Saturday, 2 through Monday, 4 April 2022
I had a strange stay at this campground. For one thing, there was the problem of not being remotely level. My frig stopped working, and I assume it was because of not being level. (At least, I hope that was the reason.) I finally decided to pay an extra $10/night to get a better spot, asked at the office if I could move, and they gave me another place for no extra money. The problem was that although it had looked better, it was almost less level than the first one.
But this campground is built on a hill, so the only campsites even trying to be level are the ones buried deep in the park at the top of the hill. I wanted very much to change sites again, but decided instead to just leave on Tuesday, instead of staying longer as I'd thought of doing.
I turned the frig all the way down, but it refused to work and stayed at 65° for several days. It was actually colder outside the frig - in the RV and especially out in the air - than it was inside the frig. Of course, the freezer defrosted and I found an inch of water in the bottom of it - and was thankful it hadn't leaked down into the refrigerator part. I didn't rush to mop it up, which turned out to be a mistake. Everything started working again during Sunday night, so when I woke up Monday morning, I had an inch of ice covering the bottom of the freezer, and the 2 Lean Cuisine meals I intended to throw out were frozen solid into the ice.
I had switched the power to the frig from electric to propane, thinking maybe there was some glitch in the power source. I still don't know if that made a difference, but it was after that that it started working again. I cautiously switched it back to electricity, but it kept on working so I still don't know.
Actually it started to feel like nothing was working right, because the water pump had completely died along with the frig. Luckily the heater started working again, but I have no idea why it had stopped, so I can't feel comfortable about it working now. I mean, when will it stop again?
Another problem was that my internet access continued to be spotty. Over this period, I managed to finish Days 15 through 22 for California, but I felt like I was fighting blind because the service both for the campground and for my hotspot was often really slow.
Trying to figure out where to move to, I found a place to stay in Reno itself. I'd found that the KOA in Las Vegas was attached to a casino like this one is, so I hunted around on Google's maps for something similar in Reno and found one, to my surprise. Only one, but I thought it'd be nice to be actually in town instead of 10 miles out.
I ended up making reservations both in Reno and Las Vegas for most of the next 2 weeks. I hoped somewhere in there I'd pick up a better internet connection and be able to figure out where I wanted to go during my month in Nevada.
I felt conflicted about the amount of time I was planning to spend in the 2 cities, Reno and Las Vegas. On the one hand I absolutely had to get caught up - both on the blog and on the repairs - and I had to figure out where things are in this state that I don't want to leave without having seen. On the other hand NV is the 7th largest state in the Union, so there's a whole lot of miles between places, and I was feeling like I need to get moving. It's all very unsettling and frustrating.
I discovered that there aren't many campgrounds in Nevada. There are maybe 8 state campgrounds, and most of them are really small, like 10 or 20 campsites - meaning there'll be a lot of competition for them. And the state won't accept reservations for them - it's first come, first served. But towns are few and far between (literally), and most of them don't have campgrounds nearby (except these government ones), so if a campground was full when I got there, I'd have little recourse. There are also a few campgrounds on federal land, but they don't take reservations either.
And a lot of these places have electric hookups but no water except at a central point. That matters because my water pump, unlike the heater, hasn't started working again. If I can't get it fixed, I'm limited to the few private campgrounds in the state. KOA has 6, but they're located for highway traffic, not local tourism traffic.
I spent a lot of time online trying to find a repair guy for the water pump, and I finally found one in Reno who could work me into his schedule once I got there. He swears he has the exact model of my water pump already in his van and won't have to order it and wait for it to get here. If that's true, it'd be a huge load off my mind. But in the meantime, I can't help but worry. Water actually matters. I always keep on hand a couple of extra jugs of water that I refill from campground spigots, just so I can be sure I'll always be able to flush the toilet and have drinking water for the dogs and coffee water for me.
The laundry machines in this campground cost $2.50 each, so 2 loads of laundry cost me $10. That's not inflation, that's price gouging. But I admit the machines all worked well.
Besides the laundry, I did a bunch of other chores I usually do at the end of the month - to have everything clean for beginning my next state. California threw me way off in more ways than I'd thought. But I cleaned the RV and found places in Reno for groceries, pet supplies, recycling drop-off - like that.
One nice thing about this campground is that the casino has provided extremely thorough security services. They have a security person drive through the campground almost every hour, and this guard doesn't just make a cursory run-through but instead drives very slowly up and down each of the many roads here, apparently looking carefully for people hiding in the shadows or something. In all my travels, I've never seen such thorough security, and it makes me feel more secure.
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