Arkansas - our 30th state

We have now visited three-fifths of the states on our Napkin Dreams trip. Arkansas had the distinction of being number thirty. How many will we get to? Forty, forty-nine, maybe even fifty? Time will tell how far we get!

First year in review

It has been awhile since I, Sunset the Snake gave one of my reports from the road. So since I do not have as much to do I thought I could report on the first year the Martin family has spent on the road. Yes a snake has put together a video, made the map and compiled the stats! If you do not believe this then you're imagination is seriously lacking and I am afraid you may suffer from serpent prejudice! Sorry about the lack of sound on the video, youtube has been having fits accepting the music, but we are trying to replace the sound with an audio swap but youtube is also having fits with that!

So here is the adventure by the numbers:

• We started in Cambridge, IL and ended the year in Pittsburgh, PA.
• We traveled over 35,000 miles between the RV and the vans.
• We visited 22 states
• Over 100 Walmarts and 1 Target
• We replaced eight tires.
• We visited 17 Zoos/Aquariums.
• We lost a total of 7 teeth.
• We explored 49 National Parks.
• We soaked up the sun on 10 different beaches.
• We ate at over 70 unique eateries and 25 different McDonalds and 95 other national or regional restaurant chains! 
• We saw at least 277 different species of animals.
• We toured 27 workplaces.
• We went to 6 different amusement parks.
• We spent time in two different countries.
• We traversed through 42 state parks.
• We stayed at over 120 campgrounds!
• Celebrated 7 birthdays.
• Expanded our horizons in over 40 museums.
• All in 372 days (this is from 9/23/10 - 10/1/11)

more...

Check out the basic path we took on our trip in the first year!

Campground Review - River's Edge RV Park

Trying to wait out some winter weather we stayed near Reno, in the city of Sparks at the River's Edge RV Park.

Nearby attractions - 7 - Close to Tahoe and Reno.

Staff - 9 - Very helpful and nice people working at this RV park.

Natural surroundings - 7 - Next to a river, but also close to I80.

Value - 6 - We paid $35 a night for full hook-ups, pull-through site with cable. We situated right on a culvert though, which was OK, except it made it more difficult to get our car on the tow dolly.

Bathrooms - 9 - were clean and big and nice hot and roomy showers. Passcode protected.

Roominess - 8 - Long enough and plenty of room to park van next to us.

Facility fun - 6 - Pool was closed - it snowed while we were there. Park next door.

Cleanliness - 8 - above average park in cleanliness.

Facility usefulness - 8 - Laundry, small store, propane, exchange library, free coffee.

Overall - 8 - Nice, clean stay close to Reno.

Einstein is watching you

From the Reno Planetarium. Kinda Creepy!

Fleischmann Planetarium

Hanging out in the Reno area we decided to head over to the Fleischmann Planetarium located at the University of Nevada, Reno. We got in free since the planetarium belongs to our membership organization.

This is a small little planetarium with a few exhibits, but it proved to be a fun way to spend the afternoon. Hands on science with most of my boys is always a big success. The main attraction was a movie about black holes shown on the domed theater. In these types of theaters you sit way back in your chair and stare above you, to the side of you, behind you and in front of you. The black hole concept was pretty deep. Combine that with the darkness, the Barry White narrator and lying on my back and I felt the urge to nap to be pretty strong!

We also enjoyed lifting a meteor an staring at famous faces upside down. We walked around the room as Einstein's face kept a close watch over us no matter where we were. We stood in awe watching ball bearings get sucked down a tube and studied a huge rotating earth displaying all the craters, canyons, mountains and hills on the earth's crust.

Afterwards we had a rousing discussion on the implications of E=MC2 and if there were such things as worm hole superhighways to different universes. Hmmm, maybe one of these five boys will grow up and invent something amazing!!

Campground Review - Comstock RV Resort

Named after my long ago relations, Comstock RV Resort in Carson City was a place to stay while we did laundry, went shopping and planned our route.

Nearby attractions - 7 - Close to Tahoe, Reno and Virginia City. A few things to do in the capital of Nevada.

Staff - 9 - Very helpful and nice people run this park.

Natural surroundings - 7 - Some trees in the park, and some mountains nearby. Next to a casino and Costco.

Value - 7 - We paid $35 a night for full hook-ups, pull-through site with cable.

Bathrooms - 8 - were clean and big and nice hot and roomy showers. Key protected, need $5 deposit..

Roominess - 7 - Long enough but tight fit for our van in front of RV.

Facility fun - 8 - Pool and hot tub were both closed - it snowed while we were there. Game room here as well.

Cleanliness - 8 - It an above average park in cleanliness.

Facility usefulness - 9 - Laundry, large store, propane, exchange library.

Overall - 8 - Nice, clean stay in Carson city, NV.

Campground Review - Virginia City RV Park

Much to my wife's dismay we took Howard up the mountains of northwest Nevada to the Virginia City RV. Gotta love RVing up in the mountains! We only stayed one night since they were calling for high winds and snow. It turned out to be a good decision.

Nearby attractions - 8 - Right in Virginia City! Lots to do in this tourist trap, er I mean destination!

Staff - 7 - One lady we met was nice enough.

Natural surroundings - 9 - Some trees in the park, but you have beautiful views of mountains all around you.

Value - 7 - We paid $37.50 a night for full hook-ups, pull-through site with cable.

Bathrooms - 8 - were clean and big and nice hot showers. Key pad protected.

Roominess - 7 - Long enough but tight fit for our van in front of RV.

Facility fun - 5 - Didn't see much to do in the park, but there is a park with a playground and pool across the street.

Cleanliness - 6 - It was pretty clean but the garbage bin was stuffed and overflowing and smelly.

Facility usefulness - 7 - Laundry, large store, restaurant that serves breakfast.

Overall - 8 - I like staying here, but Patsy did not like the steep roads we had to drive to get here.

.

Virginia City, Nevada

One of the benefits of traveling around the country is getting back in touch with some of our family, including some who are deceased. According to my father, we are related to on Henry Comstock on my great grandmother Eva's side. Henry Comstock was the man for whom the famous Comstock lode in Virginia City, Nevada.

According to history or legend or a mixture of both, Henry finagled the miner's claim away from a couple of Irish miners. In the end it did him no good. Even though he had the claim to millions of dollars of silver and gold, he died a pauper in Montana. Wonderful family history! Still it was fun to see Virginia City for myself and show my family.

We toured the town via a carriage ride and heard a bit of the colorful history of this town which was at one time the largest city west of St. Louis! Our carriage driver had a dog named Scooter who would bark at the horse and tell him when to stop and turn around. He was quite a little horse boss.

We also toured a very old Catholic Church called St. Mary's of the Mountains. This church has been up in these Nevada mountains for over 150 years. The original burnt to the ground when the entire town of Virginia City caught on fire in 1857. It was a stunning church set on the mountain with the blue skies behind it was breathtaking.

Blake and I also took a stroll through the town's cemetery. It was getting cold and grey and windy and the trees and plants in the cemetery were not yet in bloom, so it looked sort of what an old west cemetery should look like. I'm not saying spooky or creepy but more like forlorn and forgotten.

We also took advantage of some of the strange eats in town. Walking down the planked sidewalks we noticed a place advertising deep-fried candy bars. We simply could not resist and we tried a Snicker's Bar deep fried and covered with marshmallows, chocolate sauce and caramel. Of course divided by seven, the little bite we each had was not a heart attack waiting to happen as it could have been. We also had some of the "best beef jerky" in the world while in Virginia City.

There were lots of attractions that were closed for the season during our visit to Virginia, but the crowds were also low and we really had a nice day.

Ethel's Chocolate Factory

When in Vegas one has to indulge a bit, so our family indulged in chocolate. We visited a chocolate factory we saw on the Duggars. I must say they had a better time and more personalized tour than we did!

The tour at Ethel's was a self-guided tour, with a free sample at the end. We got there just before five tour buses arrived, so we got there in the nick of time. The samples were good, but the best thing our family liked was the M & M store where we purchased a sample of every color known to man! There is also a cactus garden you can go through for free and take some pictures. This was a quick stop for us, and it did not take long to see the factory, but it was also educational to see the chocolates being made.

Campground review - Desert Sands in Henderson, Nevada

Looking for a cheap Rv park near Las Vegas, we got you covered here: Desert Sands RV park may not be the classiest place to stay when in Sin City, but it may be the least expensive!

Nearby attractions - 8 - Minutes from downtown Vegas. Less than a half hour from Hoover Dam.

Staff - 5 - Barely breathing, but serviceable.

Natural surroundings - 4 - Loved the view of the tattered flag in the sunset at nearby gas station.

Value - 9 - We paid $15 a night for two nights for full hook-ups, pull-through site.

Bathrooms - 3 - Pretty rough stuff kiddos.

Roominess - 8 - Sites were average length but pretty wide with a cement slab outside each one and then room enough for the car to pull alongside that.

Facility fun - 5 - Pool and sauna. Too cold for our blood.

Cleanliness - 5 - Lots of older RVs that do not run anymore. Bathroom cleaned once in awhile.

Facility usefulness - 6 - Expensive laundry facilities, no library, no wifi, propane delivered twice a week.

Overall - 4 -We are not picky Americans who need four or five star all the time. Being together and traveling means we sometimes go cheap so we can go nice later!

50 McDonalds - Nevada

When you travel to Nevada, going to a local McDonalds is probably not high on your list of things to do, unless of course you are trying to visit one in every state of this glorious union of ours! We visited a McDonalds in Henderson, Nevada for some ice cream cones and sundaes and a little wifi!

They had a decent sized playland, but that is not what we will remember most about our stop here. It seems Blake had a run-in with a toilet paper dispenser and it fell off and cut him a bit. We thought we should tell management so they would know their bathroom was not currently operating at full tilt. This led to filling out of accident forms and the discussion of possible free fries for life. OK – I am just joking about the free fries part.

Blake has survived the incident with no visible scars, gangrene or childhood obesity, for which we are very thankful!

Yawn - Las Vegas

Only in Las Vegas can you see the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramid and the Empire State Building in just a few short minutes. Forget long plane rides, pesky government agencies and getting those passports. Simply travel to the lights in the desert and viola, you can see the world.

You might see a few things you didn’t count on though. Like huge billboards of things you might feel you could have gone one living without seeing. All in all despite the faux world wonders and the explicit signage, for our family Las Vegas proved to be largely and brightly lit yawn. There was not much we found there that drew us to stay. We had a hard time even finding a cheap buffet, so we headed to Fazolis where kids eat free on weekends. Now that was something to cheer about!

We did have a nice time at the Church of South Las Vegas. We must have went to an extension campus because it was in Henderson, Nevada! Anyway they had a pretty good children's ministry and a great sermon. Our kids are getting used to just going into every church without a fuss, talking to the teachers like they were old friends!

Overall though, our time in Vegas was pretty forgettable.

Hoover Dam

We definitely had to stop and see Hoover Dam on our way through Vegas to California. In fact we really liked Hoover Dam better than we have Vegas. It is impressive site for sure. We elected not take the Dam tour, or should I say the tour of the Dam.

It was $30 each which comes out to $210 for our family. No discounts for the kids either.

Most of the crew would not have been very interested in the tour, and those that were did not feel good about leaving the other parent with all the little kids for so long in the parking lot.

Still it is quite impressive to see the sheer size of this structure, to read about the those who died during the construction process and to analyze the various facts on the size and tonage of the most famous (not the biggest though) dam in America.

It is ...
-- 726.4 feet high
-- 1,244 feet across at the top
-- 660 feet thick at the base
-- 45 feet thick at the topIt ...
-- weighs 6.6 millions ton ...
-- can store up 2 years 'average' flow from the Colorado River ...
-- total storage capacity can be measured in 30,500,000 acre feet ...

-- NO ONE IS BURIED IN THE DAM...
-- about 16,000 men and women worked on the project...
-- about 3,500 people were employed at any specific time.
-- Officially ... There were 96 'industrial' fatalities. during the construction of Hoover Dam. This figure does not include deaths by other means including heat, heart problems and curiously, pneumonia.

We also got to see the newly opened bridge over Hoover Dam. Actually we drove Howard across it! It is a pretty site as it towers above the dam connecting Arizona and Nevada. It also has some interesting facts that might amaze you:

• The highest and longest arched concrete bridge in the Western Hemisphere.

• The second-highest bridge of any kind in the United States and 14th in the world.

• The world's tallest concrete columns of their kind.

But what sets the bridge apart most of all is the setting.

It is perched 890 feet above the turquoise Colorado River, wedged between rock cliffs that form Black Canyon, with commanding views of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.