February 9 -- A Day Of Work and Play

Living on the road in a recreational vehicle is not all fun and games, especially when the RV is your home...Take yesterday for instance. The Lance trailer manual recommends that you check the water pump's filter annually and clean it of any residue that could lead to blockage. Now, I knew where the water filter was, but I didn't look forward getting to it as it's way back in a storage compartment underneath the bed. You can't crawl into the compartment from the outside of the trailer as it's too far in -- and have you tried crawling out backwards in a tight space? So the only rational way to access the pump is by taking the mattress out; once that's done, you can open the compartment's lid and get to it that way. So I pulled the mattress out. However, the mattress is longer than the galley area so you  not only have to pull it up, but turn it 90 degrees and lean it against something. We're talking about a bendable, floppy queen-sized mattress here...Well, I eventually got it out without causing too much damage -- I pulled out a screw from a drape holder when the mattress got snagged on it -- and I didn't thwack myself in the face with it flopping all over the place. So here's how things look in the trailer up to this point --

As you can see,  I had to prop up the compartment lid with the trash can, otherwise it would have closed on my head when I was getting to the filter -- which is in the compartment way over to the right. So now that I had access, I loosened the clamp to the filter, pulled the water hose off -- then realized I can't unscrew the filter as it's sitting tightly on a heating duct hose, which is wrapped in a fragile material. I wouldn't take much to put a rip in that...So I struggled to put everything back, with the realization that in RV living it's sometimes better to leave things alone if they ain't broke...

So it was time to get out before I found something else to mess with. I'm in Overton, Nevada which is located about 60 miles NE of Las Vegas. Overton is a small town with one MacDonald's, a supermarket (Lin's), a Family Dollar store, a Bank of America branch, one "real" restaurant (Sugar's), 2 bars, 2 hardware stores, a Napa auto parts, and a few other small businesses. The town lies in the Moapa Valley and is near Valley of Fire State Park and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. I bought a year's pass for Valley of Fire ($75, otherwise it's a $10 daily entrance fee -- why don't they offer weekly passes?) so I went to the east entrance and did a hike to a range of the signature redrock in this area. On the way I came across a herd of Desert Bighorn Sheep set in the spectacular landscape --

The sky, which had been clear except for jet contrails (Valley of Fire is near Nellis Air Force Base,  along with Las Vegas' airport) suddenly filled with spectacular clouds, particularly "mare's tails"

and the eroded, weathered rock led to "eye candy" in all directions.

One of my destinations for the afternoon was the arch in the center of the photo that has been unofficially named "Five Hole Arch". This was taken looking east; you can just make out the blue waters of Lake Mead in the distance to the right.  You can get all kinds of picturesque views looking through its various archways --

And while scrambling to get to Five Hole Arch I came upon this one, which I call Two Arches as you can look through both arches at the same time --

Here's looking through Two Arches --

One of the things I like most about the Valley of Fire is you never know what type of rock art made by nature you'll come across, and when you throw spectacular clouds into the mix you marvel at nature's handiwork --

I ended my day at a hill overlooking Moapa Valley and the Overton Management Wildlife Area, with a spectacular sunset casting its colors on a lake --

Just another winter day in a desert Shangri-La...