine both aims in one go.
So a bit about the 49ers then some stuff about Death Valley.
The Death Valley 49ers are a group of people who have a link to Death Valley and look for ways to  raise awareness of Death Valley history, culture and environment (check out their web site). Their Big Thing is an annual festival called the 49ers Encampment. We had wanted to attend this festival last year, but couldn’t fit it in, so we timed our visit to Death valley to make sure we could get to it this year. Although we were not quite sure what it was all about we knew it would be fun and we were right. Because it is so popular we arrived a week early to ensure a camping space, this also meant that we got to know our neighbours real well, they were lovely people. One side of us John and Jim, a couple of lads away from home and having fun – Horseshoes was their thing. Ruth and Ed on the other side were lovely and treated us like their own kids. We very quickly we met many other really nice people.

In the week before the Encampment there was the Pre-Encampment, with some music and activities. Every night a group of musicians would play in the centre of the Sunset Campground, it was mostly Country music, but fun any way. I managed to find a few people to jam with.

The festival proper seemed to focus on a music genre we knew little about – Western music, not Country and Western. This genre is all about cowboys, pioneers and the campfire culture. Many of the songs are story based, about pioneer days, wrangling or outlaws. They tend to be lyrical, often with minor chords and the guitar is the main accompaniment. In fact the festival itself seemed to be about cowboy culture. Every day they had demonstrations of horses, wagons, mules trains, pioneer dress, as well as Western art and crafts. In the evenings there was a concert featuring a number of Western style singers. Alongside this was a fiddle convention, which is basically a music competition for different stringed instruments, the main one being fiddle, as fiddle is the instrument of choice for square dance, which is the cowboy style of dancing. So there was plenty going on.
One of the features of the weekend was the demonstrations by the Twenty Mule Team, (see separate blog), which shipped the borax from the mines at Furnace Creek 167 miles to the railhead at Mohave.

The days start early, 7 and 8.00 for competitions, as afternoons tend to be hot and its siesta time. I was encouraged to enter the horseshoe competition by John and Jim, as they are somewhat fanatical about the game. It was fun, I was a novice, but managed to win my class, due to expert coaching from my support team.

In all it was a really good festival, we learned a lot about cowboy culture and had great fun. But sadly on Sunday farewells had to be said. Yes, tears again I am afraid. The truth of this is that when you are on the road, for every wonderful friend you make you must at some time make a sad parting. Made more poignant as although many of the friends we had made had been coming to the Encampment for many years, at least 2 people/couples mentioned that this would be their last one. We are left only with the memory of these people and our happy times to put in the treasure box of our journeys. This, I remind myself, is one of the reasons for recording our travels. We hope that these memories will stay fresh through our own remaining years.