Val and I took the Minnie out for its biggest road trip yet: Las Vegas. We had to be out there last Saturday for a wedding (one of Val’s college friends), so we took Friday off and made a long weekend of it.
We left Thursday night after work, and made it as far as Tehachapi, where we pulled off for some sleep. This was the first time we’ve used the RV to just pull off in some random location, and it was pretty cool getting to keep driving until tired and not have to worry about where we were going to stay. We continued on to Henderson, NV, where we had an appointment at Camping World to get an oil change. While there, we decided we were tired of not having working house batteries, so we bought new ones and had them installed too. After that, on to Vegas.
It was hot, hot, hot in Vegas. It hit 107º on Sat., but Minnie did a good job of keeping it cool inside. The A/C never stopped running during the day, but it managed to keep it down to 75º inside. I think that 107º is about the outside temp we’d want to push.
The RV park is a KOA that is part of Circus Circus. They’ve got tons and tons of spots with full hook ups. I always think of the RV as a big vehicle, but we were among the small ones at this place. Still, the people were friendly, and there’s an attached store that has decent prices. There’s a pool, too, but it was too damned hot to go out there. ;)
We did some shopping at Fashion Show and then I hit the Mirage for some poker action. I did fairly well, making $165 for the night. Sat. was the wedding, which was pretty good (as weddings go). The Catholic church was on the strip, and was a pretty funky ’60s building that was a trip. Food was good, served at an Italian place in the Fashion Show. After the wedding was more Mirage action and another $100 up. Not bad—paid for a good portion of the trip.
The drive back was a killer, gas- and time-wise. Sunday is always a bad time to leave Vegas, and this was no exception. It was stop-and-go up steep ass hills for an hour on I-15. That stretch caused our worse mileage for a stretch of road to date: 7.8 MPG (the overall trip was higher). We knew that we’d be using the rig next weekend for another trip, this time with no hookups, so we filled up the tanks before leaving, which made us heavier, to boot. At least the Minnie proved easy to drive in harsh conditions—it was hot, steep and cramped on the freeway, but we were big enough that people gave us space, and having cold drinks and a bathroom attached is nice.
I haven’t done all the math, but I figure that for a weekend and two people, it would have been a little cheaper to drive another vehicle and stay in a cheap motel. More people or another day would have tipped the scales in favor of the RV. The convienience of having our stuff all in one place and ready to go was certainly nice, though.
Overall, it was a pretty great Vegas trip.