A Long Day on the Road - Benson, AZ to Las Vegas, NV

We have wi-fi here in Vegas so I can FINALLY get our travel blog started! Will upload pix tomorrow as I am getting a late start tonight. We drove 550 miles today - a crazy way to begin an RV trip. Actually, on the first day - yesterday - we drove to Benson, AZ (226 miles) so we've already driven nearly 800 miles! Poor Ralph - he's exhausted and already in bed! He does ALL the driving - my job is to keep him awake and entertained! : )

Let me back up a bit...we left El Paso on Tuesday (was it just yesterday?) at 9 a.m. and drove through western NM to AZ. We arrived in Benson, AZ around 3 p.m. at the Butterfield Trail RV Park. Not a place we plan to return to as it is situated next to a railway crossing, and trains blasted their train whistles throughout the night so a restful night, it wasn't! Friends of ours had just stayed there (Kathy and Jim) a month or so before us and had mentioned it as a good place to stay on their travel blog. I must have missed the entry that mentioned the train whistles!

We woke early this morning to get an early start for what we knew would be a marathon day of driving - the longest on this entire trip. We left at about 6:30 a.m. and as we approached Tucson, I mentioned how neat it would be to find our favorite breakfast place, Cracker Barrel, and a few minutes later, my wish came true - oh, happy day! After eating a hearty country-style breakfast (we did skip the grits and biscuits and gravy, but the scrambled eggs w/cheese, hashbrowns and fried apples are the BEST!). We left Tucson and drove up to Casa Grande, and then caught I-40 (I think) to Blythe, CA where we then headed north on Highway 95 (Route 66) to Vegas via Needles, CA. This added mileage but we were able to avoid Phoenix and the roads were fairly easy to drive. Keep in mind that we are pulling a 30 foot "monstrosity" behind us so the type of roads, the amount of traffic, and avoiding large cities if at all possible, weigh in significantly as we plan our itinerary. On the other hand, Ralph drove up the Alaskan Highway - both going and coming - in the summer of 2007 so he's not an un-seasoned driver - and, yes, he was also pulling our Fifth Wheel behind him! Yikes!

We were more than happy to climb that last hill (we did have a few more ascending roads and dips than we expected as we got closer to Nevada) and see Las Vegas on the other side at about 4:30 p.m. today! When Ralph worked for the US Dept of Energy, he had meetings in Vegas fairly often so knows the city quite well. He found Oasis RV Resort fairly easily and this is where we are now settled in for the next two nights. The Resort is definitely upscale - an entrance lined with palm trees lit up with lights, a beautiful clubhouse with its own restaurant and casino, immaculately maintained park, play areas which include an adult pool w/a hot tub, and a separate "family pool". Tonight, we had dinner at the Silverton Casino and Lodge - which is Ralph's favorite -and it happened to be just a few blocks from our RV resort. I will spend more time tomorrow describing this "feast for eyes" (w/pics, of course!) -it is truly like no other casino I have ever been to!

For now, I need to bid everyone a "good night"....it's been a very long day!! We actually traveled through THREE states today - Arizona, California, and Nevada....no wonder we're exhausted!