More Hoover Dam!

This area of southern Nevada is an amazing testament to the engineering and tenacity of the builders in the early 1930’s.  We encountered so many foreign visitors who were so amazed at the accomplishments of our forefathers (and mothers).

Hoover dam from the new bridge

I wonder if they had any idea that the wonderful, bountiful Colorado River, would be so stressed less than a hundred years from their legacy?  You can see from the dissipation of the river feed into the Mead Lake, how far the water table had dropped.  It is really amazing to view in real time.

Water abatement

One of the rangers here told me, we don’t have any snowpack in the mountains any more.  It shows year after year.

More news from the sunshine state tomorrow!

Lake Mead and Hoover Dam

After exploring the RV campground at Lake Mead on a day trip from LV, we decided life is too short not to take advantage of the good things in life.

Cisco in Lake Mead

Lake Mead campground

That would be:  small campground in a national recreation site, crystal blue water, and spectacular hillsides.

Lake Mead

Since we had no interest in spending huge dollars to game or see shows in LV, why hang there?

We’ve taken in the small burg of Boulder City (the dam was almost named Boulder Dam), enjoyed playing with Cisco in the water, and gaped with thousands of tourists at the huge marvel of Hoover Dam.  Construction of the dam began in 1931 and was completed in 1935.  When you look at the massive structure, it is difficult to believe that the technical skillbase existed to contruct such a behemouth back in the 1930’s.

So we’re spending 3 wonderful nights in this region.  The temps have been in the 70’s, with cool nights, and amazing displays of stars.  We are discussing coming back next winter and spending a month.

John & Cisco

What happens in Las Vegas….

OMG!  We escaped the brutal north.  Maija Eerkes texted me that they left for the ski hill with the temp on their dash at 1 degree F.  Shees!!  OK if you are coming out of a warm condo, but brutal for camping.

Anyway, we sojurned south about 250 miles per day until we hit a temp on our car of 65 degrees outdoors.

Really is warmer in LV

Now that we can handle! Softies that we are, even with heat in the trailer, waking up to ice on the inside of your windows is not my idea of a happening winter vacation!

The route we took today from Ely, NV to Las Vegas was gorgeous.  small, well-maintained state highways (93 and 318)  brought us through every type of teerrain.  We began with short scrub, and traveled trough valleys of several types of cactus, all indigenous to their locale.

Great drive through the canyons

Well, here we are in Vegas–and you know what they say about Vegas?…….  We visited Lake Mead today–flippin gorgeous blue water.  We’ll probably stay here in this RV park one more night (sure is nice not to have to pick up and move), but get down to the  awesome blue waters tomorrow to camp for a few days.

 

Bar Gernika

We now have rain and wonder what it portends for our travel to Sun Valley for skiing.  Hmmm….  But all is not lost.  We are on the gorgeous Snake River and traveled into Boise for an off leash dog park experience (high on Military Hill overlooking the city of 200,000).  Then headed to a disappointing RV show (no Airstreams or Mercedes Sprints).

Finally, we traipsed into the Basque area of Boise, to savor the most wonderful lamb sandwich in a little corner pub named, “Bar Gernika” (as the Basques spell it).  We began discussing what the name implied, including Pablo Picasso’s painting of the same name.  The town was made famous as a result of a horrific bombing  during the Spanish war (1936-39).  Joan Baez also sang a quite well-known song during the 60’s about Guernica:

In Guernica the dead children were layed out in order on the sidewalk
In their white starched dresses
In their pitiful white dresses
On their foreheads and breasts the little round holes where death came in as thunder while they were playing their important summer games
Do not weep for them, Madre
They are gone forever, the little ones
Straight to heaven to the saints
And God will fill the bullet holes with candy

Read more: Joan Baez – In Guernica Lyrics | MetroLyrics

John in the Bar Gernika

La Grande to where?

Holly ?#$!  We did cross some mountains from La Grande,

Lake Wallowa

and snowing to boot, coming into Idaho.  Aren’t we supposed to be in Arizona right now?  We came here to SKI???  Well, we are happy here outside of Boise on the Snake River.  We’ll be here for a couple of days, avoiding the crowds for MLK at Sun Valley, and check with friends, Al and Maija to see how the snow/rain is on Tuesday.

Teresa & Cisco on the Lake

There are so many ranches of angus beef and onions!  Mmmm, had some of that in Joseph!…  There is so much history here along the Oregon Trail.  The national forests we passed through was the Wallowa/Whitman National Forest.  I wondered where the name Whitman came from–maybe the famous author?  No, the first woman to pass throught this mountain pass on the Oregon Trail.  Live and learn!  As we pass some of the old homesteads, I can imagine the hardship and cold the people living in those dwellings would have endured.  But every generation lives better than the past–right?

Cisco on the Snake

Tucson bound–January 2015

We packed up the airstream and headed out for another winter get-away a few days ago.  We returned to our favorite RV park (Wine Country RV) in Prosser to spend night 1 and hook up with resident buddy, Tim Vining.  True to his name, he does grow grapes, but his real “job” is real estate appraiser. On nights 2 and 3 we stayed in La Grande, Oregon, one of the windiest towns I’ve visited since Casper, Wyoming.

The highlight of the trip so far has been the day trip we took today to Joseph, Oregon.  What a cool little town, very close to the spectacular Lake Wallawa.  We popped into galleries that featured the local, and famous, bronze scultures made there, enjoyed a fab angus hamburger, and started to make noises about returning to camp in the summer and visit the foundry there.

Chief Joseph

Bronze horses

Old Chief Joseph died there in the late 1800’s after rejecting the government offer to take 90% of the Nez Perce land with no compensation.  His memorial is a short walk from Lake Wallawa, surrounded by the beautiful mountains his people used to hunt, fish and live.  His son, Young Chief Joseph, smoked a peace pipe, according to my grandfather, with my great grandmother when she lived in the hills of the Palouse.

Old Chief Joseph burial site