Thursday, November 18, 2010

Fall Trip Highlights.

Location, Home, CA

I knew it would be some time before I posted but this is ridiculous.

I did spend 4 days in Las Vegas in October. The new bridge over the Colorado River below Hoover Dam opened while we were there so we just had to pay it a visit. There is a visitor parking lot and lots of steps which eventually get you up to the bridge level. You can walk along a pedestrian walkway to the Arizona side but no further as it is blocked. Great views of the dam from this walkway.

View of the bridge from the dam.
 My son Tim had not been to Hoover dam so we took the tour. After going through security, buying our tickets ($30), getting a photo taken (didn’t buy it), and watching a movie of the dam being built, we left the secure area and walked along the top of the dam until it was time for our tour.

Once again, we went through security and joined our tour. The tours are well organized and even though I had done this twice before, this tour was different. We saw more internal things in the dam than other times. Such as, the “Stairway to Heaven” which is the thousands of steps you would need to climb if the elevators quit working.

Leaving Las Vegas, we traveled to Tecopa, CA and camped in the BLM area for 5 days. Out of this area we did 4x4 trips, traveled along the Tonopah & Tidewater rail bed, soaked in Tecopa Hot Springs, and had a date shake at China Ranch.

How the modern 4x4'er navigates.
Sunset at Tecopa BLM.

We next moved into Death Valley for 2 weeks of 4x4 trips, pictographs, petroglyphs, old mines, music, and the 61st 49’er Encampment. The 10 days Tim was there went by fast. I took him to lunch at Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay’s restaurant) in Caesar’s Palace before taking him to the airport. What a great Lunch!!!!!

We ended our trip where we began it with an overnight stop at Baker behind the Mad Greek Restaurant.

We watched the International Space Station pass over us before we went to dinner. It was visible for 4 minutes.