Leaving Las Vegas, we decided to check out the Hoover Dam before heading to Flagstaff, AZ. We are sure hoping for warmer weather in Arizona.
The Hoover Dam was very cool to see. There was such an incredible amount of work put into it & an unbelievable amount of concrete! It was also amazing to see the high water mark – check out the pictures to see what I mean.
Rachel, in particular, really enjoyed our visit. She giggled when she said she had to use the Dam bathroom, when we went to the Dam giftshop, the Dam visitor center, the Dam cafe…
Ok, not really. But I think we did hit every casino in town. Just to walk through and warm up a little bit. As our luck would have it, they were having a cold spell here. Good news for Summer and Rachel as the Adventuredome, the world’s largest indoor amusement park was literally steps from our campground. Yep, we stayed at the KOA at Circus Circus, on the famed Las Vegas strip. It’s at the very end of the strip, but it did make for a nice “urban hike” as Peter likes to call it.
The Adventuredome, at Circus Circus, bills itself as “the largest indoor amusement park in the world”. Who are we to argue? They were open until midnight, and the girls and I closed the place down.
Rachel is wearing the gray hoodie with arms outstretched
Summer & Rachel waiting for inverter to invert
Yep, it’s inverted
The girls had to get clay sculptures done. They came out great.
Summer
Rachel
They were also desperate to get t-shirts custom air-brushed. These came out great too.
The girls built up an appetite for a make your own ice cream… Guess who had which one?
We saw all the sights – the fountains at Bellagio, the volcano at the Mirage, the roller coaster at New York, New York, m&m World (yes, Uncle Shawn – there is an m&m store here!), the Eiffel Tower at Paris, the gondola ride at the Venetian (ok, we were suckered into the ride and we shall never speak of it again), and we walked through most of the casinos, just to get out of the cold. Did we mention that it was cold here??
It was also very cold – 30s at night and maybe 60 during the day. It was bright & sunny during the day, perfect for exploring. At night, the sky was amazing. We could see an incredible amount of stars, the Milky Way, and if we knew what we were looking for, we could have seen star clusters like Pleiades, and even the Andromeda Galaxy – 2.5 million light years away! We didn’t stay up late enough, but after midnight, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are all visible with the naked eye.
Rachel wanted to be the lowest person in North America:
Rachel, in a hole, more than 282 feet below sea level
We were hoping to get out of the cold weather and head to Death Valley, but Mother Nature had a different idea. We ventured out for dinner later, assuming the roads had been cleared. They had not and it was very slippery out, but as Peter is from NH, he’s an old pro at driving in the snow. We had purchased chains for the tires way back in Wyoming, but they are safely tucked in the box in the back of the car. We’ll return them to Walmart in Florida. That should be good for a laugh.
There was actually frost on the windows inside the motorhome…
Peter and the girls went skiing on Black Friday when the mountain was pretty crowded and had a good time. Then they went back today and had a GREAT time! They basically had the mountain to themselves. The girls stuck together & Peter was able to get a few good runs in by himself.
I spent the day shopping in Mammoth, and basically had the stores to myself too. I got to the mountain in just enough time to see the girls skiing down for their last run. And Peter showing off on the slopes too. He’s mentioned the words “ski house” several times already. I need to remind him that we live in Florida.
Mammoth Lakes is well known for its natural hot springs and some nice locals have built hot tubs around them. None of them are “official” or marked, so you have to know about them in order to find them. Or, just do a Google search.
After our hot-tubbing, we decided to take a drive and ended up going through the Inyo National Forest and found ourselves in an area called the Volcanic Tableland. We joked that it felt like we had landed on the moon, as the terrain was so odd looking. I had to consult Google & this is what I found: “The Volcanic Tablelands is a vast volcanic landscape that was formed over 700,000 years ago by materials spewing from the Long Valley caldera”. Ok, I confess, I had to look up “caldera” too – A caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption. They are sometimes confused with volcanic craters.
We didn’t pass a single car or any man made objects for miles and miles. It was very cool.
Since Heavenly was a bust for skiing and none of us were feeling all that well, we decided to forgo the Thanksgiving stuff and head to Mammoth Lakes. We heard the skiing is better there.
Along the way we passed Mono Lake. An unfortunate name for such a cool looking lake. I had to consult my bff wiki for some details: Mono Lake is a large, shallow saline soda lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in a basin that has no outlet to the ocean. It was eerily beautiful.
We knew we made the right decision to go to Mammoth when we saw the hot tub at our new campground…
Ever since their first foray into snow two years ago at Big Bear Mountain when Uncle Darren & Aunt Suzy got married, Summer and Rachel have been desperate to ski and snowboard again.
We arrived at the mountain mid-morning with plenty of time to rent skis, boot, poles, and helmets and had just a short line for lift tickets. Skies were sunny, snow looked good, kids were excited. I said goodbye and hauled all their extra gear and shoes back to the motorhome and figured I’d have the day to myself.
Peter and the girls took the scenic Heavenly gondola up 2.5 miles (yikes!), then they (Peter) had to schlep all their stuff down a set of stairs and over to the ski lift… Peter was exhausted before they even started. As told by Rachel: “I got off the lift and people were zooming straight down the mountain 90miles per hour”. Yep, only one run was open. An intermediate run. It would have been fine for the girls if they had a small slope to gain a little confidence on first, or if Peter had only one kid to ski with. It was impossible for him to handle the two of them. Plus, with only one run open, it was packed. They even saw a runaway snowboard zooming down the mountain that missed Summer by mere inches.
Needless to say, after trekking down the mountain, they talked to Customer Service, got a full refund and went back down the gondola for a late lunch. Unfortunately, I still had their shoes.
We wanted to see what all the fuss was about and decided to check out Lake Tahoe, the winter getaway spot of our posh friends Janeen & Mike. We had heard rumors that it was as pretty as Lake Winnipesaukee in NH. They weren’t kidding. The lake is beautiful. The water is super clear, super blue, and super deep. With the deepest point at 1650 feet, this lake doesn’t freeze over like Winnipesaukee does.
Since we are tourists, we had to do the touristy thing and take the self-drive audio tour around the lake. For a mere $19.99 we were entertained in our car (sporting the brand-new engine, of course) with a CD narrated by a lively fellow who regaled us with anecdotes and lake history and even a bunch of songs during our drive. Yes, there is a Jimmy Buffett of Tahoe and we have him on CD to prove it.
One of our first stops on the tour was Emerald Bay and Vikingsholm. Emerald Bay is reported as being the second most photographed spot in the US, behind Niagara Falls. Not sure if I believe that, but I did get a bunch of pictures just in case.
Vikingsholm is a mansion on Emerald Bay built in the Scandinavian tradition in the late 1920’s. Sadly, tours inside are closed for the season, but we did hike around the grounds. We also took in the view to Fannette Island, the only island on Lake Tahoe. There is a tea room on the island that the owner of Vikingsholm had built, just to take her guests out to for tea. Must have been nice.
We took some better advice and visited Sterling Vineyard in Calistoga. The kids enjoyed the tram ride to the winery, Peter enjoyed the tour, I enjoyed the wine.
Sterling gates
Crush pit at Sterling
Barrels of fun at Sterling
Sterling Winery Tour & Tasting Rooms sign
View of Sterling from the castle
We thought that Sterling was pretty cool, but then we went to the castle. Castello di Amorosa. The $40 million dollar, 120,000 square-foot Tuscan castle built by a fourth-generation Italian winemaker. This guy didn’t seem to spare any expense in the 14 years it took to build the castle, complete with drawbridge, moat, dungeon, torture chamber, chapel, defensive towers, etc. etc. All of the stone was hand-chiseled, all of the iron work hand-forged. It was amazing. Also, you can only buy their wine there, or by mail order.
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