After a few days of overnight stops in extreme heat, we landed in Las Vegas. We spent three nights at Las Vegas RV Resort – a place we’ve stayed in a few times and the place that holds the title of the very first campground we stayed in our RV. It’s clean and convenient.
Once again, we didn’t bother gambling. This time we did the full tour of the Hoover Dam. The Dam, with its art deco everywhere, is a huge awesome engineering feat. The tour was worth the $30 each and took us to the Powerhouse as well as through strange and amazing tunnels winding into the concrete of the Dam.
Lake Mead was low but still a mighty force of water. We found ourselves examining minute cracks in the tunnels and questioned a large blotch of calcite deep inside the Dam!
The rock the Dam is built into is a beautiful pinkish basalt. Up close you see the evidence of ancient inner earth fires and then millions of years of movement and erosion.
There is a new bridge providing a second way over the river. The bridge structure picturesquely frames the mountains. It was another day of very high temps, so we stayed inside as much as possible and enjoyed a nice lunch in the Snack Bar.
We did venture outside one evening for a great Thai dinner in a popular restaurant right on Fremont Street. (I loved the spicy Chicken Larb Salad while Doug ate every bit of his Pad Kee Mow.) We got in our steps under the world’s largest LED Canopy Screen on Fremont Street. It was certainly an “experience”- loud music, a huge light show above us, glittering neon surrounding us, and a happy variety of strange people to watch. The gorilla danced enthusiastically, the “vets” sold palm decorations, there were nurses who wore only strategically placed band-aids above their waists, the Chippendale booth boosted some well-toned bodies, and all in all, it was the “experience” we wanted but two hours was about all we could handle.
And then we left all that noise and flashing lights to spend three nights in the opposite kind of place – Cathedral Gorge State Park. Not far from Area 51 (which we have yet to visit), we took Highway 93 – not the long and winding road, but a very long straight and rather boring road through part of the enormous Great Basin. To help with boredom, we often listen to an audiobook. This trip it’s Betrayal of Trust by J.A. Jance. We pulled into undoubtedly the best site we have ever had. So big – with a large ramada of over an equally large picnic table in a manicured gravel circle that could have easily fit our largest Flamingo gathering.
Right across from our site was the perfect desert nature trail that brought us right up to the buff-colored cliffs and into many small tight slot canyons formed by erosion. The formations and canyons of the Gorge quietly tell of the freshwater lake that existed here in the Pliocene Era.
It is aptly called Cathedral Gorge. The rocks stand tall and majestic in their profound silence. We explored. We marveled. The rocks are both basic and intricate. Solid yet eroding. I see rocks like these and try to comprehend their long histories – of ancient seas, tremendous pressures and endless times of nature impacting them. And this awesome geology was right under our fingers.
We leave here on Father’s Day for a short ride to Ely.