Arizona to Nevada

We wanted to get to Lake Mead before dark so we continued on Route 66 from Flagstaff and drove through Williams, AZ, known as “A quaint small town with a western look”, a place our friend Brooke really liked when he was here several years ago. It looked like it has seen its better days like many of the small towns here.

We continued west to Ash Fork, on Route 66, “the scenic Route”, well…it wasn’t very scenic anymore, a dead town is more like it.

So we continued on through Seligman, AZ…now that was a quirky town…..Bill had to turn around and go back through this town to get a video.

 Then we continued on Route 66, with not much excitement but dry land, and not the prettiest landscape however just before “Grand Canyon Caverns”, there was a man on four foot tall stilts in 30 mile an hour winds going west on the side of the road…unfortunately we did not get a picture and we did not think about it until it was too late to turn around. We got to Kingman, AZ put air in the tires and headed North to Hoover Dam.  We approached Hoover Dam and there was a checkpoint. Bill had to get out and open the bottom doors of the RV and the inspector came inside to look around. After we got the okay, we started our drive over the Hoover Dam….it was quite impressive but the water was very low in the dam.

The new bridge will be complete in September 2010 and was did not look too bad after all. . We stopped at a lookout point across the Dam in Nevada to take pictures.

The wind was really strong at that point so we got in the car and continued on to Lake Mead. The sun was setting as we approached the first campground and saw it was really crowded so we continued several miles more where we pulled up to the Las Vegas Bay campground and found a site at the end of a point with nobody around us. It was after sunset at this point and the winds were 30-40 mph with gusts of 50 mph. We forgot to get change for a $20.00 and the camping was $10.00 (no hookups of course) so I had to scrounge all the loose change I could find to pay at the Kiosk. We heard a noise on top of the RV like a flapping that I though was a tree from the wind but Bill got up on top in the dark, in the wind and found it was the A/C cover was damaged so he had to tape it up…he had to brace himself several times from the strong winds.

The next morning we woke up at sunrise, 5:30 a.m. Our back window was facing east so it was quite bright when the sun came up over the mountains so I got up around 6:00 am as I could no longer sleep. This was a nice campground when we got out and looked around but Lake Mead was so low the water was not close at all. Even the nearby boat ramp was closed and dried up.

We left Lake Mead and continued northwest towards Las Vegas.  Bill was amazed at how big it had grown over the years and how nearby Henderson was no longer a sleepy little town.

We got off the exit that took us right through Las Vegas Boulevard. The first part was the old Las Vegas, not too many people milling about then we started getting to the newer section…holy moly what a sight! We were overwhelmed by the casinos, resorts and restaurants and of course the advertisements for the strip joints….nice…..

We drove up and then back down the strip for about an hour just taking in all that was there taking tons of pictures then we got back on the highway and headed towards California.