Just
the Right Amount of Wrong?
The
Trip – Day 7
Hurricane,
Utah – Valle, Arizona
Las
Vegas, Hoover Dam
381
miles
This day was to be primarily a heavy driving day. The Grand Canyon, our next national park stop, required some back-tracking, so we had planned to drive southwest from Hurricane, around Las Vegas, and then turn east into northern Arizona and continue to the small town of Valle, 30 miles south of the south rim of the Grand Canyon. As we left Hurricane in the early morning, I thought it would be fun to drive through Las Vegas rather than skirt around it, to drive down the iconic Las Vegas Strip just to say we had done it. Las Vegas was a small town (by New York and Chicago standards) and going through it shouldn't take much longer than looping around it. Neither my husband nor I had ever been to Vegas, our only familiarity with it being the movie Ocean's Eleven, the George Clooney/Brad Pitt/Matt Damon remake of a Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin/Sammy Davis, Jr. classic. My husband agreed to drive the Strip while I took some photos of the Bellagio out the car window to send to our youngest daughter, a big fan of the George Clooney Ocean's Eleven.
Approaching Las Vegas |
Our
drive along Interstate 15 got more deserty-looking as we approached
Las Vegas. The city appeared in the distance, looking smaller and
less gaudy than I had imagined (but, then, I have seen both New
York's Time Square and the Wisconsin Dells...). I had carefully
planned to drive through Vegas just past the morning rush hour, so I
thought, not realizing that leaving Utah for Nevada would move us to
an hour earlier, from the Mountain to the Pacific time zone briefly
before we would be back again in the Mountain time zone when we
entered Arizona. Needless to say, the traffic on the Las Vegas Strip
was bumper to bumper, making for both excellent picture taking and an
understandably crabby driver. The buildings and billboards and
architecture of the city seemed surreal, like a caricature of itself
to two people who had never seen it before (one of whom was presently
not really seeing any more of it than the back of the car in front of
him). We passed the Cosmopolitan, and I pondered what their
television ad campaign - “Just the right amount of wrong” - said
about the city as a whole. When we finally moved beyond the Strip
and were heading back to the interstate, we passed by a young man
walking aimlessly along the sidewalk, randomly throwing traffic cones
into the lanes of oncoming traffic. Somehow it didn't seem that out
of place, though I did think he had exceeded the right amount of
wrong...
The Bellagio |
The Cosmopolitan |
Approaching Lake Mead |
Back
on the road heading east into Arizona, we came upon another “surprise
The Hoover Dam from the walkway |
adventure”. In all my trip planning, I somehow missed that the
Hoover Dam was on the route toward the Grand Canyon. The sprawling
blue of Lake Mead appeared ahead of us, then a sign for the Hoover
Dam viewing area. Of course, we turned off the highway and headed
for the viewing area, needing something to cleanse our retinas of the
sights of the city we had just gone through. The Hoover Dam was just
the thing. After days of seeing God-created wonders, the man-made
wonders of Vegas were decidedly underwhelming, but the man-made dam
was an impressive sight. A viewing walkway and information area had
been built overlooking the dam, parallel to the highway. It was
extremely windy that day, so strong that I felt I finally knew what
it meant to be blown off one's feet. The viewing walkway had high
railings, so there was no danger of being blown over the rail, but we
had to hold onto the railings to pull ourselves along the walkway
against the wind. The effort, however, was worth it. The Colorado
River, which we had first seen flowing through Glenwood Canyon in
Colorado, in Grand Junction, and would see the next day twisting
through the Grand Canyon, was here held back by the huge dam,
creating the very blue and enormous Lake Mead, the largest reservoir
in the United States by volume. Built during the Great Depression
for flood control, irrigation and hydroelectric power, the Boulder
Dam, renamed for President Herbert Hoover, was also a major roadway
until 2010 when the Hoover Dam Bypass was completed, much to the
relief of travelers who could be delayed for several hours in the
traffic congestion crossing the popular tourist attraction.
Hoover Dam and walkway panorama photo |
We
continued on after the dam through the arid land of northern Arizona
to the small (Tiny!) town of Valle, an easy drive from the south rim
of the Grand Canyon. Valle consisted of a gas station, a convenience
store, a Flintstone-themed campground, an airport (!) and our “hotel”
complex, a neat but rustic, bare-boned western-themed collection of
inn and motel rooms. Our outside-entrance second-floor motel room
had a painting on the door of Clint Eastwood from one of his
spaghetti westerns. The room was “quaint”, but it was clean and
close to where we were heading the next day.
Our room for the night |
This
morning I came, I saw and I was conquered, as everyone would be who
sees for the first time this great feat of mankind.
-
President Franklin Roosevelt, at the dedication of the Boulder
(Hoover) Dam, September 30, 1935
You
of all people should know, Terry, in your hotel, there's always
someone watching.
-
Tess (Julia Roberts) to Terry (Andy Garcia), owner of the Bellagio,
Ocean's
Eleven
Next:
Grand!
The
Trip – Day 8
The
Grand Canyon
48
miles
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