Friday in Las Vegas
This morning after breakfast at the Cracked Egg on the west side of Las Vegas, we decided to go over to Lake Mead which, of course, is on the direct opposite side of the city. Surprisingly enough, we took Lake Mead Blvd which runs directly across the entire city from west to east and ends up at Lake Mead (gee, I wonder why they named it the Lake Mead Blvd).
Crossing from the west side to the east is like going through a microcosm of the social strata of Las Vegas. I'll leave it to your imagination which is the better side. When you leave the city limits of Las Vegas, you immediately cross into the desert and the stark landscape for which Nevada is noted. Climbing over the pass, you can see the blue-green patch of Lake Mead in the distance. It has really dropped over the past years. This can be noted by the Las Vegas Cove boat launch which is about a half mile from the nearest water.
We had not come into Lake Mead from the north side for many years and it was fun driving through the desert and seeing the various park areas. As Vi mentioned, our National Park pass has come in very handy over the years. Where the water level was closer to shore, the boat traffic was very busy, even though the temperature was 105 degrees.
In the distance you can see what the water level used to be - it's like a giant bathtub ring. Climbing out of the Lake Mead area, we went through Boulder City. This was the city built at the time of the construction of Hoover Dam and housed all the workers. When heading south out of Las Vegas, you used to have to travel through the center of town, but the construction of the new I-11 eliminates that hassle. So now you can travel through the city leisurely without the traffic. Fun making the round robin trip which we ended by coming into Las Vegas through the south on Las Vegas Blvd (another aptly named street).
Headed back to Bally's for lunch. Because of the aforementioned hackers' convention, we have decided to not stick around for the dinner on Saturday evening, but rather head home on Saturday. It's just too crowded. We plan on heading north via a new route. I wanted to check out the big city of Rachel, NV. It's gotten quite a bit of publicity lately because of the "Storm Area 51" gathering publicized on Facebook for September.
Crossing from the west side to the east is like going through a microcosm of the social strata of Las Vegas. I'll leave it to your imagination which is the better side. When you leave the city limits of Las Vegas, you immediately cross into the desert and the stark landscape for which Nevada is noted. Climbing over the pass, you can see the blue-green patch of Lake Mead in the distance. It has really dropped over the past years. This can be noted by the Las Vegas Cove boat launch which is about a half mile from the nearest water.
We had not come into Lake Mead from the north side for many years and it was fun driving through the desert and seeing the various park areas. As Vi mentioned, our National Park pass has come in very handy over the years. Where the water level was closer to shore, the boat traffic was very busy, even though the temperature was 105 degrees.
Headed back to Bally's for lunch. Because of the aforementioned hackers' convention, we have decided to not stick around for the dinner on Saturday evening, but rather head home on Saturday. It's just too crowded. We plan on heading north via a new route. I wanted to check out the big city of Rachel, NV. It's gotten quite a bit of publicity lately because of the "Storm Area 51" gathering publicized on Facebook for September.
Comments
Post a Comment