my travels in pixels

Boulder Beach Campground Boulder City, Nevada 89005 Latitude: 36.0362005272629   Longitude: -114.802601337052 Why we chose here? It sounded nice, was warmer than where we had been and was on our way south Location: Right on Lake Mead. Close to Hoover Dam and Boulder City. Put Lakeshore Road NV into your GPS and then follow the signs, it is on your right after you pass through the fee booth. A full hook up RV park is then on the right, the National Parks campground on the left. Sites: 154, the sites closest to the water are for small trailers. Sites are well laid out with generous room. There are a number of pull throughs, but they are mostly back-in. We stayed in a 35' 5th wheel and had room to park our truck in front - so 52'+. There are older sites on the left hand side of the park with gravel for tents and trailers, new ones with concrete pads on the right. Facilities: Dry camping. restrooms, no showers, dump station with potable water. Water near camps...

Lake Mead, Nevada Minus 24ºC is cold enough (it does sound better in centigrade) and if Lindsay ever ever has thoughts about coming here in winter again, I'm going to bash him about the ears, like Bruce told me to. The quickest way south would be through Yellowstone park itself but the roads are closed for winter as they are covered in snow. So we need to head north to Livingstone, then west to Billings. Tom Tom wanted to take us down the interstate but that would add about two hours to our travel time, so we told it to take us to West Yellowstone so that it would send us down the 191. This road in winter would have to be the most picturesque we have encountered on all our travels. It runs along a river and actually comes back into the National Park. Pine trees laden with snow, rocks in the river sprinkled with snow, the sun is shining, and I have to take my jumper off I'm so warm! - in the car of course. It is beautiful. The first night we stop at Sheffield RV park in Rexb...

This is a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) site. The visitor centre has a large shop and the help desk is very helpful. He suggested that we stop off at Calico I & Calico II, then at Sandstone Quarry take the Calico Tanks walk which was a medium grade walk over a lot of rocks and there were a few places that you had to scramble on your hands (4 km) – we could see Las Vegas in the distance at the end. The campground is a kilometre away from the park and it’s very basic, very open and when we were there, very windy. Not a nice place to be during the day – wind or no wind. The road to see the sights is a one way loop, so you can't change your mind and go back to a trail you may have missed. Lots of red rocks $7 park pass per day, $15 camping per night

Valley of Fire is a State Park of Nevada, so it doesn’t come under the America the Beautiful Pass we bought.  The camping grounds are fantastic with flushing loos and hot showers. There is an RV section where they pay double the normal fee but they get power and water connected as well as a concrete pad with lots of room around them. Their amenity block is very spacious but with only one shower which takes quarters.The tiny cubicles in our camp area are free. Each camp spot has it’s own shelter, table and benches as well as a tap. Little birds and squirrels dart in and about the bushes. It's April but this is a low desert, so it's quite hot already. what you see as you drive towards the park There are a number of sights to see and we went up to the White Domes on an early before breakfast drive and saw a herd of Big Horn Sheep which is the State’s animal. Lindsay thought the Arches campground was more protected and if you got a site to the right hand side of the campgro...

It was hard for us to work out where to stay in Las Vegas as we hadn’t been there before. If you stay along the strip you will be amongst everything, so we decided that is where we wanted to be. We booked a mystery hotel and ended up at the Tropicana which is right at the end of the strip. We found walking along the strip was hot during the day but cooler and more colourful at night. We saw many attractions along the way: including the fountain show outside Bellagio and the Pirate show outside Treasure Island. The Volcano outside Caesars Palace wasn’t going when we went past and we decided we wanted to see the pirates instead. Water show outside Bellagio great entertainment from the pirates We walked back to our hotel which is at the far end of the strip which took an hour to get to as the crowds were in slow mode. Before buying tickets for shows, check what is available at the Tix4Tonight booths, there are lots of them around. They are cheaper and they will give you ...