On to Las Vegas and the birthday dinner

We left DV early in the morning and headed back through Kingman to Las Vegas, a short drive of about 300 miles. We set up camp quickly and headed to the airport to pick up Ron, Cathy’s brother from Castro Valley who stayed with us for a couple of days.

That first day we drove out to…you guessed it…Hoover Dam by way of the Lake Mead Recreation Area parkway.  The lake level is down due to an extended drought in the western states but it is still amazing to see this structure.  

This is the turbine input tube on the Nevada side of the Dam.

This photo better illustrates the low level of the water.

Security was relatively heavy compared to the last time we were here.  We saw many armed guards with flak jackets, AR-15s w/ 30 round mags and extra mags.  We also found one of them watching the Superbowl on their i-phone…hmmmm.

We noticed this “tomb” for the first time even though it has been there for years (since 1941).  This reminded me of the UGA burial area at Sanford Stadium.

 

The next morning we traveled to Red Rock Canyon, hopefully to find some of the wild burros.  At the canyon entrance, they told us that due to dry conditions, most of the burros have moved several miles away towards the small town of Blue Diamond in search of water. We drove to Blue Diamond, stopping at a few turnouts, but after a couple of hours of searching we only saw “evidence” of burros.  Lots of “evidence”.  They were probably hiding in the cactus laughing at us!  Heading back to the canyon, we stopped at the visitor center to get a feel for the area then started the 13 mile loop tour.

This is an area known as the Sandstone Quarry.  We hiked around a little and found a petroglyph handprint on the face of this rock.  It still amazes me to see artwork of the Sinagua that have lasted for hundreds of years.  Sorry, I did not get close enough to actually take a photo but ya’ll have seen these types of petroglyphs in previous posts.

Ron wanted to try “scrambling ” and the rocks seemed perfect for that so up we went.   At first, Cathy did not want to go but we convinced her to make it this far.

Ron and I continued to climb up and the view was incredible.

Then, up again.  A headwall prevented us from going higher.

We continued the loop, passing a group of scooter tourists ($125 for two hours, not my cup of tea) but it looked like they were having fun.  We headed back into Vegas for dinner at Maggianos on Las Vegas Blvd.  After dinner, we walked over to the Wynn to see some Ferraris.  Alas, the dealership had moved from the site.  Oh well, back to our truck (at least it is red) and back to camp.   Ron had an early morning flight out the next day so we watched “Prefontaine” (both versions) and “Miracle on Ice”.  Ron made the mistake of telling me that he remembered and liked Prefontaine, but had never seen the movie(s).  In the morning, I got Ron to the airport in time for his flight home and we headed for our next stop, Camp Verdi, near Sedona, AZ.