Pitiful Pahrump

 

We spent a few nights in Pahrump on our first trip to Death Valley but didn’t remember much about it. Jim suggested we stop there again after leaving Death Valley to get our mail sent from Florida and check out the Escapees park, Pair-A-Dice. So that’s what we did.

I’m sure Pair-A-Dice has a lot of nice residents, but it just wasn’t for us. We spent a night in their boondocking area across from the office, and had planned to stay a few days to do laundry and some shopping but scouted out a couple of RV resorts and decided to move on Monday. Not our idea of paradise. But the first night in boondocking is free. It’s $5/night after that.

So we ended up at Nevada Treasure RV Resort, a very nice place and reasonable with the Passport America discount. We ended up picking a more expensive site since we were told they don’t rent the one next to it because it’s so short. Sold! We paid half of the regular $55/night rate, which you can get for four nights.

They have attractive landscaping, an excellent fitness center, beautiful pool and jacuzzis, small restaurant and bar, large laundry room ($1.00 each), slot machines, and a bowling alley. What more did we need?

Our site had a sitting area in the back with our very own palapa. Sophie and Elvis enjoyed the rock climbing.

Does that harness make my belly look big?

Although Pahrump is not the most intriguing town for non-gamblers, we managed to find some things to do and kept busy all week. We rode bikes from the park to check out some of the rural residential areas. This is a good example of what happens when there is no zoning. A beautiful large house would be just down the street (most of them dirt) from a shack with trash and old cars in the yard. Should have brought a camera on our bike ride.

One day we drove 30 miles back toward Death Valley to Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, a wetlands area with springs, small reservoirs and streams. We stopped there in 2010 but didn’t remember much about it. They just opened a new visitor center last year which is very impressive. We walked all the boardwalk trails and along the reservoir.

We got to see lots of the rare, tiny, shiny blue pupfish, which only exist in the springs of the refuge.

Unfortunately we couldn’t get a photo of them but they’re in there.

Crystal Reservoir.

This is one of a few areas where the mostly underground 125 mile long Amaragosa River surfaces, which makes for a nice oasis in the desert.

Crystal Springs.

Yesterday we took a drive up Wheeler Pass Road into the Spring Mountains Recreation Area. You can continue on the dirt road all the way to the west side of Las Vegas, but we wanted to hike, so we stopped along the way when we came to a scenic area. There are no formal hiking trails on the Pahrump side, just on the Vegas side of Mount Charleston, which we found strange. It appears everybody just rides their OHVs around here.

We walked through a lovely Joshua tree forest.

This was the first time we’ve seen them in bloom.

It’s a very scenic area.

Cat rock?

We drove up to 7,700’ and found quite a bit of snow and much colder temperatures.

I read there was a herd of wild horses in the mountains and surprisingly this one ran out in front of us on the way back down. She was limping and didn’t look good at all. It must be a tough life for them.

We picked up our mail yesterday so it’s time to get out of Pahrump. Our plan is to meet up with a certain friend and blogger in Mojave National Preserve. Stay tuned.