Las Vegas to Williams

Had breakfast with Mum and Dad this morning before saying Goodbye and heading off towards the Grand Canyon. It was fantastic to see Mum and Dad and spend sometime with them just a pity it was only for a short time. I left Vegas and set the SatNav for Williams which is a town not far from the Grand Canyon. Onto the Freeway and I got stuck on the outside lane and ended up doing an unintended tour of Las Vegas Airport to get back onto the Freeway. Driving here is not for the faint hearted the SatNav is a big help but trying to work out the correct lane whilst people pass you on both sides and read the road signs can be quite a challenge. After about 45 minutes I got to the Hoover Dam and parked up in an extortionately priced car park ( which was even more gnawing when I found out there was free parking on the far side of the dam on the way out). I walked out onto the Dam which controls the flow of the Colorado River. It was built in the '30's and you can see this in the art deco styling used. The dam is huge and looking over the edge you can feel the cold air blowing up from the water on the lake side. There are two huge sluice towers on the lake side of the dam which the water drops down to a hydro-electic plant at the bottom of the river side. Each of the towers has a clock on it to show the 'local time' of that side of the river. The river is actually the border between Nevada and Arizona and there is 1hr difference between them as Nevada is in the Pacific Time Zone and Arizona is in the Mountain Time Zone. Looking over the other side you can see down the 700 odd feet to the power plant at the bottom. Strangely there are two 'restrooms' located halfway round the edge of the dam which seem to be the oddest places to put a toilet – perched on the edge of a 700ft high dam. Having wandered round for a bit I jumped back in the car and drove out over the dam and up the Arizona side (and past the free parking areas!) The traffic going in the opposite direction was queueing for miles to cross into Nevada (I assume the weekend rush up to Vegas) glad I wasn't going that way. I drove for about another 3 hours initially through wide flat valleys with dry scrub and tumble weed, then the road turned and started to climb up to over 5000ft through rugged mountains and eventually into the snow line... Snow! The first time I've seen it since last winter. I finally got into Williams around 7pm and booking into the Howard Johnson Motel for which I had a voucher for cheap rooms. I nipped to the Supermarket down the road for some snacks and settled in for the night.

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