But, it’s a dry heat!!!

This should say Tuesday July 6, 2010!!

Full day today. Lots to do.

Our first stop was breakfast. McDonalds will do in a pinch. It’s cheap. Egg McMuffin and yogourt parfait won’t kill you. Got a medium coffee—Jeez, if I’d gotten the large I’d be awake until a week next Tuesday.

Our first stop today was Hoover Dam. It’s about ½ hour away. We stopped at the Lake Mead Information Center, learned some things about the lake—like there is a B-29 at the bottom of the lake from some time in the 40s. I’d look up the exact date, but I don’t have the internet therefore there is no Google.

The traffic was bad as we got closer to the Dam and we were thinking there were going to be billions and billions of people there. But no, it was the security stop. And top security it was too! A couple of 18 year old girls were checking the cars to determine if they were safe or not. She looked at us and told us to continue. I felt much safer. But, if you were a camper—they pulled you over and checked everything out. But this explained the traffic jam we had been in for a while. That's OK, there was lots to look at all around us.

They are building a huge bridge bypass just downstream. That'll change the travel pattern for a lot of people and probably make it a lot easier for people who are just travelling through. They say it will open later this year.

Got to the parking centre at Hoover Dam. They want a lot of money for things there—it was like $7.00 to park. And there were next to no other options. We went into the Visitors’ Centre but they wanted money there too. I think you could go on the tour inside and stuff too. But we didn’t need to do that. We took pictures and walked all the way across and back. It is quite a feat of engineering. It’s huge!! Hard to believe it was built in only 4 years. By mostly manual labour too.

Lake Mead is on the blocked off side of the dam. It’s now a huge lake. Apparently it’s the 16th largest man-made lake in the world and the largest one in the western hemisphere. And it takes up 1.5 million acres—twice the size of Rhode Island. The amount of water that can be held in Lake Mead would cover the entire state of Pennsylvania a foot deep. The water seemed to be quite low—I don’t know if that’s normal for this time of year or not but it makes me wonder what Las Vegas is going to do when they run out of water.

The Hoover Dam itself is really quite impressive. The pictures really don’t give an accurate sense of how big it really is. We didn’t do the whole inside of the Dam tour but got a good sense of size from walking across the top. Vehicles can drive across the dam—except tractor-trailers or those things carrying dangerous chemicals. Apparently blowing it up would be bad. The dam itself is 726 feet high and weighs 6 600 000 tons. Who measures this??? It is 1244 ft long and at the top is 45 feet wide—wide enough for 2 lanes of traffic and 2 sidewalks. They say there is enough concrete in Hoover Dam to build a 2 lane highway from Seattle to Miami. Again, who measures this stuff?? Anyway, it’s big. You can see the water coming out of the turbines at the bottom so they are working. It powers Arizona, Nevada, and Los Angeles.

Partway across the dam is the border between Nevada and Arizona. There is a marker there so that you can hop back and forth and say, “I’m in Nevada, now I’m in Arizona, now I’m in Nevada, now I’m in Arizona.” There are only so many times you can do that before you annoy your travelling companion, trust me.

So—over the bridge and back was enough. It was pretty hot so we headed back to town. We stopped at another scenic viewpoint over Lake Mead and could see a big marina and there is a major path that people can walk or ride that takes you from the Lake Mead Visitors Centre to the Dam I think. It even goes through an old railway tunnel.
We got back to Las Vegas and looked around there for a while. Big hotels, air conditioning. We saw a few things. But we would look at the hotels mostly tomorrow.

I wanted to go to Red Rocks which is out the other side of Las Vegas. So, off we went again. Needed to get something to eat too. Joel likes to find the fastest ways places so we ended up in Summerlin, which seems to be a nice area of Las Vegas near the Red Rocks Casino. There were signs for the Olive Garden and that’s what we decided would be nice. But, could we find it??? No. Eventually we got there—tucked into a corner of a power centre. But, it was air conditioned, there was lots of water and food. Remember—it’s a dry heat and you have to drink tons of water. I had spaghetti and meatballs—my Olive Garden favourite. Joel yelled at me for having something at a restaurant that I could have at home. I can’t have this at home. #1. I can’t make it like the Olive Garden does. #2. There aren’t any Olive Gardens in Canada any more.

The waitress we had there was awesome. She was originally from Detroit so she understood our difficulty with the heat—but she prefers the Vegas heat to the humidity we have here. I can see that. So, she kept filling our glasses with water. She asked what we were doing and we told her that we were on our way to Red Rocks. She said that she had been out there a number of times and that there were wild burros that lived out there and in the evening came close to the road. There was a grocery store just down the road and we could get carrots there to feed the burros. I imagine that it’s not what people want you to do—feed the wildlife that is—but I couldn’t resist. The waitress sent us on our way with large cups of ice and water. She also told Joel of some other parks that he might like to see and wished us well. She was great!

So, needless to say, we stopped and bought burro carrots. Out of the city, into the desert we went. We got to the gate of Red Rocks. You have to pay to get in which is fine and there is a 13 mile driving route with lots of stops along the way. You can get out and take pictures or have a picnic or go on hikes at the different places. Along we went. Stopped here and there. The rocks really are red. We stopped at one place where there was a couple who was sitting on a bench, with a bottle of wine just watching the sunset and the scenery. It was their anniversary. They had lived in New York State and Pennsylvania before moving to Las Vegas and couldn’t imagine going back there. They were very nice to chat to. There were a couple of buttheads who were going at about the same speed we were so we got to see them from one stop to another. But, you can’t have everything.

Apparently there had been a fire through the park in 2006 and a lot of the cactuses (cacti??) had been burned. This fire was about 1500 acres of damage. They haven’t really grown back much but the park people are working on regeneration. The desert heals but it heals slowly. Cool to see though. I would like to go back there and do some hiking and get off the beaten path a bit.

The park closes at 8:00 so we didn’t have too much time to much about. When we finished the 13 mile loop, we decided to go right instead of left. And then we came across the Bonnie Springs Ranch. It looked interesting so we went in. There is a ranch and a motel and a petting zoo. As we pulled into the motel parking area, we found a use for the burro carrots. Piggy burro kept sticking her head into the window looking for snacks. And when she found out that I kept the carrots in the car, she wouldn’t leave. And then she followed me around. She was pretty cute though. There were 2 other burros around but they were quite timid and missed out on the treats. The manager of the motel fed a whole pile of wild cats too. The managers were very nice to talk to. It would be a cool place to stay one day.

So, it was a long day—back to the hotel. We took the route we took to get there since it was dark. Didn’t see any more burros on the way back though. By the time we got back it was all dark. Time to go to bed. Apparently people in Las Vegas were just getting up and hitting the clubs. Yes, I know, I know—I am an animal. But, our hotel room kept the noise out so we got a good night’s sleep and even slept in the next morning!!

A good day. Lots to see and do. I think I like driving holidays better than flying ones. You can stop and get out whenever you want.

Talk to you tomorrow!!