Sunday, November 21, 2021

Hoover Dam

Saturday and Sunday we visited Hoover Dam. Saturday we did the driving thing, over the dam and walked back over it and around the displays. Sunday we did a Lake Mead boat tour of the dam and walked up to the freeway high bridge (When they built it they added a walkway on the dam side) . I was a little disappointed that they still had the internal tour shut down, showing the inner workings of the dam and power plant. It is all so huge it is hard to capture on camera!
When you look at the pictures of the lake you will see a whitish strip on the lake bank, the is the high water mark from 1983, it left a lot of calcium deposit behind!


Taken from the freeway high bridge

Our tour boat

Dam, lake side, from the tour boat.
The things with the vertical dark lines are the water inlets to turn the generators,
four total, two on the Nevada side, two on the Arizona side.

Taa daa! We really were on the boat!

Entering the Black Canyon that leads to the dam.
I guess before the dam was built there was nasty rapids thru this canyon!

Looking down the dam wall

Starr sitting pretty next to one of the displays

A closer view of the water intake towers



One of the statues, I wondered out loud if there arms ever got tired, they didn't respond!

 



Friday, November 19, 2021

Via Las Vegas, fun times at the airport and back to Minnesota

 It's been suggested by some of my readers that maybe I should start doing more current post, so y'all know where we are and what we are currently up to! Probably a good idea! I know you all are waiting with with baited breath for our next installment, so here it is!

It is currently Friday Nov 19th! We are at Boulder Beach Campground just outside of Bolder City, NV approx. 30 miles from the Las Vegas airport, a hop skip and a jump from Hover Dam (which we are planning to explore tomorrow), see map snippet below! We paid for three nights so we will be here until at least Sunday morning. This is part of the national park service, so with Starr's National Park pass and being over 60, it's only $10 a night! And did we drive straight here from the airport???? Oh heavens no! Let me start at the beginning! 

Last week we flew back to Minnesota on Delta, round trip tickets from Las Vegas for $308 total for us both! Wednesday to Wednesday to go to our 2nd oldest granddaughter musical that she was a part of. This is her HS Senior year (more on that later). We parked our truck and trailer at the Las Vegas airport oversized parking lot which mostly worked out well, it was still there and intact when we got back. The only hitch (no pun intended) was, once we got back to Vegas and got to the shuttle bus area to get back to the rig, none of the drivers knew where the place was! After probably a 45min wait and a lengthy, rather loud discussion over the phone with a very rude dispatcher, one of the drivers went out of his way to figure it out for us, also, Starr asked if I still had the location saved in my RV app program and sure enough I did! So, Walla! We got delivered!

Because we had planned to head to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon when we got back, we made a reservation at Mesquite, NV where we had stayed the night before we left for MN. We also made some orders to be delivered there to be waiting for our return. While in MN I checked the weather for the North Rim and noticed that the lows were going to be in the high teens at night, way to cold for my RV (and me), so plans were changed to go where we are now (East of Vegas). Unfortunately, the things we ordered were in Mesquite, 1-1/2 to 2 hours NE which we still had to drive to. We arrived around 8:30, pulled into our spot without even unhooking thinking we would spend an extra day there just to unwind and leave on Friday. It turned out they were already booked with no room at the inn, so to speak, so, here we are, 150 miles or so later, 30 miles from our start position, with our Amazon ordered in hand! LoL!!


About our trip to Minnesota
BRRRRRR, I was so COLD!! The best part was going to our Granddaughter's musical at Glencoe HS. They did "The Little Mermaid". For a relatively small school, they do a really good job! Saturday before the play Arleen, Rob's mom, (aka, my ex) had us all over for an early Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings! Thanks Arleen! Through the rest of the week it was catching up with all our friends we hadn't seen since we left town! Great memories, thanks!

Some passing thoughts!

We have been on the road now for 2-1/2 months, we have been having the time of our lives, and it's surreal in a way, we are in our little "house" always the same inside, but in the morning we open the shades and it's different views most of the time. (I think the longest we have stayed in one place has been 7 days at a RV resort outside of Moab, UT and that was pay for 5 nights and get 2 free, how you pass that up?) 

While in Minnesota we stayed in our Townhouse, snug as a bug in a rug (after I got the water turned on and the water heater fired up) but waking up in our house bed the next morning felt really odd, almost like "I dreamed I went to these places, but here I am here". Anyway, I guess I digress!

Our current plan is to be in the San Diego area by Wednesday, Nov 24th. We start our first SOWERs project in Jamul, CA on Monday, Nov 29th!

Our $10/night camp spot!



It was a little cool in the morning, but tolerable with a banky!
Starr actually had humming birds check the flowers out on the blanket!

Humming bird pic 1

Humming bird pic 2

Humming bird pic 3









!!BANG!! And a couple of scratches on our rig!!

 On January 6th, 2023 around 2:30 in the afternoon we were returning to the mainland of Florida after spending 4 glorious nights down in the...