Zion, via Lake Meade, Hoover Dam and Vegas

Sunday October 10, 2010

By 9:00 we were packed and had to say good bye to Parker, although both of us would have just as soon spent another day or so.  However, Dave and Meg and Finley were to meet us in Zion, so we made tracks.  It is quite a desert run when you head north on the Colorado river from Parker.  Not much in the way of agriculture in this dry waste-land

Just before Los Vegas, we stopped at the Hoover Dam.  It was one of President Roosevelt’s pet projects in the New Deal financial package that he and Congress used to get the USA out of the depression years of the 1930’s.  In it’s day, it was an engineering wonder, but by the standards of modern dams, it is just another big dam.  For the next 6 months or so, the highway runs along the top of the dam, which is only about ¼ mile long, but reasonably tall.  Because of the paranoia of the American psych., you must pass through a check-search point before the Dam, where they interrogate you and check out your vehicles for aliens, bombs, and saboteurs.  In a few months the new highway will completely bypass the dam over a newly constructed bridge a few hundred yards south of the dam.  The dam provides the electricity for Los Vegas, and backs up the Colorado river to form lake Meade.  This lake is enormous with hundreds of miles of lake shore and is regarded by many as the houseboat Mecca for North America (the industry on Meade is considerably bigger than even the Shushwap).

As soon as you see lake Meade, one thing strikes you immediately.  The lake is about 100 ft lower than the maximum height the dam allows.  This was a low water time of year, but in the last decade, Meade has been continually loosing water.  Its high level is expected to be 70 ft lower than it used to be years ago.  This reduced amount of water reserve is having a dramatic effect on its ability to generate power—brown-outs in Vegas?? Would America let that happen??  There is even concern that if the present climatic drought conditions continue for 15 years or so, the water will not rise high enough to enter the penstocks and generate any electricity period!

On the north side of the dam is the town of Boulder.  This is a very nice place, with attractive newer houses.  Ade was surprised that it has not been regarded as a retirement haven for Canadians as it is within a few hours drive or so many attractions from Vegas to the National parks of Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon and only minutes away from the enormous lake Meade.

Over the years we have certainly seen enough of Los Vegas, so we skirted the town, although we did get a great view of the skyline of Vegas with its structurally amazing buildings on the strip.

We pulled into Zion about 5:30.  The entry to Zion, through the quaint little town of Springdale is very appealing.  There are no box stores, and many of the shops have a quaint uniqueness about them that definitely attracts walk-by pedestrians.  Unfortunately, the park was full, but we did have a back up plan.  Last year we found a very quiet location on a paved cul-de-sac about ¼ mile off the strip of the main part of town.  We returned to find it just as we had left it last year, so we parked Rita, and spent the night surrounded by 1,500 ft sandstone walls on one side and exposed to a crystal clear black sky with hundreds of bright stars twinkling down on us.