Winding up our trip west as we travel from the Grand Canyon to Boulder City

 

Date: 4/24/2015

Location: Grand Canyon Nation Park, Hoover Dam and Boulder City

 

Our week of vacation sure went by fast and our last day would be the drive from the Grand Canyon to the Hoover Dam and Boulder City where we’d be spending the night.

There’s not much between the Grand Canyon and Boulder City. We thought that we’d get breakfast at one of the “towns” just south of the park entrance, but there were only a few places and none of them were open. We had to push on to the big city of Williams Arizona before we could find a place to eat. We found an old diner right on an original section on RT-66, so that was kind of interesting.

After breakfast we continued on to the Hoover Dam where we wanted to take one of their tours of the dam. This place was complete opposite than the Glen Canyon Dam in that it was packed with tourists and a mad house. There were hundreds of people in line for the tour, along with several large school groups We toughed it out and got our tickets to the tour and made it down into the dam without waiting too long. I’d done the tour before, but this was a first for Allison and Julie. So, even though it was crowded, I’m glad we did it

 

One last thing that I wanted to do was walk across the Memorial Bridge that was recently built to route traffic away from the Hoover dam. This would give us a great view of the dam as well as the Lake Mead. There is a parking area next to the bridge and a wide walkway next to the road. We started to walk out onto the bridge, but the wind was blowing extremely hard and at a few areas we were getting blown backwards. I’d say it was blowing at least 50 mph, with gusts even stronger. Allison and Julie decided to turn around because of the wind, but I made my way out to the center of the span to grab a few quick pictures.

 

The bridge as seen from Hoover Dam

 

The Hoover Dam as seen from the bridge.

 

After touring the Hoover Dam and walking the bridge, we headed off to Boulder City where we’d be spending the night before flying out way too early the next day. This was only a few miles from the Hoover Dam and a short 30 minute ride to the airport. So, it was a good location to spend a night.

We stopped for lunch at the Boulder Brewing company. The food was ok, but their flight of locally brewed beer was tasty!!

 

We had reservation at the Boulder Dam Hotel, which was an old historical hotel in the town. It was beautiful restored and a very comfortable place to stay. Plus it was very reasonably priced and also had a free (for guests) museum. We’d definitely recommend this place for anyone staying in the area.

Boulder Dam Hotel

 

Before dinner we walked around the quirky little downtown of Boulder City,. There’s many interesting places to eat and hang out. We stopped at a wine bar and had a drink before heading out to dinner.

For dinner we went to the new restaurant that just opened across the street from the Boulder Dam Hotel. It was a little fancy which is not usually our cup of tea, but it was an amazing meal. Everything we tasted was done perfectly. We just had to mention it here since we had such a great meal!!

Picture borrowed from the Scratch House website. http://www.scratchhouse.com/

 

One Saturday it was up at 3:30am for out early flight out of Las Vegas and head back home. Luckily all of our flights were mostly on-time and we all made it home and back to reality!