We were out of the hotel and on the road by 8:40 to head for the Las Vegas area. We do not plan on going into the city but stay in nearby Henderson and see Lake Mead and tour Hoover Dam.
The trip out of California was rather boring but we did pass through extensive oil fields and a wind turbine farm. There must be in excess of 500 wind turbines that we saw along the road.
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| Hundreds of oil 'donkeys' pumping oil. |
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| Some wind turbines |
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| And more turbines |
The temperatures quickly climbed into the mid to high 90's and hit 104 as we drove along the north side of the Mojave Desert toward Las Vegas. We both agreed stopping along the highway for a short stroll in the desert was not a great idea.
As we entered Nevada, we spotted a relatively new means of electricity generation--solar heat generation. Solar mirrors are installed in a vast field and their concentrated reflected heat in aimed at a collection tower where the very intense heat generates steam to run turbines. A very impressive sight!
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| Solar mirrors are focused on this tower top to generate heat. LOTS of heat! |
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| Acres of mirrors surrounding the collection towers. |
We got to a Best Western (imagine that!) around 3:30 and just chilled out. Tomorrow we plan to go to the Hoover Dam and take a 1 hour tour inside the dam.
Interesting news flash this morning! Our planned route out of the Las
Vegas area into southern Utah and the parks is via Interstate 15. It
seems that 50 miles north of Vegas, I-15 is washed out from flash
floods. We are checking for alternate routes and plan to head out Thursday morning. We are keeping our fingers crossed.
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