Week 946-947 - Up the Creek with a Paddle - 10-13-2024

Up The Creek with a Paddle

After a nice visit and deck building it is time to go home to The Creek, Palm Creek Resort.

After 19 years and visiting 479 RV parks and campgrounds, why did we pick Palm Creek?
It was for Pickleball, the greatest Paddle sport in the world.

Leaving Port Ludlow, our first stop was Selah Creek Rest Area north of Yakima, Washington. This stop is a combination rest area and nature preserve.

1) The view out the front window of the MotherShip is the Selah Cliffs Natural Area Preserve.
2) From the viewpoint, you see the beautiful Fred G. Redmon Memorial Bridge.

Further south we stopped at Grande Hot Springs RV park in La Grande, Oregon.
1) All sites are very long pull-thrus.
2) The pool is warm and the spa is hot.

Next, we arrived at Indian Valley, Idaho, to stay at Larry's 200 acre Long Horn Steer ranch.

1) The view from Larry's back porch.
2) Larry's ranch in the distance.

When we meet new folks, we always get photos. When we visit family and frequently visited friends, many times we forget to get the pics, as we did here. So we present here, our son Andrew's paintings.

1) Larry
2) His ranch

See more of Andrew's art at Andrew D Mattson Art

After a long drive we stopped at the New Frontier RV Park and Casino in Winnemucca, Nevada.
It has long pull thrus on level gravel and nicely paved streets.

The next stop was also a casino RV park, Gold Ranch Casino and RV Park. Another hot spa and we were the only ones using it.

Our 2,188 mile trip takes 20 days per Craig's Rule of 200 miles every other day. We broke the rules! We wanted to spend more days at Chad and Emily's. So before and after their visit we drove long miles, many over 200 miles a day.

When we got to their house, our 50 amp RV spot was taken! We knew that, so we found another spot with 30 amps. Even though the temps were around 100, we did fine with one A/C unit.

We spent four days with the grandkids and even got a little pickleball play.

This time we did remember to get a photo.

Chad is a very good Corn Hole player, but Ellen challenged him anyway. She said "try this Chad!" "You mean a rich man like you can't play Corn Hole on one leg?"

Back on the home trail, we drove the beautiful CA Hwy 70 from Butte Valley to Nevada. We have made this trip many times, it is always a beautiful trip with low traffic, following the river for 45 miles.

We landed at Bordertown Casino and RV park, a third visit for us.

After another long day of travel, we rested at Sportsman Beach Campground on Walker Lake, Nevada. The camp has 30 sites each with a large shade cover. While some don't care for desert landscape, we love it here.

The sunrise and sunsets over Walker Lake can be stunning without trees messing up the view.

We were heading for North Las Vegas Cummins for motorhome routine maintenance. It was still 325 miles, so we first stopped at Tonopah RV park.

From Tonopah we were following two motorhomes toward Nevada Treasure RV Resort in Pahrump. If they beat us there, this time it was okay as we had reservations (something we rarely do).

The Treasure has two pools and nice spa. Again, we were the only ones to use the spa. The fitness center is incredible: 30 workout machines, men and women locker rooms with oak lockers, a spa, a steam room and a sauna. It they had pickleball, maybe we would stay here!

See more at Nevada Treasure

We reached Las Vegas, just a 1/2 day late. We missed the fireworks and demolition of the classic Tropicana Casino and Hotel.

1) The TRUMP tower is still standing.
2) Cummins had 50 amp hookups that we needed in the 102 degree heat.

One more stop to avoid a 357 day drive. A new RV park for us was Zuni RV Park in Kingman, Arizona. We managed to fit the 67 foot MotherShip train into what we called a 55 foot site!

Day 20: We arrive home to settle in for the winter.

With love, Pete and Ellen

We're here for six months and if we can pull ourselves away from pickleball, we might send some travelogues.

Photos from Sep/Oct 2024