Sedona, Red Rock State Park

We were so tired I really slept in this morning got up around 9 a.m. Of course Jim was already up but we slept very well. I think I made a smoothie first, as Jim says it's boring whatever. Then I made an egg sandwich with bacon on English muffin. Of course we watch some Today Show and then got ready for our adventure for the day. We went to Red Rock State Park, $7 a person to enter.

We walked the trails for an hour they had a lovely gift shop, you just can't buy something at everyone. We met some people that we're sitting on a bench along the trail we said hi to and they were from Pennsylvania too. When we were getting ready to leave, they were prepping for a wedding to be held near the visitors center. The creek was really full, because of all the snow and rain they had the last couple weeks, witch isn't the norm hear.

Then we drove through the town of Sedona, a lot of the Jeep tours driving around. They just don't look safe ,  because with extra seating in the back  they really hung low. They have the traffic circles which Jim hates, I call them crop circles. There was five just to get to the Thousand Trails here. Beautiful views driving through the town of Sedona

somebody had an awesome Woodfire Grill somewhere it smelled so good. And we went to a Walmart there of course. It said no RV parking there was two small trailers there look like they were staying. Jim went to get his pills I was walking around and was talking to an older gentleman in the produce aisle picking avocados. I told him I could tell he was from around here because he knew how to pickle them.  I asked him a place to go for a really good restaurant in the area we had a nice little chat lovely man. He said to go to Bocce it was an Old Town oh, he said it was fun I looked it up later looks like a nice pizza place. We finished our food shopping it was a very nice Walmart found almost everything I wanted. Checked out Jim almost forgot to go get his pills. The lady at the door was admiring my bags I make it chatted about them. Then we went back to the FW and put everything away, which was a lot Jim started grilling his brains out. He grilled a couple hot dogs I had bought a while ago.  Then he grilled a huge pack of chicken, and a big mess of yellow and green squash AKA zucchini. Meanwhile back inside I got the instant pot going and made inside out egg rolls. And then I put in boneless ribs and three potatoes for dinner tomorrow night. Later each tried a rib there were so tender and good. Tonight I'd like to hit them on the grill caramelize a little BBQ sauce then we can have the zucchini and potatoes for a lovely meal. I also pre-made four salads for later. So we had a few different courses as we both cooked, for the coming days. Was a lot of fun for me I enjoy doing that Jim probably not so much it was getting cold out. I have two bar stools I used one as an instant pot holder, works really nice you just can't go crazy and knock it off but it fits on perfect and gives me more counter space to do all my other cooking chores which I have so much room I can do multiple things at once in here, so nice. Then we watched some TV and shows we had pre-recorded and went to bed. Jim went to bed first I went a lot later, I was on Facebook till my brother Drew saw me and told me to go to bed. And the time doesn't change because we are in Arizona. No daylight savings time here.

Travel Day Las Vegas to Cottonwood AZ

Travel day had to get up early. Was up around 7 a.m. I made a smoothie I made wraps with chicken for travel we left around 9:42 a.m. we stopped one time to get fuel Jim went in the camper, and I went inside when I paid, the gas station was all torn apart inside there is only a woman's room open which actually was the men's room. I wanted to grab lunch out of the fridge but it was so busy there we just kept going. Twice the truck  said  trailer was unplugged  then came right back on, don't know what that was all about . We drove another good hour and we pulled off the road, and pulled over right away onto the on-ramp, grabbed our lunch out of the fridge went to the bathroom. Sat in the truck for a minute and eat our wraps and got right back on the highway. Most of the highway was so rough and bumpy , Jim always trying to avoid potholes. We got to the top of the Mountain, elevation at 7000 feet. We went through snow flurries twice, saw cars with snow all over it, that wasn't very fun. There was a lot of snow on the ground too.

I'm glad we remember to deflate our Sleep Number bed  before we left. We had to  deflated and inflated when we got here . During travel  it got very hard in the elevation areas . We arrived at Verde Valley TT around 4:30.

The place is huge, beautiful scenery all around, multi levels. Not a lot of empty sites, forgot we had to pre reserve a 50 amp but 30 will work for now. The ranger told us a few sites he thought were empty turned out we didn't find any that were. The one that was we were looking at and the guy behind it told us at the sewer backed up and said that they fixed it, but it wasn't fixed, so he said. We drove around came back to it so you pulled in from the other directions so we were facing away instead of facing  the other RV. Which put are hookups on the wrong side  but we didn't want to be facing  our neighbor. We wanted to face the Sunnyside and The View. The guy came out and I told him it's all we can find. we were so tired we did the minimal setup. Jim set up the dish, it did take a bit, it would come in strong and then go right out. Heated the rest of the leftover chicken parmesan spaghetti I thank goodness I pre-made something, we had that for dinner. Watched a little bit of TV kept falling asleep in our chairs, waking up and finally just went to bed and I woke up he was gone went to bed too very tiring day after being up so late the night before partying our beep off.

Hoover Dam, and a SHOW

Jim was up first he made coffee, we had the alarm set just in case. I got up shortly after that. We got ready and walked down to the lobby, he was supposed to pick us up at quarter of 8. He was late, he called Jim to let him know, wish we could have stayed at the camper all that time. But we got almost two days of blog finished in that waiting time, which was very productive. The driver Peter was very good and had a very nice voice. We were in a white Mercedes Sprinter van most people from Canada one couple from England. There's 10 of us all together. First we drove to the Hoover Dam some awesome views.

  Can't believe how many people drove in with their camper around us. The tour was very good I just felt a little rushed, first when we got there, when he parked I wanted  to grab my scarf and my Phone and something else but I forgot them all because I felt rushed by the driver. Since he was so late I felt rushed inside the visitor center where there was a lot of displays to look at. He gave us a lot of details before he passed us on to our guide inside named Dan. The two intake Towers are 40 stories tall. Right now the lake is about 500ft deep and it's 58 degrees, Where the water comes out in the middle of summer you can still get hypothermia if you fell off a boat. It was completely full twice, once was in  1941 they filled it up to make sure that everything here worked, the other time was 1983 they actually had a winter here we're so much snow fell, is a big deal the normal lake level you can see, about halfway down  that's where the normal lake level is,  so currently it's about 60 feet  lower than it normally would be, because what they're doing out here is, they will regulate the River/ lake for the spring runoff that is going to come from the Snows, up 96% of the water that comes into the lake is from snow run off, It looks Brown as if it's chocolate milk Hershey's chocolate .

The driver picked us up last but dropped us off first, We got back to the camper about 12:30 just in time for lunch. I put chicken and spaghetti in the instant pot, did 3 loads of laundry, I started with the sheets,  put some stuff away trying to organize the place was a mess . I want to take a nap our show doesn't start till 10 p.m. tonight. Never did nap. We left again around 4, called Uber and he took us to Mandalay Bay first. We went to the Shark Reef took a lot of pictures.

Then we walked around took a tram ride downtown. We ate at Chili's, the show started at 10. He was so funny talked to some people behind us. After the show was over we went in the back and got to meet John, got a photo with him and bought a DVD. Walked around some more got back home a little after midnight.

Recovery morning, dinner with new friends

I didn't get up till after 9 this morning, kind of felt drugged and sleepy from all the cigarette smoke, and other smoke in the air last night. Jim said talk about a second hand High.  I don't get the fun high I get sleepy. We rested watch the Today show I did a load of laundry, WE wanted to go somewhere but never did leave. We had made plans for 6 to go meet at the California Pizza Kitchen to have dinner with people we met at the escapees bash which was months ago now in Havasu. Right next door to the restaurant was a container store, and a Whole Foods.We left around 4 Jim got more diesel filled up the truck it was just under $3 a gallon. Then we went to The Container Store, that is an OCD persons dream, I was never in one. We did find a banana hook, container to put beer in the inside fridge, a rack to hold my cookbooks so they don't fall over. Also a a container to hold my small steak knives. I had an old Taffy box for years and it was shredding, it fit in perfectly. Then we walked over to the California Pizza Kitchen to wait for our friends Marvin & Terri Hein from Las Vegas they were at The Bash. We had a few very nice conversations with them, they're mainly about are AGM batteries and how the old ones died slow painful deaths. Jim has been  emailing him and he check this email after we waited for a while and he noticed they had mentioned coming and picking us up, so he emailed him back and said that we were there, They showed up a few minutes later, which was like 6:15 maybe and we were there talkin till 9:37, we kept talking in the parking lot. Really nice people so cool to no people in Las Vegas now a total of 3. I had shrimp with zucchini noodles and a little bit of pasta, Jim had a thin BBQ chicken pizza which we shared both. Terri had Chicken marsala and Marv had a pasta dish of some sort too. When the meal was over they actually treated us and paid for dinner. We thank them very much it was very unexpected and so nice of them. Yeah they said when they come east we will return the favor, Jim already told him the restaurant we will take them to, the Quentin Tavern. They also have an instant pot that they use a lot I said since we all had pasta I'll make them pasta in it another night. So we said our good buys and hugs and handshakes and went back to the camper. Forgot to record our one show, now I have to find it on demand. We went to bed early, we have an early day tomorrow for more fun on the horizon.

Menopause the Musical

We got up this morning and went up to the lobby and had breakfast again because it was so good the other day. I had toast, Jim had French toast. I called and talked to my brother Drew because it was both of my brother's birthday today. Born on the same day two years apart. After breakfast trying to decide how we were going to spend our day, we talked to the concierge., and booked a travel day for Thursday to go to the Hoover Dam. We went and picked up our mail,  that we had delivered here to the campground at Oasis .  That's always a pain a lot of junk to go through . Then we went back to the camper talked about our plans and then we had lunch. I had pre-made salads with chicken we grilled then we went to the lobby and got an Uber and went to the Mandalay Bay. We walked around and wanted to go to the Shark Reef, We didn't feel like we had enough time, then we got on the tram and rode it all the way to the end and then back again to Harrah's. We walked around the casino till we found our tickets for the show tonight. Then we went to Toby Keith's restaurant, I love that bar and grill.

We had a really nice dinner, Jim had a huge Reuben & fries, I had fried catfish, coleslaw and cornbread very Southern Restaurant very good. Jim even had a couple beers, it wasn't cheap but worth the money. We walked around some more. Our show started at 7:30 so we went in and they found us our seats. For Menopause the Musical, featuring Cindy Williams, from Laverne & Shirley. Once the show started we got to sit a little closer. Is very good and funny because menopause is a hoot. When the show was over Jim  said what do you  want to do now, I said why don't we go down to the Fremont Street Experience and check out the nightlife. So he called another Uber and we went over there. Believe me there was a lot of nightlife, crazy. Jim bought a $12 beer, it was a 24 oz. size. Then he found a little store you can go into and by two 16oz. aluminum cans for $5, he did that a few times. As we walked around, there was bands playing on either end of the block. The Country band was one of our favorites we saw the other night. Tony Marques Band, TMB.

People above us going on zip lines over our heads. Then a light show that they show on the ceiling makes it look like there's aliens coming. The show girls were out getting guys to take their pictures with him, one guy that was quite drunk, you could tell, went over and took their picture with them, I saw he gave her $20. And then he kept going back and rubbing on them again. They kept trying to get Jim to come over, then he looked at me and tried to make me the excuse why he wasn't going over. He said they keep calling me over I said because you keep looking at them. It was entertaining to watch. A lot of people panning for money, playing drums on 5 gallon buckets, doing sculptures of people's faces,  putting bronze looking paint on them, painting, playing the guitar. Two different guys are walking around with dogs one only had three legs and they look so tired. We stayed out till after 1 in the morning call another Uber and got back to the camper, of course we can't go right to bed after that so we were up till 2 woohoo. Party animals.