Nevada, Las Vegas - Thursday, October 30, 2014 - Lake Mead and Hoover Dam

Wednesday I tried a new recipe from Pillsbury.  They looked good and tasted good too.  It was suggested that these pot pies be baked in muffin cups, I opted for custard cups instead, glad I did they really puffed up.  You mix 1 c. chicken, 2 cups frozen vegetables (thawed), 1 can cream of chicken soup.  Press Grands biscuits into greased muffin cups, add 1/3 cup chicken mixture and bake at 375 degrees for 22-25 minutes.  I had a package of 5 biscuits and only 4 custard cups so I cut the extra one and put it on top.  The chicken mixture is meant to go along with one of the larger packages of biscuits so I had some left over, it should go well on baked potatoes.

 

 

Our destination today was Hoover Dam.

 

 

Our senior parks pass paid off again as we entered the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.  There are several scenic overlook spots along the way.

 

 

Nice picture of the bike at one of the overlooks.

After we left the overlook I decided to try to take some pictures while we were moving.  The mountains look even bigger when we are on the motorcycle.  Greg also mentioned that on a state highway there was no falling rock protection like there was on the interstate – well that made me feel betterJ.

This monument is one of the first things you see when you come in from the Nevada side.  Rubbing the toes of the statues is supposed to bring good luck – we’ll see.

 

 

 

 

 

This is Lake Mead formed when the dam was put up on the Colorado River.  We wonder what the division of colors on the rocks mean.

 

 

These intake towers pull water into the power plant.  One is on the Nevada side and one is on the Arizona side.  Each one has a clock on the tower.

 

 

 

 

This is the Nevada side of the dam.  It’s impossible to get a picture of the whole thing unless you are sitting in the middle of the Colorado River.  The enormity of this thing is just amazing.  See how small the people look at the top?  I was thinking about what the first day at work must have been like for the men who accomplished this --- “ok, now here is the plan”---what must have been going through their minds at that point?

View of the Arizona side.

 

A view over the edge, those are full sized pickup trucks down there.  Wonder if they ever think about the fact that they are wiped out if anything goes wrong with that dam?

 

 

The bridge over the Colorado River is an engineering miracle all by itself, see the semi that looks like a tiny toy?  It’s hard to show how big this is in a picture.

 

It looks like the visitors center area was updated in 1995.  We didn’t take any of the tours at $30 per person.  Even to get into the visitors area it was $10 per person.  It was a great day with any of the tours.

 

We had lunch at the High Scaler Café.  Good thing we saved our money by not taking the tours, lunch of two fish sandwiches, onion rings and small cokes was $34.  I have to admit the lunch was good, but I think that is a little pricey for a fish sandwich.

 

 

This statue was just outside the café.  Makes you wonder once again how all of this was accomplished.

 

On the way back home we drove through a nice looking RV park that is right on Lake Mead – Lake Mead RV Village, might have to try it next time we are out this way.