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03.12.2003: Las Vegas - Lake Mead
After showers, Kirsten downloaded the CD with our latest diary entries on it, we did the washing up and tidied up. Then we filled up our large water bottle (5 gallons), dumped our black water and checked out at 11-50am. We went shopping and had lunch on the supermarket car park! Then we went to Kinkos to download the CD onto the website.
We drove through quite a bit of Las Vegas traffic, heading East to Hoover Dam and stopped off at the visitor centre. By the time we got to drive over Hoover Dam it was already getting dark and too late to do a tour. We got checked by the police before we were allowed to drive over the dam - we had to open all the outside compartments and they looked inside Winnie aswell. The police officer was so tall that even when he was bent over, he banged his head on the air conditioning!! We did warn him!
We drove about 5 miles the other side of the Dam before turning off onto a dirt road and driving a further mile to find a place to dry camp. We made potato and carrot soup with fresh baguette and then had carrot cake for dessert!
04.12.2003: Lake Mead
After breakfast (sugar puffs), we left our spot and drove back towards Hoover Dam and through another police check. The officer asked Kirsten where we were from. When she told him we were from Germany and England, he replied "Strange. You used to be enemies"!! Kirsten just said that we weren't born then!
About 1 mile past the police checkpoint we pulled off onto the car park for the White Rock Canyon. We did a 6 mile walk along and down the canyon to the Colorado River. The canyon was more red than white and we saw bighorn sheep on the way. A really nice walk. Then we got lost looking for the path to the Arizona Hot Springs. But we met 2 germans who told us where to go. The man was wearing a T shirt and some awful blue knickers! How embarrassing!
We scrambled over rocks but didn't go to the springs as the path looked extremely muddy. So we turned round and walked back along the canyon. We caught up with the 2 germans, by this time the man was decently wearing trousers! They told us that they were up to their knees in sludge, walking to the springs and even sat in them for a while. The man explained that his trousers were wet and he'd forgotten that he was still only in his knickers when he saw us!
We got back to the car park and then drove back across the Dam as the sun was setting and again too late to go for a tour! So we drove to Lake Mead RV park and had a full hook up for one night so that Kirsten could work on the computer again.
05.12.2003: Lake Mead
After breakfast, we got our hair clippers and scissors out as Kirsten needed a hair cut! She sat on a wooden trestle in the bathroom with one of our bright orange rain capes over her. The clippers started off ok but then Helen had to fetch the adaptor to plug them in. The back of Kirstens head was partly shaved but even with the adaptor the clippers didn't work properly!! So Helen was left to rely on her professional hair cutting skills using just scissors and comb!!!
Kirsten never stopped criticising "shorter here", "you're not doing it properly" and so on and so forth! In the end Helen just ignored her and didn't do a bad job after all!! At least Kirsten can go outside! In fact, Helen looked very professional when she was cutting the top - and she was quick too! Just 40 minutes! Not bad for the first time!
After cleaning up, we checked out and then went to find a library to check emails. Then we drove back to Hoover Dam (through another police check where the officer admired our mountain bikes!) and this time went on a tour even though it was already 4pm! It cost $10 each and lasted for an hour. It was built between 1931 and 1935, with enough concrete to make a four feet wide road around the world at the equator! It was named after Americas 31st President, Herbert Hoover and was an engineering masterwork at the time. Lake Mead is the dams reservoir and can store 9.2 trillion gallons of water! We went through a very claustrophobic tunnel to get to the generators and saw that the water level had decreased by 80 ft as they've had drought for the last 5 years. Lake Mead has lost one third of its water! We also managed to see the sunset from the observation lookout. Afterwards, we went to look at 2 bronze angel statues, erected to guard over the workers when the dam was being built. The guide said that if we rubbed the toes on both statues, we would be lucky in Las Vegas! So of course we had to do just that!
Then we drove back over the Dam, for the 4th and last time!, in the dark and then continued along the lake shore road for about 16 miles to a free camping area called Government Wash. We couldn't see where to park, but we managed to find a spot for the night, about 2 miles away from the toilets!
06.12.2003: Lake Mead
We drove to Callville Bay (approx 15 miles away) and went for a shower there. We didn't have to stay at the campsite to use them and they only cost $1. Then we got some hot water to do the washing up. We asked some workmen if they knew where we had to go to get propane gas. One of them asked where we were from and said he knew some German. He knew the word "scheisskopf" which means "shit head"!! We told him not to say that to the next Germans he meets! Then he asked Helen the phrase with the word "love" in it, and Helen said "Ich liebe dich" and he said "that's the one"!! He was black but he still went red!
We went to the office and asked about propane gas and we found out that there would be a Light parade tonight, where all the boats had been decorated at Lake Mead Harbour and would be sailing out at 6pm. So we drove down there and went to the restaurant for fish and chips and apple pie. When we came out the boats had their lights on. We spent a good 2 hours wandering around and having a look at all the various decorations. One boat had a meery-go-round on it, others had talking Father Xmas's. One had a "Christmas on the beach" Caribbean theme and played a reggae song to which the occupants all danced. Another had dam workers on it and a plaque saying "Another dam Christmas"! There were also loads of catfish around the boats waiting to get fed with very large, open mouths.
Parade of Lights - Lake Mead.
The boats were being judged and were supposed to sail around Lake Mead at 6pm but it was too windy and that was cancelled. By 6-45pm there were too many crowds for us, so we drove back to Government Wash and got our place for the night. We had baguette and Camembert cheese later but Kirsten had bought a sour dough baguette thinking it said French baguette - not very nice! Then Helen won at cards again! It was very windy all night - no, not from the sour dough bread!
07.12.2003: Lake Mead
After a windy night, it was really warm today. When we looked at our thermometer it said 30 degrees inside Winnie! We drove to Callville Bay again and went to dump our water. Kirsten got wet again, as the water hose had got a hole in it and water got her all down her back! Then we went to the office and paid for 3 gallons of propane and drove off to the tank. The man who'd been radioed to meet us there, forgot about us and turned up 20 minutes later. But he filled our tank up for us at no extra cost! (4.4 galls).
Then we parked up by the showers and Helen got ready for her haircut!! Kirsten took 1 hour 10 minutes and never stopped complaining about how difficult it was to cut Helens hair! But after all that time, it didn't look bad at all and Helen still had 2 ears!! Then we showered and did the washing up.
By this time it was 3-30pm and we were hungry. So we went to the snack bar and ordered one special to share - rosemary chicken with potato melts (that means covered in cheese). Very tasty! Then we drove further East along the Northshore road of Lake Mead and through great scenery - desert with red rocks and petrified sand dunes. Unfortunately it was getting too dark for us to appreciate it. So we pulled off the road and drove a short way down a track meant for 4 wheel drive vehicles and parked up for the night.
Kirsten kept admiring her handiwork (Helens haircut) and was quite proud of herself! At 8pm we saw lightning in the distance but it was quite windy so we hoped the wind would blow it away from us. We were parked in a wash, which means if there is rain, there could be a flash flood. But Lake Meads water level has dropped 80ft because of a 5 year drought!! But even so we kept our eyes on it.
At 10pm the lightning was a lot closer, so we tried tuning into the local radio station to see if there were any weather reports. All we found was dreadful music! So we made egg mayonnaise sarnis and went to bed.
At 01-50 am the rain woke us up. So we quickly got dressed and drove off, back to the main road. About 2 miles down we found a tarmacced picnic area. So we pulled onto there and didn't care if it said "No camping". We parked up and went back to bed!
08.12.2003: Lake Mead
We woke up fairly early and the sun was shining, but after our night fleeing the possible flash flood, we didn't feel like getting up early! But when we did get up, we found that we'd picked a lovely spot to finish off our beauty sleep for the night! We were surrounded by red rocks and we went for a short 45 minute walk around them, scrambling up and back to the car park.
Then we drove into Overton and found a library to check our mails. Then we filled up with petrol and went shopping at a local supermarket. We were trying to find bread without sugar - an impossible task in America! One of the staff asked if she could help. After explaining to her and still not finding any bread we bought 4 doughnuts, obviously full of sugar and the woman probably thought we were a bit strange! Foreigners!!
Then we drove to the Valley of Fire State Park and went to the visitor centre - the first where we got grumpy staff! Too busy counting money to give us information and when we did get an answer it was just a wave of a hand to indicate the small leaflet which we already had! We also thought our Golden Eagle Park pass covered us for the entry fees but found it didn't include State Parks. So we decided not to stay at the campsite for $13 and drove back to Stewarts Point, a free camping area on the shore of Lake Mead.
When Helen went out to the toilet, she heard something growling at her as she went back to Winnie and ran inside! We don't know what it was as we couldn't see anything in the dark. Later on we heard lots of Burros (wild donkeys) braying very close to us! Lots of wildlife here!
09.12.2003: Valley Of Fire
It was a lovely sunny day again today, so we decided to drive back to the Valley of Fire and "do" all the sights in one day and to stay at the campsite for the night as the cost of the campsite includes the state park fees.
We went to Elephant Rock - a rock that actually does look like an elephant, looked at some cabins built in 1935 for visitors and no longer in use. Went to Mouse's Tank, a small dam built to store water between rocks and used as a hiding place for an Indian in the 1890s. (Sorry, but that's all the info given in the leaflet!) Kirsten went scrambling over rocks to see if there was anything on the other side - there wasn't much to see but we waved at each other across the dam!
Then we drove up to White Domes, which has been used in a number of films including "The Professionals" (part of the orginal movie set is still there) and Star Trek Generations (photo). We walked just over a mile through the canyon which was a really nice little walk along the canyon between multi-coloured rocks. The park is called Valley of Fire because the rocks are dark red and look like the shapes of flames. (This little gem of info is also not to be found in the leaflet!)
Then we drove to the campground and went for a shower. After making pasta for tea, it started getting really cold and we had to make hot water bottles for our feet whilst we sat and read books!
