South of the border fun unlimited: Puerto Penasco

It may be Margaritaville to the college set, but it is also a winter escape for snowbirds, a dose of salt and sea air, and bargain shopping. Puerto Penasco, Mexico lies 66 miles below the border at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, 212 miles southwest of either Phoenix or Tucson.

Here you can revive old memories of those lost weekends or semester breaks, enjoying a cold Dos Equis Beer, watching the parade of bikinis cruising the broad sandy beaches, or plying the streets in search of the perfect taco.

Winter in the desert sometimes arouses a lust for water, especially salt water, among coastal snowbirds. Near the northern tip of the Sea of Cortez, Puerto Penasco, also called Rocky Point, is the closest saltwater beach to Southern Arizona. There are several campgrounds with hookups where you can step from your RV right onto the sandy beach and plenty of boondocking as well.

And who needs to be told about the bargains among the numerous streetside stalls offering locally hand-made goods from leather purses to colorful blankets. Did someone say pescado? Rows of fishmongers line the sea front offering the catch of the day and fresh shrimp at way below US prices.

You can find Puerto Penasco at the end of Arizona Highway 85 (which becomes Mexico Highway 8). Don’t forget to buy Mexican auto insurance before crossing the border.

Discover the ancient puebloans at the Lost City Museum

Long before Howard Hughes and Bugsy Siegel, before sevens were rolled out on felt covered tables, Native Nevadans were casting dice of bones onto the clay floors of village pueblos. We call these prehistoric Nevada residents the Anasazi, or Native Puebloans. From about A.D. 500 they lived along what was then a verdant valley, with flowing rivers, bubbling springs, fertile soil and abundant wildlife. They raised cotton and corn, mined salt and dug for turquoise and were spread out in strings of villages from Warm Springs to the Virgin River.

Decorated pottery and other artifacts found in archaeological digs have shown that they had a developed social, religious, and trade structure. Mysteriously, they disappeared from the area about A.D. 1150.

The Lost City Museum, in Overton about 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas, has several wattle and daub style houses that have been reconstructed on the original pueblo foundations. The museum has one of the most comprehensive collections of the many cultures that lived in the valley starting with the hunters and gatherers of nearly 10,000 years ago. Their lifestyle of hunting mammoths and giant ground sloths was somewhat more adventurous than the Basketmakers that followed and inhabited the area until about A.D. 500 when the Pueblans moved in. The Paiutes, well adapted to the desert climate in their hunter/gatherer culture, followed about A.D. 1000 and still have descendants living in Southern Nevada.

Petroglyphs, carved into the rocks, are scattered all around the Lost City area and many Southern Nevada ruins still lay hidden or un-excavated. The Lost City Museum, located on an actual prehistoric site of Ancestral Puebloan Indians who first populated southern Nevada, is a good place to learn about these early cultures.

From Las Vegas, drive 48 miles northeast on US 15 and turn right (southeast) on state route 169 for twelve miles. The museum is open every day from 8:30 AM until 4:30 PM Thursday thru Sunday and has parking sufficient for large RVs. Camping is available at nearby Valley of Fire State Park, at Overton Beach on Lake Mead, and at private RV parks in Overton.

Learn about Bob Difley's eBooks at RVbookstore.com

Beauvoir: At home with Jefferson Davis

Serving as both Mississippi Senator and Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce, Jefferson Davis staunchly supported slavery and states rights, though he opposed secession from the union as a method of maintaining Southern principles. When Mississippi seceded, Davis resigned his senate seat.

Following his tenure as President of the ill-fated Confederacy during the Civil War, a government indictment for treason (later dropped), and a couple of business failures, he retired to Beauvoir on the Mississippi Sound--as a guest of wealthy intellectual Sarah Dorsey--to write his memoirs. His wife joined him a year later and they purchased the estate, along with some furnishings, for $5,500. Davis died in 1889 but the property remained in the Davis family until 1902 when the central portion of the estate was sold to the Mississippi Division, United Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Beauvoir operated until 1957 as a home for Confederate veterans and their families and now the 51-acre estate, recognized as a National Historic Landmark, has been restored. Along with the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, which opened in 1998, the home and grounds are open to the public. Beauvoir is located at 2244 Beach Blvd., Biloxi, Mississippi.

See a giant mammoth in Waco, Texas

Point that RV of yours toward the just opened Waco Mammoth Site in Waco, Texas, where you can see a giant Colombian Mammoth from about 70,000 years ago. Of course, you can't see the animals because they are long dead. But you can see their bones and learn all about the elephant-looking beasts. The Mammoth Site opened December 8.

The site is in a 100-plus acre stretch of wooded parkland along the Bosque River. Covered in sprawling oak, mesquite and cedar trees, it offer an escape from the modern world and provides a glimpse into the lives of Columbian mammoths. Though the first bones at site were discovered in 1978, the site remained closed to the public until the end of 2009. Baylor University staff, students and volunteers spent countless hours excavating the area during the past 30 years

The Waco Mammoth Site now includes a dig shelter that creates an atmosphere of an art gallery. Natural light floods into the shelter from all directions and a suspended walkway provides a stunning overhead view of the mammoths. The site also features a scenic trail complete with benches and rest areas where visitors can reflect on what life was like during the age of the mammoths.

Admission rates range from $5 to $7. Public hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays - Fridays & from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. Congressional legislation is currently pending to create the Waco Mammoth National Monument and to include the site as a unit of the National Park Service.

Visit the World's Shortest River in Oregon

Maybe you seek a claim to fame -- something you can brag about at all those cocktail parties you attend. A good claim to fame might be to walk from the beginning to the end of a river. Now that would be quite an accomplishment on most rivers. For example, to travel from one end of the Colorado River to the other would be 1,450 miles.

Given that, maybe you'd prefer something more manageable. In that case, you might opt for the D River, which is 440 feet long and begins and ends in Lincoln City, Oregon. It flows from Devils Lake under U.S. 101 into the Pacific Ocean. The D River was once listed as the "shortest river in the world," by the Guinness Book of World Records. Then, in 1989, Guinness said the Roe River in Montana was even shorter. Well, the Lincoln City people were not about to accept being second, so they re-measured it at "extreme high tide," and claimed once again that their river was shorter.

Guinness must have been confused because after that it no longer listed a category for shortest river. But as you can see in this sign by U.S. 101, Lincoln City still insists its river is the shortest.