Slow and Easy Departure, Goodbye Pahrump, Bump, POP! Hello Lake Havasu

Waking up on Wednesday, Nov. 8^th there was a new anticipation again of leaving one place and finding new places to explore. I was up at 6 and walking by 6:10 this morning. It was cool but calm and so I ventured out of the park across the road to the hills overlooking the northwest end of Pahrump. The pink on the mountains in my horizon view made the walk worthwhile. Bill and Clemson were up when I returned half hour later.

This will have to be my morning picture
I lost my morning walk pictures somehow so no sunrise
No pink mountains, no hilltop graffiti - sorry

We had our coffee together while catching up on blog posts and I played my Scrabble games on Facebook. We weren’t in any rush this morning as we only have 200 miles to go today. We were cleaned up and packed up by 9 so after testing lights, we pulled out of the park. We’ve certainly enjoyed this short stay and will return another winter. It was 53F at 9 am and within 20 minutes, the thermometer jumped to 63. This was going to be a great day!

A lone boondocker on NV-160

We had almost reached the summit of the Pahrump Bump at 5490’ when we heard a *pop!* Not a good sound when you are pulling 19,000 lbs. behind you. Bill knew immediately what it was and said ‘we just lost our turbo boost’. We kept going for a few minutes until we could safely pull over to the side of the highway. This isn’t the first time he has uttered those words. With our last truck, it happened and we had to crawl home with the trailer in tow.

Bill remembered these solar farms from our last winter through here

Bill checked under the hood to see if it was a simple fix, like the last time. It was a hose that had come off. This time, no, he couldn’t see anything familiar so we caught the ‘tail wind’ (of which there was none) but zipped down the hill. Boy, did that happen at the right time! While he drove, I searched on our Good Sam GPS for a Ford dealership near Las Vegas. We weren’t sure what hills we’d encounter if we kept on going to Lake Havasu.

Bryan took no time at all getting the broken tube out

It was the bracket that broke that holds the tube on
Unfortunately, they can't just replace a bracket

while waiting I had an impromptu air show

I found one on the north side of Las Vegas and without having to go into the heart of that crazy busy city, we bee lined it to Gaudin Ford on Roy Horn Way. It sure drew attention as we pulled in and across the front of their showroom. A salesman, Edgar, was there to greet us. We explained our issue and he promptly brought Jeremy, the Service Advisor, out to see what they could do.

I told Edgar 'thanks for your help, now go sell a car!"

When Jeremy hopped up on the bumper and looked down he saw that it was ‘just’ the intake tube and bracket that had popped off. Okay, again, these guys are busy and yet they dropped everything to come to our aid. At first summation, he gave us the lowdown that even though a simple fix, his tech guys were overloaded and indicated that he would try to have us on our way by 5 pm or later today. Phew! It sure could be worse, as we were prepared to delay our park arrival for 2 - 3 days if necessary.

After having visited the China Date Ranch in Nevada
We now recognize these as Date Palm trees
Too bad they are just feeding the birds and not being harvested

We called our park to see how late in the day we could get into the park and then just settled back to wait. I grabbed our books out of the Suite and we remained hooked up until Bryan came to do the work. We arrived at Ford at 10:15 and the part was replaced, we did a test drive and were sent on our way at 12:30. Un-frickin’-believable! These guys were awesome! Thumbs up to Edgar, Jeremy and Bryan of the Gaudin Ford team. 👍

Beautiful embankments along the highways

this very long train snaked around us a few times

but never got in our way

 Highly recommend them, yes, we do. The best part is that it was covered under warranty, which is where they get 95% of their business. Warranty work. As I was waiting for Bill to finish up their paperwork, I saw Edgar helping a lady check out a new little car. You go, Edgar, make a sale! This place was hopping and the showroom was absolutely beautiful. I wish I’d had my phone on me to take a picture of their classic Ranchero when I used their restrooms.

And lastly, it went directly under our path
For you, Dad
I think Bill said it had 4 or 5 engines

Our mood, which went from excited leaving Pahrump, to crappy on the Pahrump Bump, soared as we perused through the outskirts of Las Vegas. That was the other bonus of this dealership. They were just a hop, skip and a jump from Hwy 215 which we needed. No other issues along the way and we pulled into Lake Havasu Resort CRA at 4:20. 

Colorado River where Arizona and California meet

What a neat park! They are brand new with the AOR membership gang and Annette welcomed us with open arms. It takes a special kind of person to meet and greet guests at parks and they have this job pegged in these southern states.

This park is on both sides of London Bridge Road with 2 clubhouses, 2 heated pools and 1 hot tub. We got to pick our back in site and were settled by 5, just in time to join everyone for a barbecue burger supper. You gotta love that, ‘cause I didn’t know what we were having! We joined others in the east clubhouse and for $5 had a burger, beans, a drink and a bag of chips……oh and a cookie which we declined.

We are at the back, site 306

Jackie on this end used to run a restaurant business
quite a lively bunch, should be fun here

Sunset through the trees

We walked back to our site along the east wall nose to the sunset and I settled in to write this post. This has been a full day, ups and downs but mostly on the up side. We are here for 2 weeks and I’m looking forward to those pools and the odd meals prepared for us. This is a lovely area to explore and we’ll do a little of that and a lot of relaxing. I sure hope you’ve had a lovely day too.

Thank you for reading today. I love to read your comments.