This morning, before we left the Hacienda Casino, I photographed a failed weld on one of our GCI Outdoor director’s chairs.  I e-mailed it to GCI and they will be mailing a replacement to Grandpa Glenn’s house.  Thanks GCI!

There’s a gravel trail from the Lake Mead visitor center to Hoover Dam that follows the old railroad used to build the dam.  I was interested in riding the trail because it has five tunnels.  My parents drove up from Henderson to ride with us:

I rode with our son on from the midpoint down to Hoover Dam:

It was quite a climb back up to the trail where we caught up with the rest of the group.  The white line on the islands is the “bathtub ring” that shows where the water level used to be before withdrawals started to exceed deposits:

After the ride, we drove South and arrived in Laughlin, NV.  We did our laundry in neighboring Boulder City, AZ, then came back to Laughlin. We’re overnighting at the Pioneer Casino.    See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Another amazing sunrise at the end of 8 Mile Road here in Lake Mead NRA:

We had a productive morning in homeschool:

I worked with our son on a button and LED project for Arduino that illustrates the use of for loops and arrays:

Meanwhile, our daughter continued her work in Scratch:

After lunch we went for a farewell kayak trip.  It took a bit of work to get out of our local bay and be able to look south into the vastness that is Lake Mead, North America’s largest manmade lake.  The far shore is about 10 miles away, and that’s across the narrow axis of the lake:

In this photo of our return paddle, our RV is visible just to the left of the leftmost kayak:

The kids wanted to have a “campfire” using tumbleweed.  The stuff burns really fast:

A moment of truth came when we had to leave our campsite and tow our RV back to the main road.  There’s a 500 foot long climb with an average grade of 10%, max grade 13.5%, and that’s rutted gravel.  I put the Sorento into “4×4 low” mode, and in 2nd gear at 10 mph and 3000 rpm, we climbed out without any slipping or skidding.  Very impressive!  I’m glad I bought off-road tires for the SUV a few months back.  Here’s a view down the hill towards our site, but it doesn’t really convey the steepness very well:

Here’s an elevation profile of the hill:

Leaving at sunset, we headed back to Boulder Beach to dump/fill/shower/fill/dump, then drove another couple miles to the Hacienda Casino where we’re overnighting in the parking lot.    See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

We will miss Lake Mead NRA, and will definitely come back again!

As we continue our survey of the Native American casinos of coastal northern California, we’ve found that while some of the casinos are rather lavish, some are a bit more modest, like the Red Fox casino in Laytonville.  Nonetheless, it was a great spot to stop overnight, and we enjoyed their hospitality:

We drove quite a ways south today to Hopland, California, where, unfortunately, the southernmost casino on our route is located.  It will feel strange going back to staying at Walmarts after staying at casinos almost exclusively for the past three weeks.

Hopland is home to the Solar Living Institute, a facility that demonstrates the integration of various renewable energy technologies and recycled materials.  For example, their bathroom stall walls are made of recycled prescription medicine bottles:

They had a tiny house on display:

Behold the geodesic greenhouse next to the windmill that drives the water pump, both of which are in front of the 10,000 watt solar array:

They’ve used old cars as planters for trees.  The display board describes as it as a tit-for-tat in response for the trees that have been hollowed out for cars to drive through.  Hmm…..

We climbed up into the absurdly high treehouse:

Sun kissed RV:

Sunset over the main building (made out of sustainable materials, naturally) and the bio-diesel pump:

We parked for the night at the Sho-Ka-Wah casino outside of Hopland, CA.

  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

This morning we packed up and said goodbye to the Cher-Ae casino and headed into Trinidad to do some sea kayaking.  The shoreline here forms a natural bay, so the waves are smaller.  Even so, getting out into the ocean was a bit dicey:

We spotted a pair of harbor seals on an outlying rock:

We got a bit closer to this fellow on our way back in.  They remind me of cats for some reason:

I grabbed the other kayaks as they came in to avoid a capsize on landing from a wave coming up behind the kayak:

We had an amazing time being out in the ocean.  Our son insists that we purchase spray skirts so we can go farther out where the waves are bigger.

After stowing the kayaks, we headed south to Eureka.  We visited the famous Carson Mansion, perhaps the most photographed house in the US.  My grandfather had made a needlepoint of the mansion, so I wanted to see the real thing:

When parking in Eureka, we experienced the failure or one of the links in the chain that attaches (under great stress) the weight distribution bar to the RV frame.  There was a banging sound followed by the sound of the bar dragging on the ground, as it was no longer under tension.  I had noticed that the links were being worn down, but I thought I still had a bit of time until failure.

At any rate, we drove to the local Ace Hardware and picked the parts necessary to replace the chain on both of the weight distribution bars.  I also purchased extra hardware so I can replaced worn components preemptively before they fail.

Once we got that fixed, we dumped our sewer tank, filled up on gas, and did some shopping.  As the sun set, we drove South a few miles to Loleta, California, where we parked for the night at the Bear River Casino.