Boulder City and Lake Mead

As this hotel is so cheap we did decide to stay another night after all. I got talking to a guy at the bar called Paul who gave us some tips to start with while his wife won $300 at poker but it ended in a session. The drinks seemed to be flowing fast and furious and we were soon incapable of gambling any more so ended up at the bar all night. Paul tried to talk us into staying a night at Boulder so we drove there today to have a quick look. It’s a quite old fashioned town but smartly laid out and I guess that it was thriving in the 1930’s when the dam was being built.

Before we set off to Boulder we spotted a walking trail in the general direction of the lake so headed down there to see if we could get a better view of the lake. It was a nice walk on a very pleasant day and it takes you through two tunnels. We could see that the path was endless and went through several more tunnels, probably around the corner so you could see the dam but Claire didn’t like the tunnels because rats kept running by her. They weren’t real rats but small stones that I kept throwing by the side of her, but don’t tell her else she will be cross again. We had about an hours walk so it was long enough to start the day and enough to blow the cobwebs away.

We drove to Boulder City which was only about 2 miles away from our hotel. There are statues along the street and every other shop is called Boulder Dam something. I’m not sure why they renamed it after Herbert Hoover but I guess that the locals would rather still have it as Boulder Dam. Apparently, gambling and drinking was banned in Boulder City during the construction of the dam so as not to get in the way of progress. To this day Boulder is one of two places in Nevada that does not have a licence to gamble and drinking was only permitted in 1969. We found the Boulder Dam brewery and went in to sample their wares. It’s the first time that Claire has ever had a beer with a slice of orange in it. We liked Boulder, but as its only 2 miles down the road it’s not worth moving hotels for, it would be easier and cheaper to get a cab in for the evening.

On our way back we spotted a little turning that headed in the direction of the lake so we took it and paid the $5 entrance fee. You can drive all around the lake on these small roads I guess, but we only went part the way to get some better photos. I believe that you can drive to Vegas down that road as well so we may try that when we set off tomorrow. One of the turnings goes down to the harbour that we could see from our walk and we were hardly on the pier platform before we could see fish everywhere. A lady was feeding them and almost putting the bread in their mouths. The ducks wanted to get some of the action and sometimes would climb over the fish to get the bread. There were so many fish all along and every time you stopped they would swim up to you to see what you had for them. If you put your hand in the water they would come right up to you and I guess that you could pluck them out. I guess that even Jose from Rexam could catch some fish here.