The ride to Las Vegas, is dramatic.
It would be dramatic enough for no reason other than the breathtaking landscape. But its all the more dramatic for what man has done. And doing.
The Hoover Dam is a marvel. Not only of engineering but also of the sheer audacity of the conception. One of the most beautiful pieces of infrastructure (or architecture) that I have seen in my many years across many lands. It has, as the literature and the tour guides there will tell you, "tamed" the Colorado river. For what, though? To feed a hunger for living large and a thirst for unsustainable growth and water consumption?
We have often heard the notion of "borrowing" from future generations being used in the context of sustainability. That we are using a resource that future generations will not have, because we have used it all up. In the case of the Hoover Dam and the whole Colorado "taming" system, though it seems that we are borrowing against our own next year, or perhaps even our own next summer season. Whilst layers of white lines agains the rocks that form the walls of the reservoir, bear witness to the fact that Lake Mead is at an all time low, but homes in Henderson have swimming pools that are full to their high-water mark.
What is funny and completely counter intuitive, is that the Strip is probably the most sustainable part of Vegapolis. Because all the hotel / casinos are close to each other, people either walk or use the monorail to get from one place to another. Even though lights, airconditioning and all sorts of other systems are on all the time, people are not getting into cars every other hour of their waking hours. I am not sure if anyone has done any carbon footprint calculation; would be very keen to see some research.
Anyway, here are some pictures.
Finally, inside a gated community in Henderson, NV. Where every home has well watered lawns and a swimming pool.
You know you are in Nevada when truck stops offer odds.
We lucked out with our timing and were able to walk into a tour of the turbine hall of the dam. The scale of the project, is breath-taking. Of course, the stories told here are all about the winners, not folks who lost out.
The same bridge, under construction.
A model of the new bridge that will take all vehicular traffic away from the current road that runs on top of the dam.
The kids, posing.
Topping the last rise before the Colorado valley, we came to a view that blows your breath away - everytime. A view of the Hoover Dam. Notice the white mark on the rocks. Thats the high-water mark of Lake Mead. Now at or close to a historic low.
By the time we started our descent to Las Vegas, snow was a thing of the past. It was pure desert with roads and rail runnling like scars on the landscape. Roads, having come later, were bigger scars, much less respective of the contours of the land, than rail alignments from a century ago.
The scenery got breathtaking very soon out of town. We were starting our ascent, on the rainshadow. So there was snow on the ground, but nowhere close to the amount we would see when we started the opposite ascent, eastwards out of the Bay Area. Pics of that, later.
Then, of course, it was back to Route 66.
Flagstaff is the kind of town I imagined as settings of Western novels that I grew up reading. With a few blocks of downtown, still intact from the late nineteenth century. 
Getting ready to head out of Flagstaff. The snow-capped peaks are hard to tell, but there, in the background.
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