We go to Las Vegas enough to know the drill: never go in August when temperatures and tourists are peaking and always stay on the Strip to be sure you're in the center of the action. But there we were at a condo resort on Duke Ellington Way in the middle of August in 106 degree heat. Then, for a Las Vegas show, we headed for Cashman Field to sit with the Minor League scouts and watch our Reno Aces win 5-to-1 over the Las Vegas 51s. AAA Baseball at its best.
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| Minor League Scouts at Work |
Obviously, this wasn't your typical Las Vegas Vacation. This trip wasn't about America's adult playground; instead, we were headed down the road to visit America's first National Recreation Area. (OK, we did check out some new buffets and, despite some good competition, the Bellagio still holds its #1 ranking.)
At Lake Mead, we drove the scenic Lakeshore Drive from Las Vegas Bay down to Hemenway Harbor and the effects of 10 years of poor ski conditions in Colorado became apparent with the gap between the high water mark and the current level. I thought this white band was caused by the leaching of the color from the rocks, but it's just a bathtub ring of minerals left on the rocks by the shrinking lake.
At the marina we boarded the stern wheel paddle boat, Desert Princess (sister ship to Tahoe's own M.S. Dixie) and set out for the Hoover Dam. The Colorado river passes through Black Canyon in a backward S direction so that you can't see the dam from the water until you're almost right up on it, so everyone was anticipating the view as we rounded the bend.
It was a little bit of a disappointment. From the lake side of the dam you can see the top of the dam, the new bridge behind it and the four intake towers. With the water level being down, it looked to me like a prison wall with guard towers.
The other side of the dam was considerably more impressive. We took the road, originally used by the workers, down to the base of the dam and it was quite a ride. At one hairpin turn we had to stop and back up before we could continue down the very steep road. Descending this road in a 1930's double-decker bus must have been fun. At the base we were met by our raft guide who made the trip a lot of fun. We had tremendous views of the dam, the two sets of matched outlet channels and the power plant. It was quite a contrast from the lake side view.
Hoover DamWe floated downstream for only a short distance before we turned a bend and the dam disappeared. We saw power boats coming up stream but there must be signs limiting their access because they all stopped and turned around before they reached the point where they could actually see the dam. The river from this point down is calm water and becomes Lake Mojave due to the Davis Dam just north of Laughlin.
Finally we toured the dam itself. The Hoover Dam is one of the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World and there are dozens of documentaries about its history, construction, and operation, and I have nothing to add except to say that I did get an answer to the basic question, Is it the Hoover Dam or the Boulder Dam?
The simple answer is that it's officially the Hoover Dam by a 1947 Act of Congress. But actually, neither name is appropriate. The original plan was to build the dam in the Boulder Canyon and the project was called that, but after the catastrophic collapse of the St Vincent Dam in Los Angeles, the engineers reconsidered their decision and, for a number of reasons, decided that Black Canyon was a better site. At the ground-breaking ceremonies, Hoover's Interior Secretary surprised everyone by announcing that the dam would be known as Hoover Dam. Other dams in the west were named after presidents but the decision to name one after the sitting president caused some concern even among Hoover supporters, who thought this was setting a bad precedent. And then when the dam was completed during the Roosevelt administration, his Interior Secretary claimed that Hoover had opposed the dam when Coolidge approved it and only became enthusiastic about it when it was named after him. So they dedicated the completed dam as Boulder Dam for its original site. Today, despite Congress, there still remains disagreement on which name to use, but personally, I would have gone with a third option: Black Canyon Dam.
While we were exploring the dam, I had a strange experience. I noticed the time and realized that it was just about this same time that our cruise had reached the dam the day before, so I walked up to where I could best view Lake Mead and, sure enough, around the bend came the Desert Princess. This was a really pleasant surprise and I shot dozens of pictures and was telling everyone all about it. Later we stopped at the Lake Mead overlook and actually saw her returning to port.
Desert Princess Returning to PortBut, back at the dam, as the paddle wheeler was departing, I crossed the road to take pictures of the dam from above. As I was standing right at the top and center of the dam, I looked down and I spotted our float trip raft heading out onto the river. I turned around and looked at the Desert Princess and then turned back again toward our raft. Now, I'm too much of a skeptic to buy into Jung's synchronicity theory but standing in the middle of this near-perfect symmetry seemed to be just too much of a coincidence. I had a little shiver and wondered if anyone I knew was onboard either vessel.
Nevada Railroad Museum
With our trip to the Boulder City Railroad Museum, we completed our tour of Nevada's three railroad museums. Each one has displays of railroad history and all three have rolling stock. The Boulder City railroad runs on what remains of the track laid specifically to supply materials to the Hoover Dam site. It's a very small portion and most of the right-of-way is now a popular hiking trail. There are plans to expand the route but only in the direction away from the dam. Rail service from Boulder City to Hoover Dam would be fantastic but just isn't possible.
Earlier this summer we visited the museum in Ely. This is the most extensive of the three sites with a complete train station and two routes for their excursions. This was a mining railroad operation and the excursions take you out to the mining areas where modern day copper mining is still in operation. They use those giant earth-movers and it was like being in a science fiction movie when we saw one of these monsters appear above the crest of the hill, lifting its load high in the air and dropping earth and rocks and boulders the size of automobiles down the hillside adding to the huge mound of tailings.
The Carson City museum is the headquarters but it's the smallest of the three with cramped exhibits and a train that simply circles the grounds. Up the road, however, is the Virginia & Truckee railroad, the "Queen of the Short Lines." This line operates today between Carson City and historic Virginia City and has the added bonus of virtually guaranteeing sightings of wild horses since both the steam engine and the horses rely on the natural spring at American Flats for fresh water.
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Lake Mead and Hoover Dam
Lake Mead and Hoover Dam
