We have arrived at my conference hotel in Anaheim, California! Along the way today we visited the Hoover Dam, enjoyed the beautiful landscape on the drive from Las Vegas to the LA area, saw a "ghost town," and for the highest level of excitement for the kids, enjoyed ROOM SERVICE tonight.
After sleeping in a long time after last's night's adventure and having a very late breakfast, we headed over to Hoover Dam. Will and I really enjoyed the tour and getting to see the dam again, but if you asked the kids, I think the main thing they remembered was that it was HOT (some thermometers were registering 113 degrees) and they were tired.
This is a bridge that was built in recent years. We did not cross it, but I can testify that it looks as absolutely terrifying in real life as it does in the picture.
Looking out across Lake Mead, the country's largest man-made lake! The water in the Colorado River is super low this year; when we were here in early 2001 the water came all the way to the top of the column in the structure below.
The dam itself. So Dam Big, I can't even capture its whole length within one picture. ;)
Annika and Will were inadvertently Orange Twins today.
We opted to go on the Power Plant tour to tour inside; we went on the same tour before, but it has been cut back when we visited (when asked, it was for "safety "and "because of 9/11"). The picture below shows eight large generators. This is on the Nevada side of the dam; there are more on the Arizona side.
Poor Daniel was pretty beat and convinced Will to hold him on the whole tour.
View of the interior.
We also saw a movie about the history of the dam, which was built from 1931 to 1935. The thing that struck out to me most is that workers who built the dam had to work 363 days a year (they only got Christmas Day and Fourth of July off). If you missed a day for any reason, such as illness, you were promptly fired; since it was during the Great Depression, there were a plethora of other men ready to take your place.
I can definitely attest that it was HOT and both pets or children left in the car would have been most unpleasant. ;)
After Hoover Dam, it was onward to California! We reached this new state for the kids within about 20 miles of the Las Vegas area.
Some of the vast Mojave Desert Natural Preserve out the window. We opted not to stop but enjoyed looking at the desert flats.
Joshua Trees! For some reason, Will and I thought these were pretty rare, but they were growing all over the place.
Will was really intrigued by image in this picture below. It is of something. Something cool. Involving solar? And silver? No, not silver. But something cool. ;)
We had a detour off the Interstate to look for a restroom and found a really fascinating part of California's history. We came to the super sketchy town of Yermo, California. It reminded me of a Stephen King novel, or maybe the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. The only store in town appeared to be a Burger Den, which we opted to bypass and wait for the next town. We later learned that the Burger Den building was the home of the original Del Taco! (In the image below - courtesy of Trusty Google.) We also learned that the super sketchy town of Yermo had once been a booming metropolis with 27 gas stations, 7 bars, etc.....until the arrival of the Interstate in 1968, which killed off 90% of the businesses. It was just like a real-life Cars!
We continued on to the town of Calico, which had, accordingly to Annika, "more normal buildings," and of course had to continue down the road to follow the sign for the promised Calico Ghost Town. It reminded me a lot of Old Cowtown in Wichita...only we learned that these really WERE the buildings from Calico, which was the largest silver-mining town in the country in the late 1800s. When silver mining ended, the town literally shut down and later all of the buildings were purchased and used in Knotts Berry Farm. Later, the buildings were purchased back by the county and turned into Calico Ghost Town!
I must saw that we were pleasantly surprised at how gorgeous the scenery was on the drive. For some reason, I had gotten the impression from movies that the Las Vegas-LA drive is desolate and boring. Perhaps because we are from Kansas :), but it was stunning with different landscapes, tons of mountains, and never any desolation.
Mountain views were awesome.
We arrived at my conference hotel!
Only, the people who have taken over the ENTIRE HOTEL are definitely NOT accountants. There is a "VidCon" conference in full force and the entire hotel is overrun with teenage and super-early-20s attenders....the lobby, the elevators, the halls of the hotel itself - all of these attendees are insanely loud and gave the appearance of being somewhat full of themselves, with name tags like "Being Awesome." Thankfully, today appears to be the last day of their conference. ;)
View in front of our hotel room door.
View from our room (onto an outdoor lounge).
And finally, the big excitement tonight...ROOM SERVICE!!! The kids were in heaven. I was quite impressed with the service and the whole table that they brought into our room.
Tomorrow, I need to do some conference things (there are some events tomorrow, but it kicks off in full force on Monday), but we should have some time to all do some California exploring as a family. And for the evening, we are meeting my college roommate Bekah and her new baby Evie for dinner!! We cannot wait. :)
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