One more lap around Las Vegas

Recovered enough to be vertical, we started making plans for our departure however our friends from the North Rim wouldn't have it.  They wanted to do one more day of sightseeing before we left so we adjusted our schedule and charged the battery on the camera.

We headed towards the old town of Las Vegas.  Cyndee and I did not really know specifically where we were going, we were just along for the ride.  But when John pulled into a parking lot we took one look at the building and knew where we were.  We have been on and off viewers of Pawn Stars and the white building with the simple sign hanging off the corner of the building was unmistakable.

This place was dinky.  I don't know how they get all the cameras and lights in there to do the recording for the show.

This place was so small that they had a bouncer at the door and would only let 5 people at a time come in.  The line to get in wrapped around the block.  We opted for a quick picture in the parking lot and moved on.

A short drive to a suburb of Las Vegas is Boulder City which is also the town most closely associated with Lake Mead/Hoover Dam.  We got over there a little late in the afternoon but it was worth the trip even though the visitor center and museum were closed.  Just being on top of that gargantuan mass of concrete was reason enough to be there for me.

I've been a fan of Hoover Dam for a long time, watched documentaries, read its history but nothing can substitute being there.  For instance, I knew it was a narrow winding road that lead up to and crossed the dam.  Being a major thoroughfare for going south out of Las Vegas and crossing the Colorado River it could sometimes be backed up for miles to get across.  But boy was I surprised to actually experience just how steep, winding and really, really narrow the road was.  I have no idea how 18-wheelers got past each other.  I imagined pulling our 5th wheel over this road and was glad that the new bridge is now the way to go.

The dam no longer carries through traffic, thankfully all the roads are now dedicated to visiting this engineering marvel.

The new bridge is visible from the old.  We will be using it in a couple of days to get to Phoenix.
Like a lot of things we have seen this summer, the scale of this thing is hard to capture.  There are people on the top of the dam but they are mere specks in this picture.

We'll come back next year and get here early enough to visit the museum.
After walking the top of the dam for about an hour, John loaded us up and took us to turnout nearby that was a trailhead to walk up to the access point of the pedestrian walkway on the new bridge.  By the time we walked about halfway out so we could look over the Hoover and up the Colorado it was getting dark.

Taken from the parking lot for the trailhead to the pedestrian walkway on the new bridge.  We had to hustle to get up there and do our sightseeing before it got dark.
We got back to the truck just as the sun was setting and started our way back to Las Vegas.  Our goal was the Stratosphere Casino and Hotel.  This is the 1,149 foot tall spire sticking up higher than anything else on the strip and is generally recognized as one end of the strip.  At the top of the tower are three carnival-like rides and what is an essentially vertical zip line that one rides from the 108th floor to the ground in what is billed as a free-fall.  And no, we did not do any of the rides.  I was happy to just look over the edge and feel the butterflies in my stomach.

High atop the Stratosphere Hotel with Las Vegas sprawling out to the east.
Our time in Vegas has come to an end.  As much as we would like to stay a little longer we need to start making progress on getting to Big Bend, almost 1,200 miles away.  Next stop, Surprise, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix).  If things work out we'll be in Surprise the same time as my cousin and his wife who have also started fulltiming. 

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