Day 3: Las Vegas to Tusayan

Good morning, Everyone! Last night the internet was not working, so this report is 12 hours late.
On day 3 we enjoyed a leisurely morning eating breakfast in our suite and swimming in the "Worldmark Warm" water at the Carriage House in Las Vegas. Then we headed for Hoover Dam.

Hoover Dam is so massive it is impossible to get in one picture, but you can find lots of aerial pictures on the internet. They just don't do it justice. One of the 10 "Wonders of the Modern World," the story of Hoover Dam is an amazing testament to the engineering skill of the WWII generation.

Here is a picture of the powerplant. In the center of the first turbine, one can see the spinning magneto. Also, overhead are two giant bridge cranes that were built on site.

Ian and Jeremy found a video game (of course!) that lets you touch objects to turn them on and spin a wheel to generate enough power to keep them working.

Highway 93 is a bottleneck to Arizona, because of security at Hoover Dam. They are building a large span to bypass the dam, and fix this problem. Ironically, the dam took 5 years to build, and this bridge is now scheduled to be finished after nine years!

This was perhaps our warmest day, approaching 100 degrees at Hoover Dam. Fortunately, most of our time was spent inside.

In the Hoover Dam parking garage, I couldn't help taking this picture. The sign reads, "RESERVED PARKING for MR. POHE (Nevada Services to the Blind). I was wondering how Mr. Pohe manages to drive...

Finally, we made it to "sunny" Arizona, where we encountered cooler temperatures in the 70s and light overcast skies. Must be our Western Oregon heritage following us!

We encountered miles of desert, cactus, and Joshua trees, with occasional clumps of sagebrush, but eventually wound up in the National Forest pictured below with junipers as far as the eye could see. These junipers are rounder and thicker than the ones in Central Oregon, making me think they are a different variation. Eventually, they gave way to pine trees.

At Williams, we turned off I-40 and trekked 50 miles up the road to Tusayan (named for local indians), which is the South Entrance to the Grand Canyon park. We drove up to see the sunset, and on the way, found this "little" bull and his friendly cow winding his way among the cars and browsing on the side.

I highly recommend driving slow in this park, since he stepped right out in front of the car ahead of us!


We got some great sunset pictures through the clouds and , in the picture below, a shot of the "Isis Temple" formation in the background. We had skipped supper because we were pressed for time, so we went back and took out Wendy's for the boys. Sherry and I went to a steakhouse and had their 10 0z ribeye at 9:30 at night.

Everyone was satisfied with the day!