California and Death Valley

In our last post we mentioned that we decided it was time to retire the Minnie Winnie after 15 years of dedicated service.  We began looking for a new RV that had everything we liked about the Minnie plus a few things the Minnie didn't have.  We had 3 major criteria: 1) not longer than 30 ft, 2) fiberglass end caps front and rear (to prevent water leaks), and 3) full body paint (standard decal striping fades and looks bad over time).  It turned out to be a major challenge to find an RV that matched our criteria but we finally found one on line at a dealer in Ventura, CA.  It was a 30 ft Coachmen Mirada class A motorhome.

The new Coachmen Mirada Motorhome

In order to get the motorhome we decided to take a trip out to Ventura and pick it up ourselves.  We chose to register and license the new motorhome in Texas to save on taxes so we actually couldn't take possession of it in California.  We had to hire a driver to drive it to Las Vegas, NV where we could take over and drive it home from there.

So on March 17th we flew into Las Vegas and rented a car and drove to the dealer in Ventura.  The dealer showed us through the Mirada, we signed the paperwork and stayed in the motorhome that night.  The next morning our driver showed up and drove the motorhome (with the rental car following) across the Nevada border where we signed the transfer paperwork.  We then dropped him and the rental car off at the Las Vegas airport and headed in the motorhome to Beatty, NV and the Space Station RV Park outside of Death Valley National Park.  That night we were joined by d & Zhouyi & Meila who drove over from Sacramento.

On March 20th we drove into Death Valley Natl Park and were greeted by a bloom of wild flowers that only comes out at this time of year.  We hiked on the dry salt beds and on the sand dunes on our way out of the park.  We decided that March is definitely the best time of year to come to Death Valley.

Walkway to the Salt Flats in Death Valley

On the Walkway

Liz, Zhouyi, d, and Meila

Hiking the Death Valley Sand Dunes

From Death Valley we traveled back to Las Vegas and then followed Highway 93 through Kingman, AZ and on down to Burro Creek Campground.  We then continued on down to Phoenix and Tuscon, AZ where we stayed a night at the Desert Diamond Casino (casinos are ideal for RVs because they often have free overnight parking and lots of eating and entertainment options).

On March 25th drove to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.  This is a large valley with large dunes of pure white sand....amazing.  The road in is plowed right through the sand and has to be plowed out again regularly to keep it open.  This area is also used by the military as a missile test range (fortunately there were no explosions while we were there).

White Sands Natl Monument - view from a sand dune

Liz hiking on the dunes

Access road plowed through the sand

From White Sands we headed home through Ruidoso and Roswell, NM, arriving home on March 27th.  There we were greeted by the Minnie Winnie which we still hadn't sold yet. After advertising on Craig's list, a young couple from Lindsay, TX came to take a look and fell in love with her.  They wanted to buy her on the spot and so we did the deal.  A few days later we offered to drive the Minnie up to Lindsay to drop her off.  As we pulled into their farm they were waiting for us with a space in their garage/barn already cleared out for Minnie...we think she was very happy with her new home. They also gave us a tour of the original barn on the property which they had converted into a rustic entertainment center with a bar and flat screen TVs - it was amazing.  It was nice to know we were leaving our old friend Minnie Winnie in good hands.