25 June – Oceanside

Up this morning for a quick scooter ride to the pier for breakfast. It was a stunning day and the swimmers and surfers were already out even though it was still coolish. The pier had loads of people fishing from it. 

We walked to the end to Ruby’s Diner. It’s a lovely spot right on the end of the pier and a great retro diner – complete with cute pink and white striped uniforms for the waitresses. We ordered up eggs, bacon, turkey sausage and hot cakes with fresh orange juice and coffee. 

Breakfast was leisurely and ended up as brunch – lots of food so no chance we would be hungry again anytime soon. We watched swimmers swimming around the pier and back – it’s about 1/3 mile long. Apparently they are training for a long distance ocean swim. We had a lovely post brunch walk along the pier and the esplanade watching the kids surf camp, some young gridiron players practicing running drills and families enjoying the beach. There were several flocks of pelicans doing synchronised laps of the beach in formation and the navy hovercrafts absolutely belting along off shore. 

After that we scooted back to the RV for a lazy afternoon, with a soak in the resort hot tub before dinner. Following dinner we went back to the beach for another stroll. Very pretty with the lights. We found an information board that told us the movie “bring it on” was filmed on the beach here. Cool. On the way to the beach we had 2 embarrassing scooter moments. First someone wound down their window at the lights to tell us that the audible indicator was terrible and we should rip it out. Then we weren’t big enough for the traffic lights to “see” us and they stayed red until we were rescued by a guy on a real bike who pulled alongside. Pretty much straight away the lights changed.

24 June – Desert Hot Springs – Oceanside

Up and keen to leave Desert Hot Springs. It was WAY too windy. Heading along the highway there were heaps of wind turbines. Hundreds of them, all different types. The wind was just insane! The fastest we could get the RV going into the headwind was 45 miles per hour. Once we crossed the mountains the wind suddenly stopped – thank goodness! The drive was uneventful, mostly on the major highway through the LA outskirts. We reached the coast at a place called Oceanside. We drove up the coast a bit past a Navy base where they were doing some sort of operations alongside the highway – lots of tanks. We ended up turning back and parking up at Oceanside RV Park, then got the scooter off and went for a ride around. Oceanside is quite pretty, the beach was nice, and we went to the harbour for a coffee in a little place overlooking the fishing boats. 

After that back along the beachfront, lots of people on bikes, walking dogs and just hanging out. Perfect weather for it! After dinner we went for a scoot down to the pier and a walk along it. 

It goes quite a way out, and there is a diner at the end called Ruby’s. Lots of people about, walking, running and lots of fishing off the pier. A guy had caught a 2 foot long stingray. On the beach there were firepits and groups BBQing and sitting round with guitars. Really nice way to end the day.

23 June - Vegas – Desert Hot Springs

Leaving Vegas we travelled South. We passed another huge solar power bank- heaps of panels and they must be generating a lot because there were plenty of EHV lines on towers heading out over the desert. 

Other than that, not much. Tumbleweeds and Joshua trees. 

And windy! The RV battled the cross winds all the way. Crossing the Californian border was funny. Nevada side: 3 lanes in each direction, divided road, lovely road surface. Suddenly down to 1 lane in each direction, not divided, road a bit crappy. A cattle grid marked the border. We followed the green corridor of the Colorado River for a while along Route 66 into a town called Needles. Lots of Route 66 signs and murals. Kind of quaint. 

Heading toward Palm Springs we could see the Salton Sea in the distance. It’s an interesting story. It’s below sea level and was created by a flood in 1905. The area had been used as farm land via some irrigation channels from the Colorado. During the 1905 floods, the Colorado breached the headgates of the channels and flowed into the Salton sink, creating massive waterfalls and 2 new rivers 60 miles long that carried the entire Colorado River flow into the basin, submerging the town of Salton and the railroad. The building of the Hoover Dam in 1935 stopped the flooding and enabled the Colorado to be diverted back to its original watercourse, but the Salton Sea remained. It is the 3^rd biggest lake in California and was set to be a huge resort /tourist area. However, over time with evaporation the sea has become progressively more salty to the point where the fish died and it now stinks of dead fish. So the resorts were abandoned and now sit as ghost towns. Boaters still use it because the high salt content means that boats float well and can go faster than usual. Overnight at Desert Hot Springs. Even though the RV park was well sheltered, it was so windy that the RV swayed sickeningly all night, not a lot of sleep. 

22 June –Vegas

We were up and ready to hit the road in the Corvette, headed for the Valley of Fires. It’s about 70 miles North of Vegas on a major highway, so we were soon zipping along at 75 miles per hour (yes that’s the legal limit on the major interstate highways. About 130ks) We had to stop and put the top up though because at 75 we had to hold hats on. Once we turned off the interstate onto the Valley of Fires highway we put the top down again. Steve had a blast driving! The Valley of Fires was just beautiful. The highway winds around through some pretty ordinary muddy coloured hills, then all of a sudden the rocks and mountains turn to vivid reds, oranges, pinks and even purples. 

They are fossilised sand dunes. Just awesome! Sadly it was too hot for hiking (over 109 F / 44 C) and all the trails had big warning signs saying “HEAT WARNING - DO NOT HIKE”, but we got some stunning pics from the trail heads and car park areas. 

Sadly, the camera broke so we had to use the iphone. Really bummed. It just stopped working. One minute it was fine, then next there was no power. Ros drove back to the Interstate hwy, then passed back to Steve for the run back to Vegas. Once we were back in town it was time to cruise up and down the strip (don’t judge us, everyone in Vegas with a nice car does it!) until it was time to take the ‘Vette back. Sad faces…Then back to the RV Park for dinner and a movie at Samstown cinema. We saw Man of Steel. Meh. Started fairly well, then turned into lots of CGI mayhem.

21 June – Vegas

Into the strip and a looong walk to the Luxor to see “the Bodies” exhibit. 

Excalibur

It was really cool, but not for the squeamish. If you have seen Casino Royale you will remember James Bond chasing a bad guy through the Bodies exhibit in Miami then killing him and sitting him down as if he were part of the show. Real human bodies in various degrees of dissection to show bone structure, muscles, nerves, organs etc. They preserve the bodies with polymer, so they are hard, then pose them throwing a ball, sitting down, twisting and turning so you can see the muscles and nerves in motion. They also showed things like normal lungs and smokers lungs (with a bin next to them for people who decide to quit to bin the ciggies. Quite a few packs in there!) There was a very cool display of all the blood systems. They inject polymer into the arteries and veins, the polymer goes hard, then they use acid to dissolve all the surrounding tissue, so you are left with just the circulatory system floating in a big tank. Steve thought it would add something if they also included some Siamese fighting fish in the tank… The Luxor was amazing – it’s a huge pyramid and hollow on the inside, so when you are in the foyer you are looking up at the inside of the pyramid going up maybe 20 stories high. 

From there we went to the MGM for a quick bite and a taxi to Fantasy Car Hire to pick up a 2013 red Corvette convertible for tomorrow. We are driving to the Valley of Fires and fancied a spin in a convertible. Had to go for a drive through Vegas, then back to the RV for dinner. 

Another drive after dinner? Don’t mind if we do! Back from a quick drive out to Las Vegas Lake – where all the big houses are. We didn’t feel all conspicuous like we would have driving around gated communities in the RV. Love the Corvette. The hardest part will be giving it back tomorrow afternoon!. 

20 June – Vegas

We had a lazy day – then into the Venetian for dinner and the Human Nature Motown show. 

We had dinner at Postrio (one of Wolfgang Pucks restaurants). Very yummy and dessert was divine! Something we have noticed about restaurants here is the number of staff. There is “meet and greet guy” who stands at the desk and says hello. He hands you off to “take you to the table girl” (also usually known as “very short skirt girl”) who shows you to the table. “Water boy” brings you a glass and keeps it topped up with iced water. “Waiter” (almost always a bloke), takes the order. “Delivery guy” brings the food. “Water boy” also doubles as “clears the table boy”. Oddy, the jobs are clearly demarcated and nobody steps into anyone else’s patch. The other day we arrived at the desk and “meet and greet guy” had stepped away. “Waiter” and “”take you to the table girls” stood 3 feet away from us blankly ignoring us. After a few minutes “meet and greet guy” arrived, said hello and summoned “take you to the table girl” who smiled as if she had not be ignoring us a minute ago. Strange! 

The Human Nature show was brilliant, lots of old Motown hits like Mr Postman, Save up all your tears, Stop, in the name of love, Earth Angel etc. The harmonies were great, and they did a bit of A cappella. Lots of fun dancing in the aisle and they taught us the moves for Stop, in the name of love. We got autographs and a pic after the show.

19 June –Vegas

Late sleep in.  Sam’s Town is on the Boulder Hwy and during the night there are often cop & fire engine sirens going past. We went to the Atomic Testing Museum in the morning, it was very interesting. The US atomic tests were moved to Nevada after Bikini Atoll and the museum documents the tests, from atmospheric testing, through underground testing and through to the modern simulated testing using a Z accelerator (?). There was a room where they simulated watching a test – the floor shook, and air blasted at you to feel like the shock wave.  During the real tests in the 50’s tourists used to watch the blasts from about 20 miles away, and the army observers from open trenches only 4 miles from the blast. Obviously back before they realised the long term impacts of radiation. 

We saw a display on the largest bomb ever detonated (and the last atmospheric test) – by the Russians in the Arctic. It was 100 megatons (Hiroshima was only 6 megatons) and blasted a hole in the earth’s atmosphere that took 3 days to cover back over. 

They also had an “expose of Area 51”that was very lame… It was in a blacked out series of rooms, with spooky introductions done by the man in black, but didn’t tell us anything. It more or less said “anything you have read about Area 51 is nonsense. If we had an alien spaceship all this time we would have been able to reverse engineer it. The fact that we are still flying normal aircraft is therefore direct proof that we don’t have any alien spacecraft”. We went from the museum to the Beverly Hills Rent a Car. We were interested in finding out how much it is to rent a Corvette for the day. Sadly, the Corvettes were all out, but there was a 2012 Lamborghini there (for a mere $1200 plus taxes for 6 hours rental). The guy encouraged Steve to sit in it and start it up. Zoom Zoom! 

We went back to the strip for dinner – at the Bellagio. The restaurant is called Yellowtail – Japanese – and was really yummy. The balcony overlooked the Bellagio fountains and was a lovely place to sit and watch the twilight over the strip.