Star of Bethlehem

We hope you are all enjoying a merry Christmas. Given the Covid, we know how difficult it is to pretend this is an actual holiday – no loved ones – no family gatherings – at least we were able to schedule a Google Meet and everyone was in attendance – Nick and Val, Karen and Albert, Jerry and Brenda, Mike and Bonnie, Devin, Liz, Maia and Mani, Jon, Julie and Stella, and Brent. It was awesome. We even stepped outside to get a peak at the confluence of Jupiter and Saturn, which hasn’t happened in some 800 years.

On this holiday, there is scientific speculation that perhaps the wise men and those around the town of Bethlehem back in the time had actually seen this phenomenon and thought it’s unusually bright light was the star guiding them to the birth of Jesus. There are scientists that say that this confluence did not occur on 0 AD, or 0 BC, depending on how you look at it. Maybe it was just like they say it was.

We hope to be talking to you soon.

Nipton California

Still trying to kill some time during the Pandemic, the Woman found us somewhere to go that was not too far away. Very near the border of Nevada and California is the historic town of Nipton, California.

Nipton was founded on February 9, 1905 along the newly constructed San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City Railroad. Gold strikes nearby spurred growth in the town as a supply depot to the mines. The population of Nipton also grew as it became a cattle loading station on the railroad.

We found there a post office, a hotel, a trading post, and a school, as well as a number of personal residences, most being trailers. We couldn’t find any information on what its peak population had been. We did learn that the town had a relatively vibrant business district into the 1940’s.

In 1985, the town was purchased by the Freeman family. Their intention was to develop it into a tourist destination as well as a home for local miners. The town’s population currently is estimated to be 15-20, although there appear to be twice that many trailer homes here – many must be abandoned. In 2017 the town was purchased by Arizona based American Green Inc., with the idea that it would be developed as a cannabis tourism destination. Sadly, the financing fell through and the ownership returned to the Freeman family.

The town remains for sale even as we speak. All businesses in the town have closed, mostly as a result of the Covid outbreak – the restaurant, hotel and trading post are all boarded up, so other than roam around and looking for any signage that might pop up, there was nothing to do here. Our one bonus was when we actually bumped into one of the local residents. He wasn’t wearing a mask, and didn’t really have much to say.

We hope to be talking to you soon.

New super high-end mattress - allegedly!

Moving into a new house after living in our motorhome for over 5 years meant buying furniture – a lot of furniture. When we hit the road, we didn’t store much furniture as we knew it would be a long time before we settled down again – didn’t see the pandemic coming. So, RC Wiley delivered pretty much a houseful of furniture, including a new bed. We then learned that mattresses have changed – most have a considerable layer of memory foam on top, allegedly to conform to each person’s body. What we didn’t know was that our $1,000 Sealy Posturepedic would develop a mountain range between us. This is not a 30 year old mattress – it is actually only 30 days old – sheesh!

We hope to be talking to you soon.

Fun with road signs

A bunch of road work popped up in our neighborhood, and of course the various road signs popped up warning of construction vehicles, flagmen, restricted lanes – all the normal kind of stuff. It’s funny how it takes about a dozen guys to run the construction site, even though only about 2 of them are actually working – the rest are standing around smoking and chatting. Reminds me of the construction sites shown on the Soprano’s.

Anyway, we spotted the normal 3 letter mark on the back of the signs that we routinely see when there is any road work in town, and I was dying to know what it stood for. I imagined any kind of highway department unit or division, county department, city, but couldn’t come up with it. Google to the rescue! I know some marketing guys did high 5’s when they came up with this company name in Vegas. It turns out that the largest private company supplying road signs in southern Nevada is Masters of Barricades - genius!

We hope to be talking to you soon.

Unexpected view from the patio

We were pleasantly surprised by a view from our new patio that we hadn’t anticipated. We had been sitting around the campfire pretty much every night taking in the awesome sun set scenes over the Spring Mountain Range. While not quite as impressive as a sunset on the Pacific, the colors of the glow make you feel the same feelings you would feel if you were on the ocean.

This morning, however, we learned that not only do we get to see the sun set every night over the Spring Mountains, but each morning, if we want to, we can see the moon do the same thing. It may not be as awesome as the sunset, but it’s close.

We hope to be talking to you soon.

Thanksgiving bonus

We decided to go on a little road trip to celebrate the holiday, and at the same time forget, for a little while, the pandemic. Starting at the South end of Las Vegas Boulevard, we set out to see firsthand what might be new in Vegas. While not new, the crowd at the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign was a bit unsettling.

Our next stop was outside the New York New York Casino. We had heard that the Statue of Liberty had been clothed in a gigantic Las Vegas Golden Knights jersey, but we had never actually seen it for ourselves. Well, now our Vegas experience is complete. It was interesting to see that Lady Liberty was in compliance with Governor Sisolak’s statewide mask mandate!

We wanted to see how the progress was going on Resorts World. Finally, the old Stardust Casino site is destined to see the newest and bestest that Vegas has to offer. After being mothballed when the real estate market crashed in 2008. Now scheduled to open next summer, this place really looks to be top notch. The 100,000 square foot LED screen that covers an entire side of one of the resort towers is one of the biggest in the world!

Coming into view now is the new gateway to downtown Las Vegas. This $6.5 million arch over Las Vegas Boulevard at the foot of the Stratosphere Tower seems a fitting feature in this town. Since the traffic in town is mostly nonexistent due to the Virus, the city has taken this opportunity to do massive street construction and refurbishing that in normal traffic times would have been a disaster. We liked the new look!

It was also comforting to know that the President of the United States of America was maintaining his constant watch of our community. It is pretty obvious that he is working hard to make sure that Vegas is safe, sound, and economically healthy!

Since it was, after all, a major holiday, we decided to take advantage of our free time and booked a reservation to do the scenic drive through Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. The BLM has decided that limiting the number of people in Red Rock Canyon was needed, so they have instituted a policy of requiring online reservations to drive the loop – limited to the number per day they feel appropriate. Who would argue with the BLM – except maybe another Nevadan, Cliven Bundy.

We enjoyed our drive, and even got to discover a place we had not explored before. Calico Basin We don’t know exactly how this community exists within the borders of the Conservation Area, but maybe it is because they were already there when it was established in 1967. Anyway, we explored this small community at the base of these majestic rock formations.

Talking to you soon!