Snowboarding vacation is over, so we are heading back to Las Vegas Bay campground for two nights, and then we are off to meets B’s father & partner in Palm Desert, California.
We wanted a longer first day drive out of Bend, Oregon, so we took a different route back to the Las Vegas area. We spent the first night at a Motel 6 in Fallon NV. The hotel had recently been renovated and we got a very modern room which was very clean. We picked up burgers and fries at a local restaurant, The Grid, and brought them back to the hotel room, so that we could feed dinner to the dogs at the same time (they got kibble, not burgers). The burgers were great, and so big I couldn’t finish mine.
When we were planning the side trip to Palm Desert we wanted to bring Rosita with us, but we couldn’t find a place to camp within a reasonable distance (everything is booked up) and the costs for RV storage in the Palm Desert/Palm Springs area is crazy expensive. It was cheaper to rent a house for a few days than it was to enter into a short term RV storage contract!
We also looked into doggy daycare for Lump and SweetPea, but it cost more for daycare for the dogs than a hotel room for us!
The final solution was to rent a “house” in an RV community in nearby Coachella (about 15 minutes south of Palm Desert). The house (44471 Duckhorn Drive) is located in “The New Vineyards RV Resort”, which is a community where people with Motorcoaches (and only motorcoaches, no trailers allowed) stay.
Each property has a small bungalow and the community has swimming pools, tennis/pickleball courts, fitness rooms, etc). The bungalows range from a small garage-only unit, to larger complete houses with elaborate outdoor dining facilities.
The community is well maintained, but unfinished (empty lots, unfinished golf course). The unit we stayed in (44471 Duckhorn Drive) was built in 2006 and doesn’t looked like it was completely finished (outdoor cooking area is unfinished). It doesn’t look like it has been used much or upgraded at all (the outdoor chair material disintegrated when touched). The exterior of the house itself was in good condition, as was the interior. The place was clean, if a little underequipped (e.g. no baking dishes, 2 pots, one with a lid, etc). There was no coffee maker, so every morning required a 5 minute drive to the nearby Love’s gas station for coffee (good coffee!).
Part of the reason for meeting in Palm Desert was that never before met members of B’s family were converging there, coming from Los Angeles and Phoenix. The other part of the reason was B’s birthday, which her father wanted to be around for.
On the birthday note, as a present B received a brand new, flexible water hose for Rosita and a white slab cake with good icing (which the dogs ate most of… not).
We visited Joshua Tree National Park, which was incredibly busy, but had some nice hiking trails.
We also hiked through the Santa Rosa and San Jocinta Mountains National Monument and the cactus were in bloom.
Prior to driving up to Palm Desert we spent another two nights at the Las Vegas Bay campground as it was close to the Sunset RV Storage place where we left Rosita during our side trip to Bend, Oregon.
While we were in the campground we performed a couple of upgrades to Rosita using our recent Amazon purchases (made while we were in Bend). We swapped our old 12 volt 3.6 amp battery charger for a new 25 amp battery charger to reduce the time required to recharge Rosita’s house battery.
We also modified the 200 watt 12 volt solar charger we purchased, so that we could plug it into Rosita’s trailer plug (using the 12 volt auxiliary pin, which we use to recharge Rosita’s battery while pulling with the Chevy Suburban). It worked like a charm! No need to put another hole into Rosita, yea!
Our storage contract with Sunset RV and Storage was good until March 31, so we put Rosita back in storage before heading south to Palm Desert. Poor Rosita!
Trip Summary:
Depart: Bend, Oregon; 8:30 am Mar 19; Odometer: 133477 miles
Arrive: 4:15 pm Fallon, NV (Motel 6); Odometer: 133959 miles
Depart: Fallon, NV; 7:40 am Mar 20; Odometer: 133964 miles
Arrive: 3:30 pm Las Vegas Bay Campground, NV; odometer 134381
Gas Summary:
Burns, OR (Mar 19): 12.6g @ $3.90/g ($48.96) – ODO 133604 miles
Winnemucca, NV (Mar 19): 14.9g @ $3.96/g ($59.00) – ODO 133830 miles
Hawthorne, NV (Mar 20): 12.7g @ $4.74/g ($68.38) – ODO 134033 miles
Henderson, NV (Mar 20): 21.7g @ $4.42/g ($95.71) – ODO 134373 miles
A wonderful descriptive travelog which would be helpful to anyone planning a similr journey.