Saturday, July 07: Las Vegas to Grand Canyon
Hoover Dam
We slept in slightly this morning, then went down for a good hot breakfast at 8:30. We thought that it closed at 9, but on weekends it runs to 9:30, so we had plenty of time. Then I took a shower, and then shaved for the first time in about 4-5 days. We then packed up and left Las Vegas.
We stopped at the Hoover Dam. It was about 104 or so. Amy and Mike were melting, so they retired to the cafe. I went on the power house tour (I didn’t want to spend the time for the full tour). I’ve seen the pictures, but it was neat to see it up close and personal.
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I then met up with Amy and Mike, and we left the dam. Sort of. Since we were already at the edge of the dam, we figured it would be fastest to just drive over the dam. But then we found out that the road just goes to more parking lots. We had to turn around, drive back over the dam, and then drive over the big new bridge.
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After we got to route 66, which parallels a train track, we “raced” a train for a while, until we hit a slight upgrade and left the train behind.
We saw a number of other trains along the way; they were very common on this route. Eventually we got to the Hualapai Lodge, where we read a warning that the trains come by every 15 minutes, so you could get free ear plugs at registration.
We signed in, then signed in for tomorrow’s rafting trip (after a bit of a glitch when they didn’t have us listed--it turns out that we were filed under the 18th rather than the 8th). We had dinner, and then brought the rest of our luggage up to the room.
We need to hit the sack early tonight, as we need to get up at 6 tomorrow morning. The big question is what to wear/bring. The temperature should be over 100. On the other hand, the water should be about 50. We also can’t bring too much stuff, so it is not clear what we should bring / wear. Hopefully the guides will be there just before 7 tomorrow morning to, um..., guide us.
Also hopefully we will be able to sleep through train whistles tonight.