This is snow-covered Mt. Charleston just outside of Las Vegas. It makes for a nice contrast from the barren desert.
We crossed the new bridge that was recently opened to bypass Hoover Dam.
The bridge is 890 feet above the Colorado River and is the highest and longest (2,000 feet long) arched concrete bridge in the Western Hemisphere. It is the second highest bridge in the USA.
There is an elaborate access to a walkway that is the full length of the bridge on the dam-side of the structure so we could get a good look at Hoover Dam. We walked about half-way out and took pictures.
This is Hoover Dam from the bridge walkway.
There is also several display boards of how the bridge was built.
The bridge has been named the Mike McCallahan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. Mike McCallahan was a govenor of Nevada and Pat Tillman, an American soldier was killed in the Iraqi war.
After walking out on the bridge, we went a little further on and we were able to see Lake Meade from a nearby view point.
Then we drove down to nearby Willow Beach.
Willow Beach is one of the places that Don used to go with his Dad to fish back some 27 years ago. He has been telling me stories from those trips for years so he wanted to stop by and reminisce.
We planned to have lunch in the old restaurant that he used to go to down there. Time to relive the good ‘ol days.
Well, the Colorado River was still there…
…but the old restaurant and that housed so many memories had been torn down and in it’s place, a huge blacktopped parking lot and a large brick building that still smelled new. They told us there would be a restaurant there in a month or so.
Don was rather depressed at the loss. We went back to the motorhome and had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. It was not quite the same…
That night we had a great time at dinner with our good friend, Mason Safa. Mason used to work for Don at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles. Mason has lived here in Las Vegas for several years now. He also works for the company that did the engineering on the Hoover Dam bridge.
He has recently bought a beautiful new house that he showed us. He is doing a lot of upgrading work on it in his spare time. It was really great to see him and spend a little time with him.
Our seven-year-old grandson, CJ, is totally into NASCAR racing and there was a big race in Las Vegas the weekend we were there. Someone told us that there would be practice races on Friday and going in to watch would be free.
Well, we are not NASCAR people, but for the opportunity to get some pictures for CJ, and since the price was right, we went. It was rather impressive…and LOUD!!
We were also allowed into the infield, which made taking pictures more interesting.
It’s really hard to photograph cars going by at a couple hundred miles per hour, but I managed to catch a few of them.
You will have to ask CJ who drives these cars, (he can tell from the colors) because I have no clue. He will also give you more info on these cars and drivers than you ever wanted to know.
The Las Vegas Speedway is directly across the street from Nellis Air Force Base.
In the middle of all the cars and noise, a Stealth jet plane took off and zoomed overhead. The Stealth is even harder to photograph than race cars!
We also saw my brother, Larry and his wife, Sandra who live in Las Vegas. It was a short visit as Larry is quite ill at this point. It has been good to be able see both my brothers on this trip.
Next we are heading up to Zion and Bryce National Parks for a few days.
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