Our 2006 Inaugural Bus Trip Part 7
Posted: Wednesday March 23, 2016
Well, if anyone made it through the first 6 parts of our 2006 inaugural bus trip travelogue, you are to be commended for your tenacity {big grin}.
I have often stated that our blog was more for our benefit that to “entertain” others. We have had a ball reliving this amazing trip. We also find it hard to believe we crammed so many fun activities into a five week trip.
So, here is the seventh installment of that travelogue – one more to go.
Hello from Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Thursday evening April, 6 2006. Seventh travelogue of this trip.
In the last travelogue, I mentioned that we were waiting for our mail to arrive. Well, it did and the Postmaster (lady) forwarded it to someone who had a name somewhat similar to ours (not real close). The short end of a long story, is that the folks she sent it to returned it to her and it was schedule to arrive after we had to leave for Las Vegas. We told her to just return it to our house. What a frustration!
As we waited for the mail to arrive (before we knew that the lady screwed it up), we decided to stay in the same campground until it was time to leave for Las Vegas. It is a great campground with very nice folks and a great swimming pool.
Friday we went back into Pahrump. Pat did some gambling and I chased a few parts. I also worked on the computer in the car to kill some time. We then went to a great (but rather expensive) Friday seafood buffet. It was probably one of the best we had been to. On Monday we went back into Death Valley and toured some more. Folks had told us we really missed a great side road drive called Artist’s Pallet. It was absolutely beautiful.
For several years, I have corresponded with a fellow IHC nut who comes to Death Valley each year. He had sent us his itinerary each year, but we never could work out getting together. On a whim, I emailed him and he was in the area. He had planned to arrive in our campground on Sunday (4/2). I got to meet him later on Sunday and talk a bit more to him and his wonderful wife on Monday night. He was a school teacher/administrator for many years and retired about 10 years ago. He has post Polio syndrome (not sure that is the exact description) where people who had polio when they were young have a recurrence of the symptoms in later years. He is basically confined to a electric scooter.
He invited us to join them and some other folks on a four wheel tour of the south western corner of Death Valley. It was just like a Ghost Town Club tour with Bob Brown leading and doing the narration. The girls will probably recall Bob, with his magnificent voice, glorious command of the English language and unbelievable knowledge of the areas we toured (unfortunately, Bob passed away this past year). Anyway, we had a great guided tour of some of the most beautiful part of the valley. As a thank you, we took them out to breakfast on Wednesday just before we left for Vegas. They wanted to take us on another short tour, but we just did not have the time.
We left for Vegas about noon and got to the race track area about 2:00. I had received a fairly significant order from our e-store a couple of days earlier and needed to process/ship the order. That turned out not to be a terribly difficult effort. We processed the order as if we were at the house, printed the label and got the box ready to ship. We unhooked the Durango and I drove about 7 miles to a UPS service center. I had been told that if you have an account with UPS, they don’t care where you ship from. Turns out that is the case. We had planned to carry some inventory in order to process orders on the road and this was the first chance to see how the system worked.
We are now camped at the track. It is a great facility. There are no utilities, which is not a problem for us. Our bus is about 50 yards straight out from the finish line. I can walk a short distance to a fence and see the races. Today I bought some head phones that have speakers for my scanner and a built in AM/FM radio. The track broadcasts the public address system on an FM frequency and I have all the NHRA radio frequencies in the scanner. You talk about racing overload!!!
I went into the track today to scout out all the team locations and look at the vendor products. Gates was nice enough to furnish Pat and I reserved seat tickets for both Sat. and Sunday (about $100 worth of tickets for each person) and special VIP passes for one of the hospitality areas.
Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a Bruton Smith built facility. He is famous for building fantastic racing facilities. This one is among the best. It has a NASCAR track (held a Cup race a few weeks ago), a fabulous drag strip facility and a special dirt track for sprint car races.
One other thing I should mention about our location is that it is located close to the end of the runway at Nellis Air Force base. It is like an air show with all of the great looking military aircraft flying over.
We brought the motorhome here a couple of years ago, and vowed to come back. We are planning a trip for an Eagle Rally and trade show in the fall that will put us back in this area again for the fall race. I suspect we will plan on coming again then and maybe take a side trip back to Death Valley. Having the bus running is offering us a great deal of flexibility and a chance to be part-time gypsies!!
The weather turned nice today, but for the last couple of days it has been rainy and rather cool. It is expected to be nice weather for the races.
We will leave Las Vegas Monday (unless the racers stay over to test on Monday – I would like to watch that) and plan to get home about 4/13. Since we are traveling I70, Mother Nature might have a say about our exact timing.