Death Valley 2006

1/11/06 Drove to El Centro for the start of our Quartzsite, Death Valley, and Las Vegas trip. We stayed in front of Joe Scarlet’s house on the street. Doug and Lana also came. While Linda was leashing up Meghan, Meghan got in into a minor altercation with Ryder, Doug’s poodle. According to Doug, Meghan scratched Ryder’s eye. Doug got very irate and forbid Meghan from playing with Ryder ever again, which caused me much stress. He took Ryder to the vet and was given medication for a scratched eye. About 16 people that Linda and I know all had dinner at Camacho’s Mexican Restaurant. The food was good and we all had a nice time. The ambiance of this placed frequented by the Blue Angle pilots made the restaurant a fun place to eat.

1/12/06 Drove to Quartzsite and got set up on the BLM land in the desert. The following campers were in our group; Lana Doug Willingham, Joe Scarlet Willingham, Stan Joy Ray Gienger, Bruce Beverly Roberts, Bill Tommy Peters (Joy Ray’s brother). Did a short hike with Meghan into the desert. Had a nice camp fire at dark.

1/13/06 Linda and I provided Carne Asada for the entire group tonight. It turned out very good, but 8#’s was way to much and we had about 4#’s of leftovers.

1/14/06 Went shopping to the east area. I bought 3 bottles of good olives stuffed with sun dried tomatoes. Junior, Joy Ray Gienger’s brother made Taquitos tonight for the entire group. They were great. We had a gift exchange at camp fire. I got a humming bird feeder and Linda got candle holders.

1/15/06 Did some more walking around the shopping area but nothing turned me on, so I can back and took Meghan for a hike in the desert. Worked on my Dish Network reception of New York Network problem. I had to reset the receiver by pressing the power button for 10 seconds. Watched a couple of professional football games part time in the rig. The batteries are on their 4th day without being recharged, really doing good.

1/16/06 Said goodbye to all the friendly folks we camped with at Quartzsite and drove north 220 miles to Henderson Nevada. We stayed at Sam’s Town RV Park. Had a nice dinner at Fellini’s Italian restaurant in the casino.

1/17/06 Drove 120 miles to Death Valley NP and checked into Furnace Creek Camp Ground. Spent a very relaxing day lounging around camp in the beautiful sunny high 60’s F. weather. We attended a very well done ranger talk at 7:00 p.m. about Salt Creek pup fish.

1/18/06 Spent another relaxing day in camp taking a few short hikes around campground, golf course, and airport with Meghan and Linda. The Rooney's and the Gienger's arrived about 1:00 p.m. We socialized with them most of the day and had a nice camp fire in the evening.

1/19/06 The Giengers, Rooney’s, Linda, and I drove to Scotty’s Castle today. We did the upper and lower tours having a nice time. After the tour we all had a picnic lunch in a park near the Castle. One lone brave coyote watched and waited for us to finish out lunch so he could retrieve scrapes from our feast. We had a pleasant day sharing the tours with our friends. Diana and Fred Rooney made us some very tasty tostados and tamales for dinner. We attended the ranger presentation and then went to bed.