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Valley of Fire
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Location: Boulder City (SE of Las Vegas)
When: end of May
Miles traveled: 532
Price of gas: 4.09
Interest: Brown dirt mountains
High point: Arcade games
Low point: Hot weather
One thing learned: A damp shirt makes it possible to sleep in an 80° car.
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Lake Mead
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Nevada is beautiful, but hot! Camping near Lake Mead was interesting. The sun rose at 5:23am, and by 6:20am it was full light and 80° in my car. Those conditions made it very easy to wake up each morning. Unhappily, by 9:30am the temperature was 90° in the shade. Night time lows were in the upper 60s, but at sunset when I went to sleep the temperature was still in the 80s. Sleeping in my car was only possible with the windows fully open (thankfully there were no mosquitoes) and while wearing a damp shirt. The campground was full for Memorial Day weekend, but there were enough trees and bushes between each camp site providing some "privacy" that I felt comfortable sleeping with my car windows open. (Not all campgrounds are like this. There have been campgrounds I was not comfortable leaving my windows open.)
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Sunset near Lake Mead
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| Petroglyphs |
Early in the week, I visited Valley of Fire state park. A herd of bighorn sheep grazed near the road, providing a good opportunity for many visitors to see them. The petroglyphs at Atlatl Rock were easy to see, with stairs and a platform allowing an up close view. I saw my first arch in this park, and admired the beautiful sandstone, limestone, and silica formations.
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Diagram of the many tunnels for the water
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Hoover Dam (HD) was a short distance from the campground, and their tour of the dam and power plant was very informative. At the base, HD is over 650' thick and it tapers to 45' thick at the top. Only the weight of the concrete and the curvature of the dam holds the structure in place. There are no structural supports that attach the dam to the side canyon walls. This also provides some flexibility, allowing the dam to shift as needed during an earthquake. The overflow spillways on either side have been used only twice. The first time during a test, and the second time during the flood of 1983 when the water came within 7 feet of the top of the dam. The spillways were constantly open for two months working to release the excess water provided by record mountain snow accumulation that melted unusually rapidly that Spring. When I visited, the water was not close to the top of the dam. It's cool to have seen the Colorado River flow through Glen Canyon Dam, Grand Canyon, and now Hoover Dam.
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View looking out an air vent in the dam
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A public library hosted a free concert by Tesla Quartet two different evenings. Tesla Quartet's music selection was centered on stars and the cosmos. It was quite an evening! 3/4th of the way through performing Garth Knox's "Geostationary", a string broke on the viola and they stopped and gave introductions as the musician replaced the string. Then they picked up where they stopped and finished playing the piece. It was also cool to see how they used digital tablets for the sheet music. By tapping a device on the floor with their foot, they were able to turn to the next page of music.
In Las Vegas, the
Pinball Hall of Fame
is a better place to spend one's quarters than at a casino. Open till 9 or 10pm each day, the building holds many pinball machines
from 1950s to 1990s and some arcade games. It was cool to see the various themed pinball
games (Gilligan's Island, Stargate, Star Trek, Charlie's Angles) and more generic old machines as well. I preferred the older style of pinball
machines since they often released five balls instead of three. But I spent most of my quarters on the
arcade games like Joust (referenced in the book "Ready Player One"),
Frogger, Space Invaders, Ms. Pac-man, and Gauntlet Legends. I did not see Bubble Bobble, which was
slightly disappointing. Gauntlet
Legends is a game I played in middle school with a neighborhood friend.
I think we played the Nintendo version, and it was a great surprise and
really awesome to recognize the game. I had forgotten it's name, but
the game play and voice overs were familiar. I am really bad at it now,
and only cleared two levels :P What did I play with my last quarter? Frogger! Where on the 3rd level I
drown, pushed off the lilly pad by the edge of the screen without a passing log to jump onto.
That dreaded event, when the ball laughs at the flippers and rolls straight into the void:
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| Cornish Pasty Co.'s pastry of pork, potato, onion, & apple |
