Day 4 – Saturday
After straightening out our plans with the KOA in Wendover and making new reservations with the KOA in Las Vegas, we ate breakfast and departed for the 300 mile drive. Only having driven a few miles, I noticed that overnight it had snowed in the mountains that we had to drive through.

Even though I have plenty of limited-traction driving experience, I was nervous about driving through the now-snowy mountains in a 5-ton rear wheel drive RV. I needn’t have worried though; the roads were surprisingly clear and mostly dry. We stopped high in the pass so the boys could get some exercise and play in the snow; something they don’t get to do often since we live in the desert.

We arrived in Las Vegas that evening and took a cab to the MGM Grand where I treated the boys to a great buffet dinner. Will had his fill of crab legs and John stuffed himself with roast beef. I explained to the boys that when you go to a $40 per person buffet, you don’t eat salad. We bought passes for the new monorail on the east side of Las Vegas Blvd. and rode it to the Venetian. From there, we took a cab back to the RV park.

Day 5 – Sunday
We spent a lazy morning in and around the RV before going to Bobby Flay’s restaurant, Mesa Grill, in Caesar’s Palace. The boys had never been there before and we enjoyed a fantastic meal. I try to get something different each time I go there. After eating, we piled back into the RV and made good time (for an RV) on our drive back to Scottsdale; 6 hours.

Even though we didn’t get to see any land speed racing on the trip, the boys and I had a great time just being with each other.

Day 3 – Friday
We awoke pretty early the next morning and like Donkey from Shrek, I made waffles for breakfast. It was blowing something fierce, so we were in no hurry to get over to the salt flats anytime soon. After we ate breakfast, I braved the wind and spitting rain and disconnected the RV and retracted the slide-out. While traveling down the entrance road to the salt flats, we noticed a curiously high number of race vehicles loaded on trailers headed in the direction opposite to ours.

When we reached the end of the entrance road (at which point it became obvious to me why this area is referred to as “the boat ramp”) there was a young man from the event standing there assisting people. I stopped and asked if he thought there was going to be any racing today and he replied that he wasn’t sure and that we should go see. He was friendly and helpful and gave each of my boys a Bonneville pin (like flair).

Just before slowly driving down “the boat ramp” to enter the salt, a man pulling a streamliner on a trailer stopped and jumped out of his pickup and signaled for me to stop also. He wanted to ask me some details about our RV because he’d been thinking of buying one just like it. After chit-chatting with me and the boys about the RV, he suddenly said “hold on, I have something for your kids” and dashed off to retrieve something from his pickup. He came back and handed the boys each a small poster of his and his brother’s race cars. He thanked me for the information, and I thanked him for the posters, we shook hands and parted ways. I quickly tried to take a picture of the car he was towing.

After some research, it turns out that the man who stopped us was Rick Vesco and his family has been racing at the salt flats for 50 years! I learned that his brother, Don Vesco, who’s also depicted in the poster, unfortunately died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 63. Don’s streamliner The Turbinator was powered by a 3,750 hp Lycoming gas turbine helicopter engine and once hit 458.440 mph. Just the other day, I saw on TV that it’s now on display at a museum. The car that was being towed by Rick is named “The Little Giant” and in 1958 was featured on the cover of Popular Mechanics magazine.

Entering the salt was a special experience. For a car nut like me, this is hallowed ground. It was a couple miles before reaching the official pit area (which is just the spot on the salt where all the people are) only to see that everyone seemed to be packing up. CB radio is used as the public address system at Bonneville, so being prepared, I pulled out our portable CB and powered it on. After we’d been there about 30 minutes, the organizers announced over the radio that they were officially canceling the rest of the event due to the inclement weather.

We stayed on the flats for the next hour and met racers Shug and Irene Hanchard. Shug is the owner of So-What Speed Shop (get it?) and interestingly enough is originally from Scotland. Like everyone else we’d met there, Shug and Irene were very friendly and while loading their car onto the trailer, answered all our questions.

After the boys finished making their salt “snowballs,” we drove back to Wendover where the boys played outside in the crazy-strong wind while I read and watched TV for the rest of the day. That evening the boys helped me make pasta for dinner and we decided that we’d go back to Las Vegas on Saturday; a day earlier than we’d originally planned.

The boys did some of their homework they’d been assigned and we went to sleep.

Day 2 – Thursday – Continued
With a very light throttle foot and a lot of praying, still within a few miles from the freeway, we had a visual on it. Attributed to what I can only assume was either divine intervention or Mercedes-Benz’s poor calibration of their fuel gauges, we made it to the entrance to the freeway. After making the slowest merge in recorded history, we trekked 10 freeway miles back to the gas station near the factory without running out of fuel! After filling the tank and subtracting that number from the tanks capacity, I deduced that we had only about a third of a gallon remaining. We would have never made it 51 miles had I decided to attempt to reach the next town.

It was at this point in the trip that I seriously contemplated just going home. After some reflection and coffee I felt relieved that we’d made it and the boys said that they were still having a good time, so once again we headed north. This time with a full tank of fuel.

It was a good feeling when we finally passed the point where I’d made the decision to turn around. We stopped in the very small town of Alamo and ate our lunch in the RV. I also rested on the couch for a little bit.

Before this trip I hadn’t ever been to any part of Nevada other than Las Vegas or Boulder City. The scenery while driving up the east side of Nevada was absolutely amazing! The variety of the things you see is just stunning. We saw everything from jagged cliffs, canyons, and snow-covered mountain peaks to lakes and grasslands. It seemed that every time we came around a bend there was a new feast for our eyes.

While driving through a canyon In the middle of nowhere, an F-18 from who-knows-where treated us to a low-altitude fly-by. We were further surprised when a couple minutes later, he flew over us at the same altitude but this time at about 700 MPH. Whooosh!

In the early evening, we stopped to eat at Arby’s in Ely for a nutritious dinner. We reached the RV park in Wendover, Nevada (the nearest place to stay to the salt flats) just before dark. It was cold and a bit breezy. The World Finals aren’t very well attended as evidenced by the mostly empty KOA. I spent the last bit of daylight connecting the RV to power, water, and sewer. I planned to get a good night’s sleep and drive over to the salt flats early the next morning.

It wasn’t long after we were settled in that night that the wind decided to pick up. “Pick up” may not be the right choice of words. “Near tornado” is more descriptive. It soon became bad enough that I began steadying myself with my hands as if I were in a boat while walking in the RV. Then it rained. The rain and the wind kept me up most of the night. At one point I worried about the vertical stability of the RV, but that was probably just the exhaustion talking.

Day 2 – Thursday
We awoke around 8 a.m., ate some breakfast and prepared for the other half of our drive. We left Circus Circus at 10 a.m. and turned north. I knew that Shelby Automobiles was based in Las Vegas, but couldn’t remember exactly where until I saw some signs along the freeway touting the Shelby Museum and factory nearby the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Since we had to drive right past there, I took the opportunity to stop and look around. The boys know who Carroll Shelby is and can recognize a Cobra by sight so they were eager, too.

The museum was kind of neat, but more like an over-sized gift shop. We stayed about 20 minutes and then drove through the factory complex and looked at some of the cars on which they were working. The was also a huge parking lot full of Shelby GT Mustangs awaiting delivery.

The fuel gauge on the RV showed a quarter tank of fuel remaining, so I passed up the opportunity to fill the tank near the Shelby factory. In hindsight, that decision turned out to be a critical error.

I think it was about 10 miles north of the factory that we exited the freeway and began to drive on two-lane roads which would comprise the rest of the trip to the salt flats. As I drove, I kept one eye on the fuel gauge and the other on the road. The lower the fuel level in the tank got, the harder I looked to spot some sign of a gas station on the horizon. With every hill we crested, I expected to see the next town. After traveling 38 miles from the Shelby factory and the last known gas station, the fuel gauge showed very little remaining fuel, so I found one of the rare places to stop on the side of the road which stretches through the barren desert landscape. I booted up my laptop computer, connected the GPS, and viewed our exact location on the map.

If we stayed the course, we’d need to drive 51 miles to the nearest town. If we reversed course, we’d only have to drive 38 miles. I knew we didn’t have even enough fuel to go back! The boys could tell that something was wrong and asked me what it was. I told them, “we’re going to run out of gas.”

After analyzing our options, with my heart in my throat, I decided to turn around and head back towards Las Vegas. I figured that we’d be better off running out of fuel near the freeway and closer to civilization than in the absolute middle of nowhere. I was also concerned for our safety if we ran out of fuel on the road that we were currently on because there’s almost no runoff area or shoulder on most parts and no phone service. I was going to bring my dad’s satellite phone, but he was using it while hunting in British Columbia at the time.

Trying to depress the accelerator as little as possible in order to save fuel, I turned the RV around and headed back towards Las Vegas.

Last October, my sons and I ventured to the famous Bonneville Salt Flats to watch the World Finals of land speed racing. I’ve been aware of land speed racing and the Bonneville Salt Flats for as far back as I can remember. In grade school, instead of doing my school work, I used to sit in class drawing pictures of the Blue Flame and Goldenrod.

I’d never visited Bonneville before, and since we don’t live that far away I thought it would be a great family experience. I researched the events and I decided upon attending a Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) event. The largest event at Bonneville, Speed Week, occurs in August during the boy’s first week of school so attending that event wasn’t a possibility. We decided to drive up to the World Finals using our RV. As a data point; this event was rained-out and canceled twice in recent years.

Day 1 – Wednesday
In the morning, I swapped my truck for the RV; stored in a special garage at my parent’s house. I checked the fluids and pressures, took a short test drive/run to fill the propane tank, and then came home to load for the trip.

I’d planned to get everything ready while the boys were at school and then depart at 3:30 p.m. for first destination: an overnight stay in Las Vegas. In hindsight, I had planned poorly and procrastinated packing until the last possible minute. This created some chaos that afternoon while preparing to leave. As it turned out, we didn’t leave until 4:45 p.m.

Ahead of a long drive, I was already feeling tired so we made a quick stop at one of the nearby Starbucks so I could get a bit of a jolt. One latte (for me) and two Frappuccinos (for the boys) later, we were back on the road. The drive to Las Vegas was fairly uneventful. We stopped in Wikiup and ate our dinner in the RV and then continued on to the Hoover Dam.

Since 9/11, they’ve installed checkpoints for all traffic crossing the dam. When piloting an RV, the checkpoints make it a bit more painful than when crossing in a regular passenger vehicle. The driver is required to exit the vehicle and open every exterior door and storage space on the RV so they can be checked for any explosives (we had none). Next they inspected the inside of the vehicle, which felt a bit intrusive.

30 minutes past the dam, in the vicinity of Henderson, my son William felt a little motion sick. We stopped in a parking lot at Green Valley Parkway and Lake Mead Blvd. and watched television for a while until he felt well enough to continue to the RV Park at Circus Circus.

Instead of taking the 15 and bypassing the strip, we drove up Las Vegas Blvd. (The Strip) so the boys could see the lights. Needless to say, they were pretty amazed.

We arrived at 11 p.m. and I didn’t realize that the RV Park’s office would close at a reasonable hour. To handle late arrivals, they post people’s names and their assigned campsite (read: parking spot) outside the office door. I looked for our name on the list and for some reason it was missing, but the night watchman was extremely helpful and not only helped me register for a campsite, but assigned me a good one.

I plugged into shore power, connected the water line, and then extended the slide-out. The boys and I had a little snack and talked for a while before going to sleep.