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| Temp on Bike at Hoover Dam |
Leaving the beautiful, majestic Grand Canyon, the weather reached 115 sunny degrees. See the blurry picture that has the temperature readout from Ed’s bike. It was so stinkin hot! How do these people live in that kind of climate? I did ok today, but Ed had a rough time with the heat right before we got to the Hoover Dam. He just pulled that bike over, drank some water, doused himself with more water and we both got back on the bike and headed for Las Vegas. Before we got to Vegas, however, we saw the Hoover Dam. Ed and I saw this dam a few times before. We actually went down to the bottom of the dam twice, but that was some time ago. The last time we were at the Hoover Dam, the new road that bypasses the dam wasn’t even built yet. Heck, I didn’t even know they built the bypass road until we got there. Well that’s not entirely true, Ed told me they made a road that bypassed the dam, but he even thought it was right next to the other road so he was as surprised as I was when we arrived there. To see the dam, you need to get off the interstate and travel to the scenic area where you can park your vehicle and walk out to view the dam. Ed and I didn’t need to see the Hoover Dam again, but we wanted Jandora and Bill to see it for their first time. So we had an ingenious plan to drive them in their car to the spot where you can view the dam. Then we would drive around the area, in their air-conditioned car, until they wanted to get picked up. This way we could cool off in their car, let them see the dam, and we'd enjoy rest for a few minutes in some air conditioning. It was a win-win situation. By the time we were ready to go the rest of the way to Vegas, we were feeling better and ready to go.
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| Ed at Calico Ghost Town | |
Las Vegas was tremendously hot when we arrived. I couldn’t believe we finally made it there in that remarkable heat. By the time we got in our rooms, I didn’t want to go out anywhere. We did get our second-wind and had a very nice time in that ultra-strange sometimes freakishly weird town. (That is just my own opinion.) We stayed overnight for two nights and that way we got a pretty descent rest period and had a lot of fun. Janet had this brilliant idea to go on a “Mob Tour.” It turned out to be a tour about how the mob started the gaming industry and controlled everything in Las Vegas. It actually was a fascinating history lesson but done in a fun way with a tour guide who was really “involved” with the mob, if ya know what I mean….
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| Bill shot in Calico |
We got up to leave Las Vegas on the second night at 3:00 am and left about 4:10 am. I am telling you that kind of heat scares me to death on a motorcycle. The heat was so crazy that we wanted to get out of the desert as early as possible. We ended up leaving at the right time of day because the drive was enjoyable and I even had my hoodie on in the desert in the early morning hours. That hoodie came off after a while and so did a few other articles of clothing, as well. We went to a “ghost town” called Calico Ghost Town. It was still before 7:00 AM and the security guard came out to talk to us as we were walking up town. We told her we were passing through and we just wanted a quick look at the town. She was very kind to us and said it would be fine to go through it, but nothing was open. That was ok with us because basically we just wanted to zip in and zip out and go our way before the dreaded heat showed up. We had a wonderful look at this town, now run by Knots Berry Farms. Thirty something years ago when Ed and I were there, it certainly didn’t look like this. It was a little hokey but a lot of fun just to take some great pictures and imagine what life was like back in the “silver ore mining days.” All in all, we did well today. It only reached about 93 degrees and we made it to San Francisco.
We are in the most beautiful place in southern San Francisco. We are overlooking a tremendous view of beautiful Oyster Bay. They have a wonderful restaurant attached to this gem of a place with the best meals we have had so far on this trip. Thanks to Janet for finding this wonderful, quaint place called The Inn at Oyster Point.
Tomorrow we are heading for Alcatraz and then hopefully I will get to go in to the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company to see and possibly buy some chocolate. Hooray for me…. Oh My God, I am beginning to sound like Jandora.
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