---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introdution:
Please see Instructions and Tips.
To view a list of all of our travel blogs and photos, or if you want to subscribe or follow, please go here:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Slide show of photos in this blog:
Apr 2014 Nevada
Flickr:
Our Photostream
Our Photostream
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A relatively short trip this time. We are having work done in the laundry room, so we need to be home for that. Paul drove to Las Vegas on Friday. Mary flew in from Montreal on Saturday. Granddaughter's birthday party was on Sunday, at the roller rink, and then to a restaurant afterwards.
Mon Oct 14: Drive to LA
We drove to LA on Monday.
First we went to Boulder Dam.
View of lake Mead from lookout near Boulder City.
.JPG)
We almost did not make it. We had piled several of our son-in-law's splat ball boxes into the car for when he comes up to the Sonoma fair. At the security checkpoint before the dam, the guards were particularly interested in what we had in the boxes. They did eventually let us through.
We drove across the new bridge, but nothing to see as the side rails were solid and too high to see over. Then we turned around and came back, and used the walkway along the dam side of the bridge. A nice walk, with lots of information about the building of the bridge.
It can get very windy on the walkway. Hats blown off:
From the bridge walkway:
In 2009 we walked across the bridge:
The bridge.
First some pictures from 2009:
Then from today:
We then drove over the dam itself to the other side:
Lake Mead from a lookout near the dam:
Then to Searchlight, where we had lunch. We then took hiway 164 back to I15. Along the way we drove through a forest of Joshua trees:
And got good views of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System solar thermal plant, in California near Primm, NV.
The system produces electricity the same way as traditional power plants – by creating high temperature steam to turn a turbine. It uses thousands of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a receiver filled with water that sits atop a tower. The water inside is heated and creates high temperature steam. The steam is then piped to a conventional turbine which generates electricity.
During operation, these receiver units become extremely hot, such that they glow and appear brightly lit high above the ground. The glow beside the top of the towers was visible to us, not an artifact of the photo. We don’t know what caused them. The glow on the ground is sunlight reflecting off the mirrors.
A relatively short trip this time. We are having work done in the laundry room, so we need to be home for that. Paul drove to Las Vegas on Friday. Mary flew in from Montreal on Saturday. Granddaughter's birthday party was on Sunday, at the roller rink, and then to a restaurant afterwards.
Mon Oct 14: Drive to LA
We drove to LA on Monday.
First we went to Boulder Dam.
View of lake Mead from lookout near Boulder City.
We almost did not make it. We had piled several of our son-in-law's splat ball boxes into the car for when he comes up to the Sonoma fair. At the security checkpoint before the dam, the guards were particularly interested in what we had in the boxes. They did eventually let us through.
We drove across the new bridge, but nothing to see as the side rails were solid and too high to see over. Then we turned around and came back, and used the walkway along the dam side of the bridge. A nice walk, with lots of information about the building of the bridge.
It can get very windy on the walkway. Hats blown off:
From the bridge walkway:
In 2009 we walked across the bridge:
The bridge.
First some pictures from 2009:
Then from today:
We then drove over the dam itself to the other side:
Lake Mead from a lookout near the dam:
Then to Searchlight, where we had lunch. We then took hiway 164 back to I15. Along the way we drove through a forest of Joshua trees:
And got good views of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System solar thermal plant, in California near Primm, NV.
The system produces electricity the same way as traditional power plants – by creating high temperature steam to turn a turbine. It uses thousands of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a receiver filled with water that sits atop a tower. The water inside is heated and creates high temperature steam. The steam is then piped to a conventional turbine which generates electricity.
During operation, these receiver units become extremely hot, such that they glow and appear brightly lit high above the ground. The glow beside the top of the towers was visible to us, not an artifact of the photo. We don’t know what caused them. The glow on the ground is sunlight reflecting off the mirrors.
