April 25, 2014 Las Vegas

Botanical Cactus Garden at Ethel M Chocolate

We visited the Ethel M Chocolate shop, which opened early and was right on the way to our planned destination.  It really was not much of a tour, just walk though and look at some signs and check out the factory behind large windows and then receive a sample of chocolate. The chocolate was okay. 

We then headed to the Lake Mead Alan Bible Visitor Center. The visitor center is quite new and had some really nice displays. We then drove towards the Hoover Dam, but decided that we did not want to pay $10 to park the car thus we headed back towards Las Vegas, visiting  a majority of the pull offs on the portion of Lakeshore Drive that we did not drive the prior day.  Lakeshore Drive between the Visitor Center and Las Vegas Bay is much nicer than the portion to the north.

Lake Mead 

The afternoon was spent visiting miscellaneous places around Las Vegas. Some places we visited included:

We drove by Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, as featured on Pawn Stars.  There was a huge line out front. Needless to say we did not visit the shop.

Counts Customs, also seen on TV, was neat place with a quite a few cars on display. We got to see some of the guys from the TV show since we were there around lunch time.

Counts Customs

So-Cal Speed Shop had a couple of cars in the shop. Mike got a tee-shirt and some stickers for the garage cabinets.

We also walked the strip. We had a list of “free” things to see at the hotels so we checked some out some of the things we did not see in the past including:

A live act at Circus Circus – kind of neat.

The wild life habitat at the Flamingo – lame.

What we think was the World’s Largest Chandelier at the Cosmopolitan – okay I suppose.

Las Vegas Strip

We had dinner at Holsteins, a burger place, inside of Cosmopolitan. It was tasty. We also stopped by The Cheesecake Factory for a slice of Carrot Cake Cheesecake!

Originally, hitting the downtown area was the plan, but we were just too tired to stay up and check out Freemont Street.

April 24, 2014 Glen Canyon Dam, Valley of Fire SP, Pipe Spring Monument

Glen Canyon NRA

After breakfast at the hotel, we were off to see the Glen Canyon Dam up close. The tour was $5 and lasted about 1.25 hours. It was very similar to the Hoover Dam, which we visited a few years back.

Pipe Spring National Monument was our next site to visit as we headed back towards Las Vegas.   Pipe Spring has a joint Tribal-Nation Park Service Visitor Center and Museum. There is a 25 minute video which discusses the history of the Kaibab Paiutes and the Mormon settlement.  Tours of Winsor Castle are available on the half hour.  There is a fee of $5/person to visit the site and take the tour.  An hour to an hour and a half is all the time needed at this site.

The site is located in the Arizona Strip, at the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs and has some of the purest water in the area. Puebloan people arrived to the area around 300BCE, soon after the Southern Paiute tribes arrived (and still live there). In the 1700’s missionaries and explored passed though. In the mid-1800’s conflicts over water and land began.  Mormon ranchers began to bring cattle and sheep to the area. Navajo Indians began raiding the Mormon livestock.   In 1870, Winsor Castle came about to serve as a remote stop for Mormons who were trying to expand their religion. Winsor Castle served as a hideout for polygamous wives due to its remoteness.  

Valley of Fire State Park - Petroglyphs

Continuing towards Las Vegas, we checked out Valley of Fire State Park. There was a $10 fee that was paid at a drop box when entering the park. The park was okay, but after seeing so many rocks already on this trip I did not find these rocks to be all that special. There were some petroglyphs at different locations throughout the park.

We decided to take the scenic route for the remainder of the trip – Northshore Road through the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.  It was okay – not much traffic but you could not really see Lake Mead from the road.

For the remainder of the trip we stayed at Desert Paradise Resort. It was very nice, but traffic in the area was a bit heavy.