Week ending Nov 17, Mesquite to Bullhead City

Friday, we did a little drive through town of Scenic, Arizona.  It is just a few miles east of Mesquite, and we didn't even know it was there until browsing through our Nevada Road and Recreation Atlas.  The scenery is pretty much what we can see from Mesquite.  From Scenic, we drove a few miles west on the south side of the Virgin River.  We noticed a teddy bear structure next to a water tower along the way. 

The 'town' of Riverside, where the road crosses back across the river would qualify as a ghost town.  No glass in any of the windows.

Saturday, we walked the 3 miles from the RV park to Casablanca Casino and played the penny slots for about an hour before walking back.   We had driven along this route yesterday, but walking we were able read historic descriptions of a lot of the buildings. There was a statue we hadn't noticed driving down this road a few days earlier.  It was in honor of  Mary Jane Leavitt Abbott, Mesquite's 'Angel of Mercy' who cared for the sick, fed the hungry.  Any call for help spurred her into action. 

Monday we carried on to Government Wash in Lake Mead NRA, where we stayed in the spring.  For $40, twice the weekly pass, we got an annual pass, which we can use for a stay next spring on our way back, and again sometime before the end of Nov 2017 if we go this way again.   After getting set up, we headed into Henderson to do a bit of shopping at Kmart, and Vitamin World.   In the evening, we saw a  'super moon', the closest the moon has been to the earth since 1948.   Unfortunately, our camera only got pictures that are a white circle on a black background.

Tuesday we decided to do a walk up a nearby wash we had seen from the highway coming in.  We thought we could get to it walking about a mile across from our campsite, since we could see an arm of Lake Mead to the west, and figured the wash came into this arm.  However, since there were many little inlets on the lake between us and the wash, we walked up over little ridges between washes,  and sometimes up a wash to find a reasonable place to get over the next spine.  Walking up one of the washes, we saw 3 coyotes heading up ahead of us.  They hurried out of sight when they heard us coming.  Eventually we went far enough to turn around.  Even though we didn't get to the wash we wanted to find, we did get some nice views of an arm of Lake Mead. 

We used our Garmin etrex 20 hiking GPS to find shorter routes back, and to confirm in other places which way we had come.    There was a really nice sunset in the evening.

On Wednesday, we walked up Government Wash, which parallels the road into the campground.  It was kind of interesting just walking up a wash for about 2.5 km.  We encountered a fellow with a couple of friendly collies coming back down the wash .  We had a nice long chat with him.  

Government Wash

There were some interesting bushes which had gone to seed, and the wind was blowing the seeds along the wash. 

Wednesday afternoon, we called River City RV in Bullhead City, and left a message on their voicemail.  They hadn't called back by Thursday morning, so when we stopped for a snack in Searchlight, south of Las Vegas on highway 95.  we called them again.  They did have room for us or a week.  When we arrived, she found out there was someone in the site that she had planned for us.  Fortunately, they did have another site open for a week.  This looks like an older park, with fairly short sites.  A fellow across the road from us kindly moved his car to give us more room to back in.   We had to park the truck beside the trailer, and it came back right to our steps.