Lake Mead (or what’s left of it)

We enjoyed three quiet days in Echo Bay CG in the Lake Meade Recreation Area.  Found out from our fellow campers Emily and Bill – who used an altimeter app to measure today’s water level compared to what it was when they camped here 22 years ago – that the lake had dropped 122 feet.  That’s a lot of water! Between heavier usage downstream and less snow in the Rockies, Meade has suffered considerably.

We missed it, but while Bill was walking Cap, their dog, he spotted four burros and a big horn ram in the wash below the campgrounds. And a black-chinned hummingbird checked out our van on the way to the oleander blossoms nearby.  Later that day we took a ride to Redstone Trail, had a nice picnic and hiked the loop trail for about 30 minutes, but somehow missed the loop part and had to retrace our steps, back to the picnic area. A beautiful walk among red rocks and volcanic cliffs.

20,000,000 year old shell of a volcano.

Ron uses his hiking stick to check for snakes.

Picnic at Redstone

Sunday morning we pulled up stakes once again, stopped for a brief walk at the Wetlands Trail (which was really pretty dry) and found a spot at Boulder Beach CG for another couple of days.  Not far from the campgrounds was a marina offering cruises into the lake, through the Black Canyon nearly to the foot of Hoover Dam.  Since we had already decided to skip the dam tour, we signed on for the 1 ½ hour paddle wheeler ride and climbed aboard on Monday afternoon. At the entrance to the dock there were a lot of carp and bass, begging for handouts.  Coots, mallards and a couple of redheads had also learned that tourists mean snacks and circled the dock hungrily. It was interesting to see the coots diving straight down; we usually only see them breaking the surface as they search for food. From the boat we could see firsthand the water line mark over 100 feet above us.

Down 120′ in less than 25 years.

Hoover dam.

Redhead among coots, all begging for snacks.

The boat ride ended about 1:30 in the afternoon so we drove into Boulder City (the historic part), mailed a few things, wandered around antiquing for a while then had tapas at Milo’s Cellar for an early dinner.  Not early enough, though, as it was pitch dark when we returned to the campgrounds.  Luckily there were not many campers there so our meandering search for our site wasn’t too disturbing. The next morning we returned to Boulder City and stopped at the city park, where we had been told there were big horn sheep that grazed there.  And there were many, along with a couple of tour busses and a few families with kids, all of us taking pictures and trying not to disturb the sheep.  After wanting to see these magnificent creatures pretty much our whole trip, it was strangely sad to watch them in this environment, near swing sets and slides, being gawked at by tourists from Las Vegas.

We left abruptly and went to breakfast at The Coffee Cup, a pretty popular spot in the city, noted on the menu as having been featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners Drive-ins and Dives. Interestingly, when Ron and I planned this trip, one of the things Ron wanted to do was to follow Guy’s restaurant recommendations and eat at some of the places he’d touted.  Somehow, we forgot to do that.  The food at the Coffee Cup was so good we may have to plan better once we’re back on the road.

Spent our last two nights camping at Cottonwood Cove, also in the Lake Meade Recreation Area, at the northern end of Lake Mohave. Drove into town for breakfast and some laundry and nearly ran into a road runner crossing our path, too fast to pull out the camera.

Tomorrow we head into Henderson for Thanksgiving, then to Vegas for van service and a week at Lou’s condo preparing to come home for the Christmas holidays.  We’ll pick up the blog again in January when we return west to wrap up the Ultimate Road Trip.