Day One Zion National Park

We are now at Zion National Park. We were very lucky to get a campsite right in the Park. We are surrounded by beauty all around us. Picture above is taken in the campground. We took a ride through the park stopping along the way to take pictures. Many of the pictures I took as we passed by in the car. We went back again today and took a little more time, so I will post more pictures in the next day or so. There are just too many to sort through. So far we have taken over 200 photos, so it's difficult to decide which to post on here. Weather has been nice. Today got up into the 70's and sunny. Gets pretty cold here at night though. Hope you enjoy the photos of our first drive through Zion National Park. You can click on the photos to make them larger and then hit the back button to return to the blog.

Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Picture is of our campsite here in Overton, NV. We are boondocking on BLM land here. We are surrounded by beautiful views. We are not as close to the edge as we appear in the picture. We were surprised at what great TV reception we had here. I think it was because we were high on a hill. There were only about 6 or 7 other campers in this area, but there was another BLM area a mile down the road where many people were camped. We are only 2 1/2 miles from the entrance to "The Valley Of Fire State Park". We had heard about this place from several of our Montana Owners friends. While at Lake Mead, we were only about 60 miles from there, so it was a short trip for us. We are so happy we stopped here. It is truly beautiful. We took lots and lots of pictures. I hope you enjoy them. We loved all the varied colors of the rock formations. This one, as you can see has a straight line of definition between the two colors.

Wish this picture was a little brighter, but it's so rare we ask someone to take a picture of us, I figured I should post it anyway.

I love the huge rocks here. Don't I look small!

Al and I think the rock on the right looks kinda like a dog. It reminds me of "Nipper" the RCA dog. People who live in Albany area can relate to this.

Loved the way the road is laid out in this picture.

Hope you enjoyed our tour through the park. Here's Al saying bye for now!

The Hoover Dam

We visited the Hoover Dam a couple of times while in Boulder City, once during the day and also in the evening. We were able to see it from several different areas. We were so amazed at the beauty of it and in awe of the accomplishment achieved when this was built, especially considering it was long before we had computers and all the fancy equipment available today.

Here we are looking down at the Colorado River with the new bridge shown above. These are turbine units on bottom of picture.

I thought this was a great picture taken from a higher level.

Lake Mead looking out from the dam. The white on the rocks show how high the water used to be until about 11 years ago. It is down about 135 feet.

That's Al above

Another view of the Colorado River and the new bridge.

Below are some pictures taken in evening. I loved the effect with the lights.

Another picture of the bridge taken in the evening.

Lake Mead and Las Vegas-Quite a Contrast

Here we are at Boulder Beach Campground in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Boulder Beach, Nevada. We are about 30 miles from Las Vegas and 5 miles from the Hoover Dam. This area is so pretty. I honestly think it is one of the prettiest places we have been since leaving home. Pictures do not always do it justice, but the lakes are so blue and the mountains are muted shades of many different colors. This country has some beautiful areas, all of which are God's creations. We have found on this trip that the country out here in the west is so different than back east. I've yet to see much green in the mountains and yet they are still beautiful in their own way. Until recently, we haven't seen much grass either as the desert is mostly sand and rocks with just a little greenery here and there. Of course, that beats 3 or 4 feet of snow any day.







Below are some of the scenic views we have seen here, many of which were taken from our truck or along side the road after we pulled up. I hope you enjoy!

We decided to visit Las Vegas, so we headed there one afternoon. These pictures below are not shown in any particular order. Some were taken in daylight and some after dark. We decided to park our car in the parking garage at the Mirage. We walked though the place and believe it or not, we did not gamble. Al and I are just not into gambling. For me, it has a lot to do with my upbringing. My mom was so against gambling of any kind. Now, I have gambled a few times in my life, but I never really saw the fun in it anyway. It was dinner time, so we did decide to gamble on the buffet at the Mirage, and we lost. For the cost of $28 apiece, we would have had a better meal at the Golden Coral.

We are going to a concert here tomorrow night (Thursday). Terry Fator is a ventriloquist, impressionist, comedian, and singer. He does over 100 different impersonations and has 16 different puppets. When he sings through his ventriloquism, he sounds just like the singer he is impersonating. I have seen him perform Garth Brooks, Stevie Wonder, Elvis, Sonny and Cher, Louie Armstrong and many more. He won the "America's Got Talent" contest a few years back and now has his own show in Vegas. I can hardly wait.

This is a little blurry, but I liked how it looks at night anyway.

I just love "The Eiffel Tower" It is a replica of the one in Paris, and is just so pretty at night.

We are having a great time here. Our main reason for visiting here was to see the Hoover Dam, and I decided I wanted to do a blog all by itself on that. It is really magnificent to see, and we have so many pictures, it will take me awhile to sort through them all. So that will be our next post.