Hello from Spokane,

Karen and I have completed our travels to the canyonlands and desert southwest with our return to Spokane on November 29th.

To pick up our story, we moved from Page, AZ to Echo Bay on Lake Mead where we soon learned that we had NO TV OR INTERNET ACCESS for election night. After considering a quick trip to Las Vegas, we decided to cut short our planned three-day stay at Echo Bay and parlay our fees on one night in the resort hotel where we had both TV and Internet connection for the election returns. For the first time in a long time, our preferred candidates actually won the election!!! Even with the grim economic picture, there came some hope for a better day...

From Echo Bay, we moved to the Avi Casino and Resort near Laughlin, NV. We had a food time here as the casino is relatively small compared to those in Las Vegas and things seemed to be a good fit even if our need to gamble was virtually nil. During our time in the Laughlin area, we were able to visit Oatman, AZ on historic Route 66, hike the mountains above the city and paddle nearby Lake Mojave on the Colorado River.

From Laughlin, we moved to Death Valley National Park for the final stage in our tour of the southwest. Karen and I have come to love this park for its raw beauty and majesty. The Xanterra concession at Furnace Creek is quaint and has a good feel about it. After the better part of a week at Furnace Creek, we moved to Panamint Springs Resort, an old, rustic place on the west edge of the park. Our campsite had the feel of a desert oasis with a garden of various desert trees, plants and cacti. The whole place has a real remote feel which was a very pleasant ending to our trip.

From Panamint Springs, we drove the RV to Bakersfield, where we found a storage facility where we left the RV, the kayaks and bikes until we return for our tour of the Pacific Coast from Central CA to WA which will begin about the last week of January.

Thanks for "tuning in" to our blog. We hope you will visit the pictures at the Flickr site which is found as follows: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24572330@N08/

Bye for now!

Rich