Kingman AZ to Pahrump NV (not a typo)

 

Another great sleep in a cheap hotel and a walk up to the awesome coffee shop on Beale St in Kingman. We realized yesterday that there is a lot more (or arguably less) to Kingman than this old part of town. Riding in yesterday we passed lots of big companies and a big strip with all the usual chain places. People work in big companies, live across the road in developments and shop in the chain stores. Somehow we stuck to little old dumpy Beale St. Just felt more unique.
I chatted up a guy from California on a Suzuki VStrom 650, which is a nice sized bike for touring and I have seen a lot of them touring over the last couple of years. If my trusty old Beemer ever quits..
Speaking of which, my son says I can leave my Beemer in his garage, which they never use because it's always sunny there and there is acres of street spaces, a strange concept to us back east. I told him to check with the roomies, and I could give them a little beer money if that helped grease the skids. That would mean I could fly out there any time and ride around the warm sunny southwest in case of  grey weather emergencies! After this great week, that sounds even better. Stay tuned on that one.
We went north on Rt93 and went straight into Vegas (Hannah navigating), checked that her car was still there, not towed or worse, grabbed a few things out of it and then headed west out of town to Redrocks Park.
We did and hour hike up to a spring (with water actually flowing, which is a new concept after seeing nothing water wise this last week). The hike was moderate and rocky, but well marked with not too many other hikers. There were light clouds which kept the direct sun off us and kept the temperature below 80, so perfect temps.
We decided to go west to Pahrump NV which is a good sized city in the middle of the desert. I guess it's a bedroom town for Las Vegas, but it is 40-50 miles away so a decent commute.
A little thin on hotels so we stayed in the Pahrump Nugget Casino, which is very nice. Not as pricey as I would have imagined, but it is our last night and we stayed in cheap places the last few nights. Walked down the street to a Mexican place (not SouthWest food as has been explained to me).
This is the last night and we have gotten along great. Hannah is a good navigator and seems to enjoy the beauty and solitude of moving through the abundant and quiet landscape. In general people out here seem to be a lot more relaxed about things. Maybe it's all the empty space.
Oh, yea, the town name Pahrump comes from some mispronunciation of the native American term for "water rock" because they found artesian wells here.