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26.05.08
Lake Mead &
the Hoover Dam
It seemed to be impossible to leave the hotel
lobby without trying our luck just one
last time.
Yup, I lost another $1.
Seeing the city in the harsh morning light is a bit
sad. Unlike the night
before when the casino was
full of people having heaps of fun, the morning
showed that apart from a few tourists, the
casino
patrons were mostly older,
definitely unlucky gamblers.
The city itself is still impressive even without
the
fabulous night time display. The casino
buildings are designed on specific themes –
‘Circus Circus’
is a huge (I mean REALLY huge!)
big top, ‘New York New York’
has a replica
Statue of Liberty as well as one of the Chrysler
building. It even has a replica of the Brooklyn
Bridge.
There are massive statues all coated in
gold, water displays that are illuminated at night
and because the traffic is
so busy at night, there
are escalators that take you to and from
overhead walk bridges across the roads.
We left
the city and went for a tiki tour around
a man made lake called Lake Las Vegas.
A new Ritz Carlton hotel had
been built on the
lakes’ edge and on the surrounding park like
grounds were many beautiful new homes. The
whole
development was obviously strictly
planned as all the homes were built along
the same type of designs.
The really
strange sight was seeing miles and
miles of little chicken netting fences lined with
small rocks. They were about a
foot high and I
couldn’t figure out what they were for. I thought
there must have been flocks of miniature sheep
or
something wandering the hills. I was wrong.
They were actually turtle fences! Yup. Turtle
fences. They were built to
stop the desert turtles
from crossing the road and being killed. The little
fences led to crossing tunnels, which were
built
under the road. Lucky turtles!!
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| miles and miles of little turtle fences! |
Lake Mead is the reservoir created behind the
Hoover Dam, and has become
increasingly low
over the years due to climate changes. A
fabulous huge boat ramp and boat storage
area is now rather
useless as the lake has
dropped too low for it to be used.
What does one actually do with a boat ramp to nowhere I
wonder? I'm guessing whoever's in the car
that you can
just see at the bottom probably isn't there for the fishing!
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| who pulled out the plug?! |
Our next destination took us over the Hoover
dam on the Colorado River.
Being built on the
border between Arizona and Nevada means
that it actually crosses the border of two times
zones
as well. There are clock faces on the
intake towers set for both Pacific and
Mountain time zones.
Since Sept.11
the dam has become one of the
‘protected’ sites in the States. They are building
a massive bypass so that
in the future the dam
can be closed to traffic.
The dam with the construction of the new bypass bridge visible
behind. It doesn't actually have a
sign hanging off it saying
'new bridge'. Photoshop and I are really quite clever!
Wow!
Definitely worth the slow ascent up to the
checkpoint. All cars are checked for terrorists
carrying bombs, which mean
that traffic travels
at a crawl. We were pulled to one side because
the back of the truck has a cover and they had
to
check inside. We must have looked
rather dodgy!
The dam itself is really quite beautiful. It is
finished in an elegant
Art Deco style which
was gorgeous to see.
Hours of travelling through the desert - it’s
incredible to see
such massive distances
around you. There is no way you could see
clearly so far into the distance anywhere in NZ.
Even
the road kill here is interesting! I’ve seen 2
coyotes and a deer so far and I even smelt
skunk ‘pong’.
He either had a really close call
or didn’t make the road crossing!
Our stop for the night.
A town on Route
66 called Williams.
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