Lake Mead NRA, Boulder Beach CG

Monday: (04/11) We selected a nice site, #6, in the Boulder Beach campground. We'll probably be here a couple of days. We noticed a trail on our way here that goes out to the Dam, the Railroad Trail. We'll hike it tomorrow morning. Dinner was beef stew with pan toast. Our campsite at boulder Beach. Nice spot but no view of the lake. On the right is the beach at Boulder beach, about a 1/2 mile from the campground now due to the low  lake level.

Tuesday: (04/12) Leftover pancakes and sausage for breakfast. We headed out early to the Railroad Trailhead at the junction of Lakeshore Road and Highway 93.


It is a 3.5 mile hike out to the Hoover Dam Visitor Center. Most of way is via the old railroad path so a nice easy grade. the last 1/2 mile or so has some ups and downs until you arrive at the top of the Visitor Center Parking Garage. We walked the dam and looked around but didn't take any of the overpriced tours. You get a nice view of the lake from the trail like the marina on the left. There are five tunnels on the trail.


A nice thing about railroad trails is the easy grade. The trail ends at the top of the Boulder Dam Visitor Center parking garage coming down the trail in the center rear of the picture above.


The dam is still a marvel even in its old age, over 75 years old. the water is down over 120 feet now. the lake is much smaller. maybe someone needs a little less lawn?


We took a good look around the dam but didn't take any of the tours. We taken hem all before, when they were much cheaper and better. The tours used to wander through a lot more of the passages in the dam.

I hiked back to get the Jeep and pick up Lou. Her limit for hikes is 4-6 miles recently. They were having problems while I was gone. The power went out at the Visitor Center so everything was closed. Just imagine, No power at one of the biggest hydro electric generator plants in America? They the Visitor Center parking garage was closed due to a medical emergency. That's where I was supposed to pick up Lou so I had to continue across the Dam then call Lou and pick her up at the curb on the return crossing.


There is a lot less traffic over the bridge now that the new memorial Bridge has opened. It is a marvel of construction as well but i don't have the same confidence in it's longevity as i do the Dam. It's a concrete bridge designed to just meet the needs meaning a greater demand will eventually be placed on it and it will be just rubble in the canyon floor. We stopped and walked across it. You do get a good view of the dam from there. Too bad you can't look out on the other side of the bridge as well into the Black Canyon.

With all that accomplished, we stopped at the Hacienda Casino, the one near the dam and had their buffet lunch. When we returned home it was time for a nap. Dinner was a shared Cinabon roll. Lou planned ahead when we left Laughlin.

Wednesday: (04/13) We started with a walk down to the lake. With the water so low it's about a half mile out. We talked to a couple of fishermen and learned that the lake will be rising about 30 feet shortly. We also learned why there is a crane on a barge way out in the lake. Evidently a big deep water pipe is being constructed via tunneling under the lake. Sounds expensive and unnecessary but Las Vegas wants a reliable water source. A billion dollar pipe tunneled under the largest man made lake in the country isn't a simple task.

For breakfast, we went over to the Hacienda Casino and had a couple of their "Truckers" breakfasts. I. of course, had the chicken fried steak and eggs. Lou had the giant ham steak and eggs. We both brought home leftovers. Both were very good in addition to being huge. I worked on tax preparation all day. Can't put it off any more. For lunch Lou made a stir fry with pork. While i was doing my taxing task, Lou was busy studying for her real estate license renewal course.

Dinner was some of the leftover breakfast ham with leftover baked potatoes and fresh corn on the cob. In the evening we went back over to the casino. The group Kid and Nic , a five piece oldies group was performing on the stage behind the bar. It was also something like Karaoke. Some very good regulars and employees joined the group to do some numbers.

Thursday: (04/14) Leftovers for breakfast. We drove down to Boulder City for a look around downtown. Nice village. First we looked at some open houses. They were nice view sites so a little expensive for the area. We really enjoyed looking around the antiqu and craft shop called Goatfeathers. Of course, when it was lunch time we headed out to the Hacienda Casino to the buffet. we are cheap and the buffet is cheaper than McDonald's and so much better. The BBQ spare ribs were excellent.


Our new campsite at Boulder Beach. this one has a view that Lou needed. Dinner was leftover stir fry from last night and cottage cheese and peaches. After dinner we went back to the Hacienda Casino to watch the Kid and Nic show again.

Friday: (04/15) Cereal with yogurt and honey for breakfast. I've been collecting local free newspapers and real estate magazines and had a stack to go through which i fianally took the time to do. not much news to be found but one had a tidbit i didn't know. The entire Las Vegas Strip is not in the city of Las Vegas, it's in Clark County. Quite odd. probably investying in politicians is cheaper than being taxed by the City. When we were in town yesterday We checked on when the mail would be available for general delivery. They said it would arrive at 4am and be available by 10am so off we went at 930 to see if our mail package had arrived. Dawn sent it Wednesday afternoon and it was in. Some post offices are good and this one in Boulder City is one of them! Now we can move on if we want but it's usually not a good idea on a weekend so will likely stay through Saturday night. We took a walk around the housing areas near downtown while we were there. Nice town. We returned home for lunch of chips and salsa and peanut butter apples. I broke out the vacuum and vacuumed the RV and jeep and finally cleaned of some of the nice dust we've added to the Jeep on our many dusty jeep treks recently. Lou's been studying out at our table overlooking the lake. She does like the view. Tonight, dinner was at the Hacienda Casino, again. Seafood night so Lou was the instigator tonight though of course I'm not fighting. That's one of the reasons we have to leave soon. It's too close to be able to resist.

I spent the evening looking in to fixing the Motosat satellite dish. If you're not a Motosat user suffice it to say i had problems with it but now it's OK. For those interested, sometimes waiting and thinking helps the problem. Since the wiring had tested good and The upper control board was new and I really didn't want to replace the D3 only to find it wasn't bad I tried some other tactics. I tried doing an update to the software in the upper  control board. Previously I had thought I just didn't have communications with it because that's what the D3 had told me. But, the update did work and I then had communications with the upper control board and dish mount and all should have been better. There was another problem lurking in that I had updated the satellite table in the D3 controller and every since the dish hasn't found the satellite without my intervention to stop it when it did find in and not know it. There was an error for my satellite (99W) and my transponder (1370). The manufacturer has since provided an updated file and I did another update. All should have been good, but. Then the controller started having an error in the dish elevation. It thought the dish was up 115 degrees when it was parked at 0. I tried to calibrate the dish but it wouldn't stay at 0 after calibration always returning to the 115 degrees. On the fourth calibration it finally held and everything worked properly. Now if it only stays working. I don't know why it had to fight so long?


Saturday: (04/16) When we looked out the window at 6am we could see a long line of taillights headed down to the beach. Yesterday we had noticed a bunch of big tents had been set up down by the lake. We were worried that it might be some motorcycle convention of rap concert but it turned out to be a triathlon. From our campsite we watched them do their swim then ride or run along in front of our campsite. We enjoyed toasted PB&J English muffins for breakfast. Lou's tooth is bothering her so we decided to head back down to Algodones, Mexico to have it looked at. No need to get there before Monday morning but it is over 300 miles so we decided to start that way today. Before we left we drove over to the Lake Mead Marina to a boat show. We looked through some impressive boats and yaghts. All are out of our price range. No canoes there to be seen? We spent the rest of the morning in camp relaxing. At 11:30 we pulled out, did our tank duties and left Boulder Beach. We stopped at the Hacienda Casino for lunch. No, we controlled ourselves and didn't have the buffet. We had a couple of the $,99 shrimp cocktails and some chilli cheese fries. Nice healthy food. Then we hit the road South on Highway 95.