I was waken up around 6am by the Park Ranger and had to be out of thr north rim by 7. The roads were packed with snow, and the sun the day before melted the snow and overnight it hardened to ice. My sunfire was up to the challenge. Downhill with ice wasn't as easy as uphill with just snow, but I only managed to get her sideways two times. I was off to the south rim 200 hundred miles away through the desert.
I was out of the park and into the Kaibab national forest for the sunrise. I passed a fire tower and had to see if I could climb it. I was able to, but wasn't allowed to get inside at the top. It was many stories high, and the wind was incredible. The sunrise was amazing, but the wind on the small landing made it awkward and scary.
There was so much desert between the north and south rim. I was so bored seeing the same cliffs. A had to take a tiny excursion to see DINOSAUR tracks of course.
If they weren't filled with water they would have been really hard to make out. Can you beleive they still have definition after so long?
I love when cellphone towers are camouflaged.
This tower kind f stood out as it was about a hundred miles between any other pines. The cliffs just kept coming, and the road changed directions so many times to see the same cliffs.
I challenged myself to give the Grand Canyon a try. Of course they are beautiful. With all the hype, I expected more. The view wasn't that wonderful, the pictures turned out to have contrast and color, but what I was seeing in person was a transparent beige over everything. The sky and canyon blended into one gray color. It was spectacular to see people come to the rim to take four pictures, with out looking at the canyon except through their camera, then leave 30 seconds later. Compared to the light and colors of Zion National Park I wasn't impressed, but even I gazed at the 10 mile across hole in the ground for over ten minutes.
You have to drive a lot to get to any vistas of the canyon, pines and brush cover the rim and lookouts were cul-de-sacs away from the main road. Along the road were any of these stacks of pine branches. I don't know what purpose they had, but they were interesting. I bet no one elese even noticed them everyone is so in awe at not being in awe at the canyon.
I came from the back entrance and that view was by far the best. This is the grand view area. I did see a California Condor though. They are amazingly large.
As I got out of the Grand Canyon the scenery flattened and added different types of hills every so often. Hills that just looked like bunches or rock piles, and Juniper as far as the eye can see.
Whatever the plants were along the roadside were blooming. They were a magnificent green and yellow with white fluffy seeds.
The Mojave desert was littered with trailers, campers, and junk.
Joshua trees were a pleasant change, cactus were hunkered to the soil.
There were a lot of people for being the desert, but they had their own really large landfill.
The valley floor had endless trailers and small homes glistening in the sun.
The highway to the Hoover Dam had construction of a bypass so that commercial trucks could travel to Las Vegas easier and have a shorter route. The evening sun created a pink movie on the cliffs behind me.
The Hoover Dam was a pretty amazing structure. I always thought it just looked engineered, but it had a lot of art deco architecture and details.
The road leading to the dam has so many hairpin turns and is too narrow for trucks, and I bet the threat of having possible things that could damage the dam kept them away as well. Cops were stationed before the river was vsible to spot check for I don't know what. They jut glanced.
I bet if you were willing to get arrested this would be the best hill for a sled. Its such a gentle slide and you would ram into the river. I bet the current would take you under, but man would it be fun.
The towers you see on the main structure...are bathrooms. The women's bathroom had an art deco green interior and golden doors. The men's had black.
A very art deco sculpture was horribly placed beside the dam. It looked like it had just been pooped out there.
Once it was dark I had to leave the dam. I passed Boulder City (the original namesake of the dam) and once I got over a hill there they were. The power that was made from the dam went to a street light every ten feet over the entire Las Vegas metro area. It was amazing, like those christmas light for bushes that you just lay over the top of to create a grid of lights.
I bet this sign has changed so much over the years. Graffiti, bulbs on fire.
The older Las Vegas casinos showed their age compared to the new gaudy touristy ones.
Before they were just pretty lights on a regular looking building.
The newer ones were themed with Paris, New York, Greece, the space needle, they looked like Disneyland theme parks.
I can't imagine how many homes the dam was supposed to power compared to how many it actually does now. This city is either the dream or nightmare of a person with ADD. If you're prone to seizures, you'd better not drive through yourself.
Chippendale's, Carrot Top, Celen Dion, that magician guy, and others, strip shows. There is so much to do here but if you don't know exactly what you came for you would have no idea what to do. The city really stressed me out, the drivers are dicks, there are so many people everywhere, I had no idea where to go or what to do.
Why they didn't make this castle larger I don't understand.
I miss everyone. I so much closer to my destination than I realize. I wish you could all be seeing what I'm seeing. I'd trade this trip for what I had lost back home in a heartbeat.
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