When last heard from, I was near Corning
One day, I golfed the Sevilliano Links Course at the casino.
A John Daly design, this course was a bit narrow but fairly flat. There were
long distances from greens to tees so, not a very good walking course. My rate
for full-hook-up camping and golf was $58 ($23 for the RV Park + $35 for golf,
incl. cart)
I booked into the RV Park, initially for 3 nights because
they gave me the cheap rate for all three even though I only golfed once. Then,
I thought to myself that I should stay a little longer to catch up on laundry,
hit the Friday seafood buffet and generally lolled about.
My career as a gambler really took off at Rolling Hills. The
casino gave me $20 as a credit on my “Players Card” when I first arrived. Ten
dollars, I managed to “blow” through on day 1 but, when I went back a few days
later to use up the other $10, I had to get the lady at the next machine to
show me how to get rolling because none of the buttons worked for me. Finally,
the wheels started to spin and it was my hope that I could use up my credit and
quit. When I thought I was out of money because a little sign said $00.00, I
exited the machine and it gave me a voucher for $16. I still don’t understand
the workings of these things but gratefully took my $16 to the next casino,
which was Cache Creek, not too far from Rolling Hills and in a southerly
direction so, more or less on my way to Arizona
Cache Creek Casino at Brooks ,
California
About 3 hours south-west of Rolling Hills is another Indian
casino. Officially called Yocha Dehe , it is located on Hwy 16, north off
I-505, the freeway bypassing Sacramento from the
north joining I-5 to San Francisco
On arrival, I pulled in to the south lot as it was large and
fairly flat, although a fair hike to the casino. Once there, a friendly
security lady told me that RVs should go to the north lot, around the other
side. This I did and found a few other campers on a sloping, paved surface
underneath the local fire hall. Using a single board under each downside tire
and the air-levelling system, I managed to flatten out. Almost immediately, a
shuttle bus arrived to take me to the casino. An excellent service, these
continued all evening and for all I know, through the night.
Cache Creek is the biggest casino that I have ever seen with
slots and table games stretching far into the interior distance. It also has a
huge, city sized parkade for valet-parked vehicles, a fleet of silver stretch
limos plus a few rental BMWs. Primarily,
it seemed to cater to an Asian market coming in tour buses, one presumes,
mostly from San Francisco and also Sacramento
The buffet, closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays, was
exceptional, as most of them are, so I pigged out for $11.95, and returned
“home” to rest in my chair in front of the TV. In total, there were 8 food
outlets including a Chinese restaurant, steakhouse Grill, a deli, sports bar
and others that I forget.
New patrons to Cache Creek are given a $25 credit on their
Player’s cards. Strangely, these are designed to be spent only on secondary
offerings such as food services, gift shop, even fuel at the service station
plus golf, but not for gambling. I didn’t totally understand the rationale here
but happily chowed down two meals for free and then, in a fit of remorse,
donated $10 to one of the slots.
Golf, at $90 was a little rich for my blood, so I decided to
pass on that. The course, just up the hill from the casino, appeared very picturesque.
Next stop - Tachi Palace Casino (N36 14.214 W119 45.396) Lemoore ,
CA
Took about 4 hours, plus a stop
at Joe’s Truck Stop, on I-5 at Westley, south of Stockton
Tachi had a big band event
happening, so the shuttle people told me parking would get crowded. I was
pretty well the only RV in the whole parking area on arrival mid-afternoon but
a couple more arrived later on and concert goers did surround me with their
cars. In the middle of the parking lot, there is a pump station for,
presumably, the casino sewage. This emits a high whine and would be
uncomfortable if one parked closely by.
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| Pump station at Tachi |
At this casino, visitors appeared
to be mostly Indian (tribal), whereas at Cache Creek, Asians were the dominant
species.
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| Tachi Casino sign |
The buffet, which I rate “quite”
good, as opposed to “exceptional”, had no discounts for seniors or for Player’s
Card holders and therefore cost the full $20. The Player’s Card, in fact,
didn’t seem to do a whole lot other than accumulate “points” for something that
I couldn’t quite fathom.
Golf cart shuttles circled the RV
parking lots like sharks and one could catch a ride anytime by waiting 5
minutes, or not at all. The walk to the casino is not far. In addition, during
the day, uniformed bicycle security patrols are a frequent sight so I felt that
this was quite a safe place.
Gambling is spread over at least
two floors with the buffet being up on the second floor. This is another huge
place with hotel and conference facilities and is located out in the country a
few miles from Lemoore, off Hwy 198/18th St
Newberry Mountain RV, at Newberry
Springs (N34 48.960 W116 37.144)
East of
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| Pool at Newberry |
Home of
nothing really, except a bit of reflected glamour from the nearby Bagdad Café,
at which a movie of the same name was made in 1987. Starring virtually no one
of much distinction, the film was in the running for an Oscar and was, for some
reason, much beloved in France
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| Jeep at Bagdad Cafe |
At Newberry, I stayed in an RV Park with a small artificial
lake. This gave the place an oasis-like appearance in the middle of an
otherwise uninviting desert of gravel and small shrubs, including the
ever-present creosote bushes. All the RV sites had, according to the proprietress,
been built in an era when RVs were shorter, so sticking one’s nose out into the
loop-road connecting sites was encouraged, as long as campers could all manage
to squeeze by their neighbours without jostling.
Next came Lake
Havasu State
Park Arizona
State Park
Sometimes, when I camp at a regular RV park, there are no
“pull-throughs” available, so I have to unhook the car and back the coach into
a slot. At both of these procedures I am getting marginally better and have yet
to crash into anything. Not that this would ever happen to me but one of the most
dreaded things that can happen to an RVer is to mess up one’s approach to a
campsite, bounce over a rock, collide with a picnic table and make multiple
attempts to jockey into position – all the while knowing that prying eyes are
peering out through half shut blinds in adjacent units, passing judgement on
one’s technique. Havasu would be my last stop with hook-ups so, along with the
Golden Corral, I loaded up with water and dumped the tanks.
November 25th – About 1½ hours to the south is
the dot-on-the-map called Bouse, Az, with Plomosa Road Plomosa
Road
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| Sunset at Plomosa |
Other than Walt and Susan, the nearest neighbours are over a
kilometer down the trail – more or less the way I like it.
Bouse, the little town nearby, has a Saturday market for
vegetables, actually only one vendor with a van, who offers very low prices (2
red bell peppers for $1 and just about everything else for $1/lb or less). Also
in Bouse is a junk store whereat I hunted down a socket to fit the Jeep’s
battery terminal connection that had developed a severe case of corrosion on
the way south, thus had to be taken off and cleaned.
I discovered that all of my digital thermometers and their
remote sensors (I have 5) required new batteries, as did the multimeter that is
used to measure the effectiveness of those same batteries.
Weather has mostly been clear with only a couple of partly
cloudy days, daytime highs ranging from the mid - 70’s to the mid - 50’s and
nights staying well above the freezing mark so very little heating has been
required. Wind always seems to be an issue in the fall here at Plomosa and
gusts of 30 mph are not uncommon. So far, going for a few short hikes in the
desert has been my only activity and is something that, I hope, along with my
new veggies, will bring my silhouette back to its formerly svelte profile.
One of the benefits of my Plomosa site is that it allows me
to receive Quartzsite Radio (one of the best in the world), playing “oldies”
all day and never quite getting the weather right even though it is located a
mere 20 miles away – less as the cactus wren (AZ state bird) flies. The
Internet signal on my Verizon Jetpack is
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| CC in distance at Plomosa site |
dodgy at the best of times but can usually be coaxed into
service after 15 or 20 minutes of patience. The same applies to my cell phone
(roaming on a Telus North America Voice and Data plan) which frequently goes
into “no service” but can be brought to life when needed.
As long as I am extremely frugal with water usage, the CC
carries enough water for me to last a month or more without refilling, same
with both waste tanks, so I might be looking for a change of scenery when that
happens. Power, of course, is renewable and free, though at this time of year
with the sun low in the sky, my flat solar panels on the roof, plus the
suitcase-solar work hard to break even daily at about 100 amp/hours. If there
are a few cloudy days in a row and, consequently, less solar, I can always fire
up the generator for an hour or two – but that, as my friend of a few years
ago, Handy Bob might say, is cheating!
