Las Vegas and Hoover Dam Saturday, June 2, 2007

The road to Las Vegas from Barstow, CA. is pretty constant and extreme.  I don’t know how the settlers made it through the Mohave Desert.  I also wonder what possessed some settlers to come to the realization that they have reached their dream land and built towns in the middle of this desolation.  What looks like a lake in the picture below is actually a huge field of sand.

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We passed more Joshua trees on our way.  These are more normal and not as full as the one in our previous post.

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We arrive at our home in Las Vegas.

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We took a day trip to the Hoover Dam which is about 30 miles from Las Vegas.  It was built from 1931-1935 and put 1000’s of people to work during the depression.We are not taking our Montana 5th wheel down that road when we leave Vegas.  It is a small 2 lane curvy road that drops down to the dam and steep down grades leaving the dam going to AZ.  Not a favorite type road with our 5th wheel behind us!!!!
 The dam area is very massive and awesome to see.  I (Tinka) remember driving there with my parents years ago and it was a very scary road  and they haven’t improved it that much.
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But now they are building a 4 lane road through there. There won’t be steep grades because they are building bridges going across the mountains now.  That looks scary also. znew-road.JPGzroad.JPGzhoover-dam.JPG

Boats can come close to the dam.

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When we left the dam and headed back to Vegas we drove around part of Lake Mead.  Lake Mead has 550 miles of beach.  Hoover Dam is behind those beautiful colorful mountains.

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As we were getting close to Henderson, near Las Vegas, we drove into a new community called Lake Las Vegas.  Beautiful homes away from the crowds of LV.  Celine Dion and people like that live in that community. 

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We are enjoying our stay here in Las Vegas.  When we stay in  a Las Vegas hotel we try to cram as many activites  as we can in our brief stay. This time we go see the sights and come back to our house and relax before heading back out to see some more.

2 Responses to “Las Vegas and Hoover Dam Saturday, June 2, 2007”

  1. Sister says:

    You are doing a great job with your blog. Your pictures are very good. I enjoy your comments about things. Mom read the one about seeing the capital buildings and had a little chuckle as she remembered doing that. BTW the museum building at Hoover Dam was built by a Canadian company. Those bridges do look a bit awesome especially when you consider how the wind can blow out there.
    Enjoy Vegas. Hope you have enough money left to get back to Texas.

  2. Rick and Tinka says:

    Thank you and I am glad you are enjoying the blog. I am glad that we could jog Mom’s reminscence. Don’t worry, if I lose all my money in Vegas, I have a sister that loves to give people money. Especially her lttle sister!!!!!!!!!!! he he
    Love.
    Your wonderful little sister,
    Tinka

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