Our time in LV is coming to an end …

So only a week to go! And so many things we haven’t done!! And we have been here nearly 5 weeks!!!

We are now ticking things off our list and trying to cram in all the things to do that our wonderful host Katie sent to us before we left Auckland. We might not get it all done … so maybe we will have to come back 🙂

Clark County Museum was only $2 each … a bargain if you ever found one and close to where we are staying in Henderson, so we decided to head over last Sunday afternoon. It is a bit like MOTAT (in Auckland), and it had some really interesting history. It was a little bit sad, and needs some TLC but we did spend 2 hours here, although I never took a photo! (Burgled these two from google!) The walks were all closed because of the heat! That has become a thing while we have been here in LV! We did enjoy having a look through Heritage Street and the Candlelight Wedding Chapel, complete with albums from all the weddings that they did when it was located on the strip.

The Pinball museum had been on our list as well, so we finally made it there. OMG what a sensory overload! And so much fun. It is free to go in, you just play the machines to your hearts content. Most machines took 2 quarters (0.25c each) and some took 3 but PAC-MAN only took one :-). I loved PAC-MAN last century, and it is still so much fun this century 😜

We ran out of quarters to use this! I would have been voluptuous and alluring and Colin would have been amorous and wild!

The Hoover Dam tunnel trail walk, was on the list as well but we had to get up early to complete it, due to the warnings on heat exhaustion! It is only 7km, to the end of the 5th tunnel and although we got up early and were on the walk by 7am, it was 34 degrees by the time we got back to the car shortly after 9am. Two hours for a short walk … well by the time I did yoga in every tunnel, and we stopped to take in the spectacular view out to Lake Mead and chatted to people along the way … time went on by!

Lake Mead camp ground would have been a ‘lake front’ property 20 years ago, but with it’s continually dropping levels … it is now a bit of a walk! They call that the ‘bathtub ring’ – it is 140 feet above the lake! We are conserving water and drinking beer 🍻 every little helps!

We didn’t do the extra bit to the dam, as it was just so hot and we had already been there. I am so glad we took the time to do this, and garner a bit more history of the Hoover Dam along the way. Also in tunnel three, there were bats … you could smell them, hear them and a few flew around us and then we discovered that there were baby bats all dead around our feet!! Not sure what that was about!!

On the way back we called into Boulder City for a wander around and I loved, loved, loved all the art … here a few pictures – there are heaps more 👀

Our highlight this week has to be our flight over the Grand Canyon … there wasn’t enough words to describe it when you are on it, but when you fly over it, it’s absolutely magical, huge, vast, deep and the colours are amazing. It was very heat hazy so our photos are all a bit over-exposed!

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This picture is after the water has passed through the power plant at Hoover Dam and the silt / sediment is left in Lake Mead.

The thing is though when you fly in a little plane, it is so bumpy and so hard to get a good crystal clear photo. Flying from Boulder City, over the Hoover Dam, Lake Mead and out past the west rim was pretty impressive.

And too boot there was another weather warning as another monsoon moved in. We even got warnings on our phones for flash floods, which didn’t really bother us in the air BUT the thunder and lightening may have. Eeeeek, I was happy to return to base as the small plane, the turbulence from the wind over the GC and the heat in the little plane was enough for me. I am so glad I did it, BUT I WAS SO glad to land again!

I was hot in the little plane… and hotter on the ground 😱

Well Mr & Mrs Smith have another assignment in Seattle from next week, but I will let you know more about that when we check out of Las Vegas.