Thursday 15th December 2011

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[07:50 +1 PST]

It was a late night yesterday, so this is being written late.

We started of the day with an in-room breakfast, using the supplies we'd bought yesterday at Walgreens.

Then we got the car loaded up and set off into the desert. We were heading to the new Hoover Dam Bypass road. It doesn't sound that wonderful, but this bridge was completed in 2010, after our last visit. Before, to cross the river, you have to drive over the top of the dam with its small two lane road - heavy congestion most of the time. We did that on a coach when we did our massive day out to the Grand Canyon back in March 2010. This new bridge is a little down river and now offers a fast way to cross the river and a walkway to look back at the dam.

Its a long way down to the river below!

Oddly the walkway is open at the Nevada side, but is blocked at the Arizona side. The state line is in the middle of the bridge.

Don't forget you can watch this in 1080p Hi-Def by changing the video settings from 360p in the menu bar.

It was pretty chilly up on the bridge, so we drove back to the nearby Boulder City to grab a hot coffee. Our next destination was to drive through the Lake Mead national park. It's an odd place, sort of reminds me of a big quarry with lots of landfill mounds all over the place. It's doing the place an injustice I guess, but that was my impression.

Finally, we crossed from the Lake Mead park into the Valley of Fire National park. This is an area of red sandstone that has eroded away to produce some unusual rock effects.

Finally, just before we hit the Interstate to drive back to Vegas, we stopped to catch the sunset. We were in the middle of nowhere, but it still looked nice.

Once back in Las Vegas we stopped off at the nearby Boutique Mall then made a final stop at a Tony Roma's for something to eat... and drink!