HOOVER DAM

Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Originally known as Boulder Dam from 1933, it was officially renamed Hoover Dam by a joint resolution of Congress in 1947. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. The dam was named after President Herbert Hoover. Hoover was the Secretary of the Interior and the head of planning when the dam was being built.

Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc., which began construction on the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned over the dam to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.

Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume (when it is full). The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction; nearly a million people tour the dam each year. 

Hoover Dam opened for tours in 1937 after its completion, but following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was closed to the public when the United States entered World War II, during which only authorized traffic, in convoys, was permitted. After the war, it reopened September 2, 1945, and by 1953, annual attendance had risen to 448,081. The dam closed on November 25, 1963 and March 31, 1969, days of mourning in remembrance of Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower. In 1995, a new visitors' center was built, and the following year, visits exceeded one million for the first time. The dam closed again to the public on September 11, 2001; modified tours were resumed in December and a new "Discovery Tour" was added the following year.Today, nearly a million people per year take the tours of the dam offered by the Bureau of Reclamation.  Increased security concerns by the government have led to most of the interior structure being inaccessible to tourists. 

We got there around 10:30 and bought tickets for the 1:00 tour.  As we entered, we were asked to pull over to a lane where security officers were standing.  We have a pick-up truck with a cover on the back and Mr. W had to open the cover.  You also have to go through a security check much like the airport as you enter the building.  Security is tight. It was spring break for the area and there were kids everywhere.  We did the "Dam Tour" which was $30 pp, but we figured this was probably the only time we would be visiting Hoover Dam so we might as well do the tour.  You can do just the Power Plant tour and actually reserve your time and buy your tickets ahead of time.  But, the Dam Tour cannot be reserved ahead of time. 

They allow about 20 people on each tour and as you ride the elevator to the middle of the dam, you are packed in on top of each other. Don't go if you are claustrophobic or if you have a problem being up close and personal with a bunch of strangers. 

Our tour guide was a young man, but he had studied up on the dam and was very knowledgeable and informative.  It takes about an hour to do the complete tour.

The Visitor's Center

Part of the Power Plant

The generators on the Nevada side

The tunnel built for tourists

The grates in the center had to be concreted in because back in the 30s, women dressed up to tour the dam.  Their high heels kept getting caught in the grates. 

A tunnel not meant for tourists but is now included in the tour.  There is a grate at the end of the tunnel and if you look out, you see..........

This!

Just in case the elevator breaks down

Looking at Lake Mead on the other side of the dam

RED ROCK CANYON NATIONAL CONSERVATION AREA

The Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in Nevada is an area managed by the Bureau of Land Management as part of its National Landscape Conservation System, and protected as a National Conservation Area. It is about 15 miles west of Las Vegas, and is easily seen from the Las Vegas Strip. More than two million people visit the area each year. It pays sometimes to be old.  We got in free with our senior pass.  The fee to enter is $15 per car for all others.

The conservation area showcases a set of large red rock formations: a set of sandstone peaks and walls called the Keystone Thrust. The walls are up to 3,000 feet high, making them a popular hiking and rock climbing destination. The highest point is La Madre Mountain, at 8,154 feet .

A one-way loop road, 13 miles long, provides vehicle access to many of the features in the area. Several side roads and parking areas allow access to many of the area trails. A visitor center is at the start of the loop road. The loop road is also popular for bicycle touring; it begins with a moderate climb, then is mostly downhill or flat.

Red Rock Canyon is a side-canyon accessible only by an unmaintained primitive road from the scenic loop which mostly only off-road or high clearance vehicles can access. State Route 159 cuts through an unnamed but often-visited valley; it is commonly, but mistakenly, referred to as Red Rock Canyon. The Wilson Cliffs, or Keystone Thrust, a massive wall of rock, can be seen to the west from SR 159.

Toward the southern end of the National Conservation Area are Spring Mountain Ranch State Park; Bonnie Springs, a replica of a western ghost town; and the village of Blue Diamond.

In the early 1900s, around the time the first European Americans settled in nearby Las Vegas, the Excelsior Company operated a small sandstone quarry near the northern area of the scenic loop. It proved to be uneconomical and was shut down. Evidence of the quarry's existence includes some of the huge sandstone blocks that have been left behind.

The Red Rocks have been a film location for such movies as Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger in Bells of San Angelo (1947) and was a location for The Stalking Moon with Gregory Peck in 1968.

In 1967, the Bureau of Land Management designated 10,000 acres  as the Red Rock Recreation Lands. By 1990, special legislation changed the status of the Red Rock Recreation Lands to a National Conservation Area, a status that also provides funds to maintain and protect it.

The Howard Hughes Corporation, developer of Summerlin, has transferred land adjacent to the protected area, to provide a buffer between development and the conservation area.

Can you see the climber? This is a popular location for rock climbers.

Our friends, Jim and Terri

Numerous petroglyphs, as well as pottery fragments, remain today throughout the area.

Another climber

METEOR CRATER

Mr. W read about Meteor Crater and routed us to make a stop by to see it on our way.  There is an RV park also named Meteor Crater.  They are some how tied together.  The RV park gives you a coupon to get $2 off the admission price and once you get to the crater, there are advertisements for the RV park.  The RV park is close to the crater.  It has gravel, flat, pull-thru sites.  It was $30 with a Good Sam discount.  It isn't a park that I would stay at for more than a day or two.  It was great for an overnight stay.  It was a little more than we like to spend nightly but there is nothing else close.

It is believed that 50,000 years ago a meteorite came hurtling at about 26,000 miles per hour into our atmosphere and it was on a direct collision course with Earth.  It was a huge iron-nickel meteorite, estimated to have been about 150 feet across and weighing several hundred thousand tons and it  struck the  ground with an explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT.  In a matter of seconds, a crater of 700 feet deep and over 4000 feet across was carved into the plain.

Prior to impact, less than a percent was lost due to atmospheric heating and ablation as it plummeted to Earth.  During impact, however, it is believed that a small percentage was vaporized, whereas the majority was melted.  Any meteorite material that did not vaporize or melt was intensely fragmented and either thrown out during excavation or mixed with the fragmented rock that remained in the crater.

To give you a better idea as to the crater's size, imagine 200 football games being played simultaneously on its floor, while more than two million spectators observe from its sloping sides.

From 1964 through 1972, the U. S. Geological Survey and NASA provided extensive science training at Meteor Crater for the Apollo astronauts. This training was particularly significant because scientists were extremely interested in what materials lay on the lunar surface as well as what was beneath the surface.  Astronauts still train there today.  Meteor Crater has sustained relatively little removal of material since it's formation 50,000 years ago. The crater walls have only been slightly modified by erosion and, in places, still exhibit some of the original fallout from the debris cloud.  Most of the craters on Earth have been leveled by erosion.  Although there are many larger terrestrial impact sites, Meteor Crater is the first proven and best preserved impact site on Earth.

The center has a short film that is very informative and some great displays.  The cost for seniors is $14 pp.  It was pretty informative and some place that I'm glad I visited.

Notice how small the people are

Flat land on the other side of the building

I love seeing our flag flying

Mr. W got the shirt to prove he had visited the crater

WINSLOW, ARIZONA

Raise your hand if you like The Eagles and their music?  Well, who doesn't, right?  So, what self-respecting Eagles loving teenager of the 70s wouldn't want to purposely go to Winslow, Arizona so they could stand on a corner?  That is exactly what I have been looking forward to doing when we planned this trip.

Want to know some trivia about that line in the song? Glen Frey and Jackson Browne lived in the same apartment complex in Echo Park, a part of Los Angles. Glen Frey was Jackson Browne's upstairs neighbor. Glen Frey was desperately looking for new songs that his newly formed band, The Eagles, could play.  He heard Jackson Browne working on this song and asked Jackson Browne if The Eagles could sing it because Glen thought it was great.  Jackson told Glen that he was stuck and couldn't finish the song.  He told Glen to take it and finish it and then the band could have the song.  The only line that was missing was furnished by Frey and the line was "It's a girl my Lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me."

Glen finished it, the Eagles recorded it, and it was their first single off their first album.  The name of the song is Take It Easy. Glen Frey had often said that Jackson Browne gave him credit as the co-author of the song even though he only wrote one line. He described Jackson giving him the unfinished song as giving him a package with the only thing missing is the ribbon.  What a great present it was.

Anyway, because of the line I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, Winslow, Arizona has managed to revive itself.  It was a thriving, busy city on Route 66 when the song came out.  But, with the opening of I-40, Winslow was by-passed and business literally stopped. A committee was formed to capitalize on the line in the song and to develop some sort of park built around the song. However, there has been some controversy as to whether the corner is real and if it is really in Winslow.  Browne already had the lines about Winslow, Arizona when he gave the song to Frey. He told Frey that he’d had car trouble and broken down there on one of his trips to Sedona. He spent a long day in Winslow. But the town has established the Standin' On The Corner park in downtown Winslow.

The park opened in 1999 and it was the Renaissance of Winslow with hundreds of tourists coming to stand on the corner on their way to somewhere else.  The park has a statue of a guy, holding a guitar, a flatbed Ford truck, and after Glen Frey died, they placed a statue of him in the park.  The park also hosts a festival each year. They have Eagles' music playing from all of the stores around the park and those same stores sell lots and lots of Take It Easy and Eagles "stuff."  I got the t-shirt to prove it! 

It was a fun place to visit! Now I can't get the song out of my head!

I was .........

It's a guy, My Lord, by a flatbed Ford, and I think he is looking at me!

Ron with Glen Frey

Got the t-shirt

MAGNOLIA MARKET

We are back on the road for about 2 months.  We are excited!  California, here we come.  However, we will make a couple of stops along the way.  So, stay tuned!

Who doesn't love Fixer Upper?  I love that show! I also love Chip and Joanna.  If you read anything at all about them and their lives, they are great people.  I know someone who had a friend who bought a house in that area and appeared on Fixer Upper.  This person said that what you see on TV is what you get with them in real life.  Refreshing.

We left March 19th and decided to stop in Waco, Texas to see Chip and Joanna's Magnolia Market. They bought 2 abandoned silos in Waco and turned them into a "market" compound.  It really was pretty amazing and it definitely had Joanna's touch everywhere.

We went on a Monday hoping to avoid it being crowded.  We arrived around 1:00 and we had to search for a place to park.  They have free parking on 8th street in a parking lot that is attached to the silos.  However, you don't see the sign for the free parking until after you have passed the silos and you can't see the parking lot from the front.  So, if you go, don't pay in the parking lots close by.  Drive to the one on 8th street.

When you go through the gates, there are food trucks all around the perimeter of the grounds.  I didn't know they had these so we ate lunch before we went.  The prices of most of the food was pretty reasonable and they had a pretty good variety.  There was one truck that sold "Alabama Sweet Tea".  There was a l-o-n-g line waiting there when we got there.  While I was shopping, Mr. W checked it out.  They were selling ice tea (sweet, unsweet, half/half) in the small size mason jar (they were plastic) for $8. What???? Obviously, most people did not have a problem with that because the line was not much shorter when we left.

I had heard that most of the merchandise in the silos was over priced and it was.  There is a sale table which always saves the day. :)

The transformation of the silos was amazing.  I loved it.  I don't think everyone else "got the memo" to have other plans and don't come here on a Monday.  There were a lot of people there!  I did find a few things on the sale table for gifts for Daughter and DIL and a few things for me.  Thank goodness they have a FedEx station set up right by the registers! And, if you spend $100, they pay for the shipping. They paid for my shipping.  But, ssshhhh, don't tell Mr. W.

Shopping always makes me hungry.  So, after shopping, I made a straight beeline to the bakery.  There was a line around the side of the building. Wow.  The line did move fairly fast.  They have 2 workers who pass out order forms and pencils to everyone standing in line.  The form describes each cup cake and a few other delicacies they offer.  You fill out what you want. When you enter, you give your order form to the cashier, pay for your order, and then wait for them to call your name.  They hand you your "goodies" and away you go. I ordered a cupcake, The Classic, which was chocolate cake with a vanilla butter cream icing and a cinnamon roll for myself and Mr. W ordered a cupcake, Toasted Coconut, for him.  The cinnamon roll was for my breakfast the next day.  They - were - awesome.

After the bakery, we decided to call it a day.  I had not been to Waco in 40 years.  It has changed.  It is a great size town and the land is really pretty.  It reminds me a lot of the hill country in Texas. I think it has been a well kept secret that is about to get out.  If you are in the area, go visit..

Look at all those shoppers!

The line around the side of the bakery.

Yummy!

P. S. - We stayed at Midway COE Park.  It is a very nice park on Lake Waco.  They have some full hook-up sites, but most were water/electricity only.  We reserved ours early enough to get full hook-ups.  With our senior discount, we paid a whopping $14 for the night. The water/electricity sites would have been $12. It does pay to get old in some cases!