Arizona through to Nevada

A number of years ago we flew into Phoenix, Arizona to watch Tina Turner in concert (yes it was amazing). While there we took a drive around Flagstaff and Holbrook for the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. Despite having visited them before we decided that we should visit both those places again – in a more leisurely way.

First things first, the winds in Arizona build during the day and most seem to be from the south or south west, as we travelled from east to west on Interstate 40 it made for some interesting comments from me, most not repeatable, and resulted in even more finger marks in the steering wheel.

Holbrook was our first stop so that we could drive through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, very little of this brought back any memories, we think that may have been that we took the reverse route to our first visit, so every view was different, yet still amazing. The campground was really different, not the usual ‘enclosed’ area, but RV hookup sites on city streets, really odd, and all gravel.

The next stop was Kingman with a small detour through Winslow on the old Route 66, not much to see except for the statue “Standin’ on the corner in Winslow Arizona” Eagles – Take it easy 1972.

We noticed that in Arizona the dry riverbeds are washes, and normally named after someone or something, so we saw Frees Wash, Griffiths Wash and Rattlesnake Wash, all fairly normal then we passed Holy Moses Wash still not sure what is was named after. Our first trip from here was over the pass and mountain roads to Oatman and on the way stop at Cool Springs Station and Museum, a really quaint and quirky place. Check out the rest room picture, and see if you can find the face in the rocks.

Oatman is an old gold mining town, which is now a serious tourist attraction. We had no idea there would be Burros and Donkeys roaming the street looking for alfalfa feed sold to tourists to feed them. Not a fun trip for Rusty, an old timer said that if a Burro came at Rusty that we should go into the nearest shop for safety and tell the owner, who would go out and chase the animal away with some kind of spray. Needless to say that combined with the heat made for a short stay.

Lake Havasu City was next on the agenda, a short 70 mile drive through the desert. London Bridge is not falling down here; the structure is all new inside with the original London Bridge bricks forming a cladding on the new concrete, still looks really good. It was a very long time ago that I saw the original in place over the Thames in London, must have been 5 or 6 years old. We ate on the veranda of the Javelina Cantina overlooking the bridge and lake, pet friendly, really great food and nice views, the best so far. We took a walk over the bridge to look at the shops on the other side, not much to see, another day over, another one ticked off the list.

Arizona was behind us as we headed into Nevada, again gusting winds made the crossing over the new Hoover Dam or the Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge real fun, don’t look now we’ll come back later.

Again the Boulder City campground, Canyon Trail RV Park, was all gravel and blacktop, no fun for Rusty, we managed to find a nice park, the Veterans Memorial Park real grass and lots of it, and he was in doggy heaven.

Boulder City is really quite interesting with its Historical District full of great eating places and its huge memorial park, the Interstate 11 bypass may not be good for the town once completed. We drove through Las Vegas to the Red Rock Canyon loop, really amazing views. Las Vegas was heaving, even though it was mid week so we decided to see it from the car.

Eldorado Canyon was next on the list with the Techatticup Gold Mine, now a tourist stop on the way to nowhere, well it went to the Colorado River but not much else down that road. Just before we saw the mine in the distance 3 Mountain Goats ran across the road, and stopped about 250 yards away in the hills, time to test the new zoom lens, then the issue of taking out the regular lens and putting in the new one while keeping and eye on the mirror, luckily there was no traffic.

We waited until the last few days before we visited the Hoover Dam. The dam was originally called The Boulder Dam, until it was officially renamed The Hoover Dam in 1947, some of the facts and statistics are mind blowing – 45 million pounds of reinforcement steel had gone into what was then the tallest dam in the world, and 6.6 million tons of concrete. We toured the power plant inside the dam, really worth taking the time to learn more about the turbines and power generation.

Once we’d been on and inside the dam, we really needed to go up to the new bridge to look at the dam from another perspective, well I did, Connie and Rusty do not like heights.

Tomorrow we leave Boulder City for Kanab, Utah.

One Comment on “Arizona through to Nevada

  1. Looks amazing- so varied but I realise a huge number of miles are covered. Been up to my eyes in the Art trail which has now finished, four sales later!

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