"LAS VEGAS"

Monday, March 13, 2006.  We are in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, at Lake Mead Boulder Beach Campground.  We have decided to stay here as a base to visit Las Vegas and area.  The price is $10.00 not as cheap as a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) site but it is well within our budget. ;-)  We cannot possibly see Las Vegas in one day but that is all we are dedication to it. We only explored one side of the street and the old Los Vegas (Freemont). We will have to go back for the other side of the street.

This is New York, New York Casino.
Inside lobby of "The Ceasar's Palace".  I swear this place covers a whole block.

Just one of the statues inside Ceasar's Palace.
Inside the Luxor's Casino, this casino is a pyramid.
 
The night life in "The Freemont Experience".  The original gambling section of Las Vegas.

Night shot of Las Vegas.

 

 

 

 

 
The water show at the "Bellagio". 

 

 

 
The shopping and casino's are on the sides and what you're looking at is a TV screen canopy covering the streets of the original Las Vegas.  This is a huge screen in which they do a show at night.  The planes and stripes is a movie!!! WOW!!!

 

 
 
Side Trip -  "The Valley of  Fire" Located about 2 hour drive north east of Vegas.

Evidence suggests the Valley of Fire has been occupied from 300 B.C. to 1150 a.d.

 

 

 
The Valley of Fire derives its name from red sandstone formations, formed from great shifting sand dunes during the age of dinosaurs, 150 million years ago.
There were ancient petrogliphs like this one and Denis deciphered it. It says "God created man, then rested.... God then created woman, and since then, no-one has rested"!!!

Prehistoric users of the Valley of Fire  included the Basket Maker people and later the Anasazi Pueblo farmers from the nearby fertile valleys.

This was one of the weddings we saw today! Denis is taking me here for our 25th!
 
The area plant is dominated by widely spaced creosote bush, burro bush, and brittlebush.  Several cactus species, including beaver tail and cholla, are also common.
 

 


Valley Of Fire State Park, looking down one of the valley roads.

 

Side Trip - "Hover Dam"
Located less than a half hour drive from our campground.

The Hoover Dam has a height 726.4 feet.  Volume of concrete: 3.25 million cubic yards (2.6 million cubic meters)...enough to built a sidewalk around the world.  It is quite something to look at.  Construction began in 1931, and the last concrete was poured in 1935.  This was built to control the mighty Colorado River which often flooded low-lying farmland and communities. This was how the Salton Sea near Borrego Springs was created
This bronze statue was built in dedication to men who worked and risked their lives scaling and dynamiting the rocks walls.
We will be leaving Lake Mead, Nevada and heading towards the Grand Canyon, and in doing so will be going back through Arizona via Lake Havasu.

Lake Havasu and Surrounding Area

Monday, March 20, 2006.  We are now at City of Lake Havasu at a BLM place called Craggy Wash.  Denis is trying to get back into a work mindset and do his Income Tax.  He is finding it a bit difficult but is making headway.  It is a bit difficult trying to organize it from a distance.  I am getting him to take a brake once in a while with a bit of sight seeing.  The temperature is in the 80's here at Lake Havasu this week.  Grand Canyon is only about 52 degrees.  Waiting for it to warm up there.

This is the Bridge from London England which made Lake Havasu famous. A person by the name of McCulloch, same guy who made chainsaws, bought it for $2.5MM, moved it here and re-built it for about $7MM, and planned out the City of Lake Havasu... It went from about 3,500 pop. when the bridge was completed to about 50,000 pop today.
 
Me in London!

 

 

 

Side Trip - Ride on route 66 to Oatman and Kingman.
This section of Route 66 is all switch backs around Oatman, and was once the only road to California from AZ back in the 1930's. This section forms one part of the longest stretch of Route 66 left in the USA and the most original kept section.
Friday, March 24, 2006.  We took a day trip to a small town called Oatman on Route 66. It must have been quite a trip in the early 1930's as it was not paved then, during the depression, as with the migration to California in the "Grape's of Wrath" by Steinbeck.  There were a lot of switchbacks.  When  we were back at our trailer we got a nice surprise.  Pierre and Judy (As seen in picture below) from Montreal became our new neighbours... again.  We sat by the campfire and became reacquainted and toured with them the next day.
 

The historic Town of Oatman. Just as it was back then!
Before and after picture of the Oatman Fire department.
Love at first sight.

Hotel in town has the honeymoon Suite...where Clark Gable and Carol Lombard spent their honeymoon after getting married in Kingman, 29 miles away.
A gunfight in Oatman over a stolen pig. The guy on the ground ate it! The other guy going down helped!
This restaurant and bar has money all over the walls, estimated at about $20,000, so I was told.
  There is so much history to this route 66.  A must to look up on the internet, when hooked up.
Saturday, March 25, 2006.  This morning we said good-bye to friends we previously met, Ken and Nadine, whom we found at Cragy Wash. They are heading North to go home.  Who knows we may bump into them again..  We spent a lovely evening chatting with them, Pierre and Judy, and exchanged notes.  We will miss them

Monday, March 27, 2006.  After a great day touring the area, we have said good-bye's to Pierre and Judy.  We cannot wait to meet up with them again.  They are so full of energy and have opened up their hearts and home to us.  I know we will see them again in Alaska as they are taking the California Coast route and we are taking the in-land route.

Here we are after a desert walk in the "hills" near Lake Havasu.

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