Day 233 on the road.
Firehouse Coffee Company, Bullhead City, Arizona

I left Prescott Monday morning and drove north and caught I-40. Then a few miles west I took the scenic and historic Route 66 to Seligman, the beginning place of Route 66. A strange little town…I need to read up on the history of Route 66 and see just how Seligman fits in to the story.

I shot this video in Seligman. It's posted on YouTube.



I made it to Laughlin around 2 p.m., checked in with no problems and settled into my room on the 16th floor…Room 1656. A very nice room. So far, I’m pleased with the visit here.

Last night I was uploading photo and video clips from my Route 66 adventure but my laptop ran out of disc space…not a surprise. So this morning I went to WalMart and bought an external hard drive with 320 GB…that should last a while. Video clips and photos take a lot of space, creating huge file sizes. My laptop is not equipped for a lot of video and picture editing. But the WD My Book drive is so far working great. I’ve spent the last hour backing up my files and cleaning up my laptop hard drive.

The best place to work in the Laughlin area is across the river in Bullhead City (dumb name). The Firehouse Coffee Company has internet access and enough room to spread out and work. All the Starbucks locations are in the casinos, and it's too noisy to get any work done there. So I'm glad I found this place.

After settling in yesterday I walked the northern half of Casino Drive and visited the poker rooms at various casinos along the river front. The poker rooms are small and there was very little action going on. You can read more about my poker playing adventures on my poker blog at www.7Seat.com. Part of the fun of playing poker is writing about the characters I meet and the poker rooms I visit.

A total of 13 casinos are lined up in a row along the Colorado River. I'm staying until Friday at the Tropicana Express. For the weekend I will move to the River Palms where I have a free room thanks to the kind folks in the River Palms poker room. As long as I play for a while each day in their poker room, my room is free.


The Tropicana is the tall one in the back. I'm on the 16th floor. The room is above average, very nice, and the hotel/casino is also very nice (not smoke-filled at all as some had written on the TripAdvisor.com forums).

A look at Casino Drive to the northeast from the Tropicana parking garage.

I like the location of the Tropicana. It's right in the middle of the strip, so you can walk to many of the other casinos without a problem. The Outlet Center (see below) is just two blocks away and has numerous retail stores plus a McDonald's. There are plenty of cheap eating places if you are watching your budget (like me). With free rooms comped by the poker room and eating cheaply, I should be able to get by here with very little out of pocket expenses.

A Visit to a Timeshare Near Sedona and March Madness

Day 229 on the road.
Starbucks on Iron Springs Rd., Prescott, AZ

I drove northeast from Prescott yesterday morning to check out the poker room at the Cliff Castle Casino on I-17 near Sedona. A local man told me the casino was only about 40 minutes away. I drove east on Hwy. 69 out of Prescott, then turned northeast on Hwy. 260 with the idea of catching I-17 just south of Sedona.

Once on I-17, I headed north looking for the casino. When I arrived at the cutoff, I noticed a Starbucks, a couple of motels, some retail shops and gas stations. Of course I had to stop at Starbucks for a cup of coffee. Next door to the Starbucks was a "Tourist Information Center," so I went there first.

In the tourist shop I met Michael. He told me about a resort nearby that was giving tours (to sell timeshares), so I took him up on his offer of a gift ($100 cash "to help me play at the casino") and decided to take the tour.

The clip below is a glimpse of my visit to the Highlands Resort at Verde Valley and the Verde Santa Fe Golf Course.




After the tour I went back to Starbucks for a while, then made it to the casino around 3 p.m. I played cards for about four hours and had a great time. I won $400 in a March Madness pool (my numbers matched the final score of the Xavier and UNC game) and so I was glad I made the trip. I drove back to Prescott to spend the night and plan to take today (Sunday) off and do nothing but do some writing, reading, and hanging out in beautiful Prescott.

Tomorrow I plan on heading west toward Laughlin in the southeast corner of Nevada.

The Rangers Last Game, Garagiola, Mountains, Prescott

Day 227 on the road.

The Rangers and MLB ended Spring Training this week, officially on Thursday. A new record attendance of 1.3 million fans made it to the Cactus League this year. The reason: severe winter weather in the north and east made it easy for many to head south for some baseball this year. An estimated 60 percent of the fans are from out of state.

I attended the last two Rangers home games, one was a night game on Tuesday night. The weather was perfect. The last game was yesterday. It began at Noon so the players could get out of town early.

Joe Garagiola was at the game autographing his new book, "Just Play Ball."

Below is a video clip from yesterday's last game of the 2008 season.

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I met a Rangers Bat Boy at a game when he took the seat next to mine while his mother remained on the lawn in the outfield. I was shooting a video clip when he convinced a player to toss him a ball. I promised him I would post the clip of him on YouTube, so here it is. He was back to work on the bench yesterday with the Rangers, shagging balls and bats.




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After the game I drove through the mountains to Prescott, Arizona. I'm there now. I'm posting this update from a Starbucks north of downtown. What a beautiful town, sitting on the slopes of the mountains and in the Prescott National Forest.


The trip from Surprise was easy enough. I just took Hwy. 69 north to a little town called Wickenburg. From there I took Hwy. 89 north which takes you directly through a mountain range.
Be prepared to take your time if you drive this scenic route to Prescott. The roads curve severely and you must reduce your speed in most cases to 20-25 miles an hour. But the views are breathtaking.











Once you arrive in Prescott, you find a nice sized town built among the slopes of the mountains that surround the town. I've not seen one street that isn't sloped or elevated. The new mall is built in what looks like a hill that was cut out for that purpose.

Downtown has a monumental country courthouse and plaza that is heavily treed and beautiful. I read that this historic town was the first capital of the new Arizona territory under President Lincoln.