Leaving Las Vegas -- Thurs., Dec. 29, 2011

Las Vegas, Death Valley National Park, Sparks: We got up super early (5:30 am), had breakfast, spent some time online, worked on the jigsaw puzzle and left Laura's house about 8:30 a.m. A meeting was scheduled at 9:30 a.m. with our renter in our Las Vegas house.

After the meeting, we headed north for Death Valley National Park.

On U.S. 95 north of Las Vegas we found the historic marker for the Nevada "Test Site." Any of you who grew up in the late 50's, early 60's may remember news of the bomb testing and mushroom clouds in the Nevada desert with houses being flattened or all the windows blowing out. This is the place...

A coyote ran along the road by us at one point...good wildlife sighting.

First stop: Rhyolite, a ghost town. Semi-interesting. Here's some pics:

House made from beer bottles.

 
Back to U.S. 95 to head north to Scotty's Castle. When we arrived at Scotty's Castle, the next castle tour was in ten minutes. Good timing. What a lovely oasis in the desert. We took the house tour, but not the underground tour. Next time we will plan to do the underground tour. Fascinating tour with a great Park Ranger guide.

Good reference map.

Death Valley Ranch aka "Scotty's Castle"

Courtyard

Original name of the property.

Dining room with original tableware.

Kitchen sink and counter.

Two ovens, two warming ovens, six burners.

Exit to outside from music room.

What a nice break in our long-drive-of-a-day. We even bought sandwiches and chips for lunch at the National Park Visitor Center.

Time for the rest of the drive back to Sparks. We would have liked to stop in Hawthorne, NV to see the museums, but they were closed by the time we passed through. We did have a beautiful high desert sunset...

Got home about 9:00 p.m...a 12-hour day. Everything was fine with the 5er after being gone for six days. Nothing frozen!

Hoover Dam, "The Descendants" -- Wed., Dec. 28

Boulder City & Henderson, NV: We got up "early" to go to Hoover Dam and arrived at the trailhead parking lot to walk up to the new bridge about 9:00 a.m. We avoided the major crowds; however, there were still four large buses and the trailhead parking lot was almost full. We got some good pics from the bridge and trail.

Hoover Dam

From the new bridge walkway.

Sign on the bridge.

Walking back into Nevada

From the bridge trailhead, we drove down across the dam and parked on the Arizona side of the dam for free. 

Parking at the lots closest to the visitor center and dam cost $7.00. We don't mind walking.

Hoover Dam is such a spectacular place to visit. Man's ingenuity is awe-inspiring! We paid $8.00 to tour the Visitor Center. Unfortunately, we didn't know the tour didn't include the movie. In order to see the movie, you have to purchase at least the one-hour powerhouse tour for $11.00. We would have if we had known. The visitor center was still interesting.

Pat Tillman Bridge viewed from Hoover Dam.

Hoover Dam Visitor Center

Hoover Dam: looking down from the top.

Love these art deco Winged Figures of the Republic art pieces from the 1930s!

 

Bob checking out the power lines.

Winged Figures of the Republic

 After our dam visit, we went back to Bob's sister's house for lunch. Then it was off to see "The Descendants" with George Clooney. Bob and his mom loved the movie. To me, it was an okay story, with some great Hawaiian scenery.


This evening we chilled at the house. I worked on another, harder jigsaw puzzle and we watched "Storage Wars" (about five episodes). Hadn't ever seen the show before and it's pretty interesting. We also watched a couple episodes of "Dog the Bounty Hunter."