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Published: October 15th 2010
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Woke up at about 7, packed our stuff, checked out and put our bags in the car. Headed back into the casino for a last gamble - which Scott lost 7 bucks and I pulled out the 5 I put in. Grabbed brekky at the same place as the previous day then headed out to see the famous Welcome to Vegas sign. It is that much of a tourist attraction that they have a car park in the middle of the road for it!! Took a few photos and headed out to Walmart Superstore for some supplies. Walmart was just massive, it contained not only groceries, but also clothing and homewares...it’s like if you combine Woolworths and big w into 1...plus add in a pharmacy and optometrist. Bought up on a few things we’d need for our hike in Grand Canyon and some other bits and pieces. Cereal in USA is just horrible; to try and find something plain and not sugary is sooo hard..They have every kind of sugary cereal you can think of - reeces pieces which is like chocolate and peanut butter, marshmallows, Oreos.......its nuts. Also good bread is hard to find, as theirs is sugary as well.
Whereas our fresh bread lasts only a few days, theirs lasts like 14 days. The best thing I did find there was strawberry peanut butter m &m’s....sooooo yummy!!!! I also had to go to the Optometrist as I’d snapped my glasses the day before and needed to see if they could fix it. As it turned out I’d broken the clasp, not just lost the pin. Luckily enough they had some frames they could put my lens into. The frame cost a whole $9 and looks remarkably similar to the frames I had.
- on our way to Hoover dam
Left Walmart and headed to Hoover Dam. There was some great scenery on the way to the Dam and we detoured briefly to see Lake Mead and get some photos. Got back on the main road, but there was a lot of traffic going in, so it was slow going. Even had to go through security check to enter the Dam, but our car was not searched. It is just such a big structure. Parked on one side, and walked across the dam wall to get to the visitor centre. Saw some long horned rams on the bottom of the
dam so that was cool. Wanted to do a Dam tour, but the next available one was at 2.30 which we didn’t have enough time for so did a power plant tour instead. We learnt that the Dam took 5 years to build and workers worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They only had 2 days off a year and got paid $4 a week. The way it was constructed was pretty cool won’t bore you with it, but took a mammoth amount of work. The concrete that is used in Hoover dam is enough to go around the equator at a width of 4 feet!! They have a power station at the bottom of the Dam, where they have 17 generators. Water gets funnelled into the generators and they spin to create power. If all 17 of them were going at full capacity, there would be enough energy to power 1.4 million homes. Two spillage areas were built on either side of the dam. They have only been used twice since it was built - once as a test and once I think they said about 10 years ago. In the photos of the dam you
Hoover Dam
When it flooded, the water was 4 feet above the white area!! will see a white line where the water has sat before. When water spilled over the spillage areas, the water sat 4 feet above that!! Once the tour was over, got some photos and headed back to the car at about 2pm.
It was about a 4 hour drive from Hoover Dam to Grand Canyon. We had some fantastic views along the way, which is hard to show in photos. Bought our 7 day park entry pass and found our lodge - Bright Angel Lodge. Checked in about 6.30 with just enough time to catch a glimpse of the canyon before it got dark. The rooms are nice, but quite small compared to what we had in Vegas. We have a toilet in the room, but showers are shared. There are rooms you can get that have showers, but they were all booked when we booked ours. But hey when your room is about 20 metres from the rim of the canyon you don’t really care about the room you’re in. Grabbed some dinner at the Bright Angel Restaurant, I had salad and Scott had Fajitas and then tried to get off to bed early as we had to be
up by 5am the next morning.
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