Thursday, June 4, 2009
What a seemingly productive day; perhaps not in an industrious way, but we certainly got a lot done, it seems. Joan was up at her usual "before God wakes" time, and I crawled out of bed at the early hour of six a.m. I went about the usual tasks of watering the garden and filling the bird feeder and that sort of thing. I made a smoothie and then an omelet with tomato and spinach and a heavy dose of cheese. Then I set about filling the cooler with beer for when we arrived in our room at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. Of course, being me, I managed to knock a beer from the fridge to the floor and it shattered and spilled all over the kitchen. Out with the mop!
Showered and dressed, we finished the dishes and last minute prep and were mostly ready when Ken and Marie arrived. We loaded up the Expedition and hit the road for our trip to Vegas. The trip was uneventful and seemed to go by quickly between conversations and reading and route discussions. Our first stop was in Kingman, Arizona, where he had lunch at DJz--a Route 66 diner that sits across from the Route 66 Museum, which, unfortunately, we didn't have time to explore because we wanted to get to the Hoover Dam for a dam tour, dammit. We passed a few gas stations looking for cheap gas, picked the Flying J, and got back on the road just in time to pass several stations selling gas for at least a whopping $.04 cheaper! If it had been a dime less Ken would have been thrown in a funk, but four cents he could handle.
Coming up on the Boulder Dam, you can't help but be impressed. It's massive and the traffic is heavy. We planned on doing the Dam tour (and you can bet that the Hoover Dam staff makes full use of the double entendre) so we opted for crossing the dam to the Nevada side where a large parking structure was built along with the gift shop, cafe, etc. It's quite a facility.
One of the first things I noticed is the water level in the river. It's at a sixty-three year low and there is a wide band of whitened rock that makes the high water level mark obvious. There's a lot of water not flowing in the Colorado these days. Given current climate change indicators, this will only worsen. A long time "dam hater," I must try to accept that if current populations supplied water by the Colorado are to be maintained, there are likely to be more dams in the future. It's estimated that the flow of the Colorado could be diminished by up to thirty percent in the not-too-distant future and dams and reservoirs will likely be the solution.
I found it interesting that the Hoover Dam was not intended to supply power. That was more of an afterthought. The original intent was merely flood control and harnessing the Colorado and to provide drinking water and irrigation to the affected states. California came up with the idea of the generators and worked up some kind of deal (the details of which you'll have to look up--I can't recall them accurately at the moment). There are now seventeen generators producing energy that is sold as cost--as a federal facility they can't sell at a profit. Most of the electricity finds its way to California, Arizona, and a bit to Nevada. Supposedly zero percent of the electricity is used to operate casinos--it's part of the regulation, apparently.
It's a good tour. I recommend it if you're out that way. There's a whole lot of glossy public relations going on while you're there. You will hear absolutely nothing about any of the negative aspects of the dam, only the good. And it's touted as being "environmentally conscious" and whatnot. There's a lot of foolishness behind that claim, but what are you going to do? I can't say I was surprised that there was absolutely no mention of the unintentional environmental fallout generated by the building of the dam.
One interesting note: The dam is entirely self-funded and powered. In addition to the seventeen power generators there are two small generators (one on each side) that were part of the original design that are used to supply one hundred percent of the power used by the dam and it's associated facilities.
From the dam it is a fairly short drive into Vegas. We stayed at the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street, downtown, old town, whatever you want to call it--not The Strip. We were there because my friend Ken was participating in a bowling tournament at the Cashman Center. We got a smoking deal on rooms because of it--$39 the first night, $59 for the following two. Considering the price of the rooms, I was very impressed. The room was spacious, clean, and set up nicely. My one complaint was our ninth floor shower--not much pressure, a faulty shower head, and a slow draining tub. If not for that, I would have been ecstatic over the quality/value ratio.
Checking in was a hoot. There was a back-up of cars trying to check in to the hotel. We unloaded all of our bags to a bell cart and got a claim ticket and headed for the front desk while Marie self-parked the car. Joan and I got checked in and headed to our room--good thing because almost as soon as we closed the door the bellman was there with the bags. The only problem was all the bags were on the cart and our rooms were on different floors (we were on nine, Ken and Marie on four). We offloaded ours while trying to connect with Ken--his cell phone kept cutting out, probably because he was in the parking garage. I tried to tell him to head down to his room to meet the bellman, but they showed up at ours a moment later. Fortunately we had detained the bellman (who was friendly, funny, and accomodating). We ended up taking Ken and Marie's coolers from the cart and stashing them in our room and sent the ballman on his way--Ken and Marie stayed with us so we could get started on our "cocktails."
We wanted to save some money and the easiest way to do that is on alcohol. We brought some vodka, soda, beer, fruity beer, etc., and, of course, our giant plastic tumblers. The tumblers were a hit. We filled them with drinks and then wandered around, making occasional forays up to the room for refills. It worked out pretty well. There was a lot of foolishness involved and I'm not sure Ken was quite up to it that first night.
After we were well on our way, we decided we should eat dinner. Turns out it was almost eleven p.m. when we hit on that insight. We ate at The Grotto, an Italian restaurant that's in the Golden Nugget. It was excellent--and not just because we were a few drinks past our prime. The food and service were top notch and, if I remember correctly, not too outrageously priced.
After dinner we checked out the pool area (where we had actually spent a little time in our earlier forays). It's a nice pool with a huge aquarium at its center housing sharks and fish such as jacks, grouper, red fish, etc. Right through the middle of the aquarium runs a water slide. I can tell you from a later experience that you simply can't see a thing when you're going through that slide. It's yellow, yellow, blue, yel--sploosh.
The actual pool closes at some ridiculous hour like eight o'clock. You can still be in there and use the hot tub and drink and play blackjack, you just can't go in the pool. Above the aquarium there are two levels of cabanas--those close when the pool closes. We wanted to check them out and so we sucked up to a security guard and he told us we could go take a look. They're nice--flat screen t.v., comfy furniture, the whole nine yards--for $175 a day. Yes. That's right. For $175 a day you can use a cabana from ten in the morning until eight at night. What is that? $17.50 an hour? For that it should come with free food and drinks! That's more than our entire stay cost!
The weather in Vegas was weird. It was cool. We expected blistering temps but it was windy and often a little on the cloudy side. In other words, it got a bit chilly at night and that was the case that first evening. As such, we didn't stay at the pool long and called it a night. It was a good first day. The drive was uneventful, seemed to pass quickly, and we all had a good time. And not a dime was spent gambling!
