When we last left @mrsbozz and I, we had just finished touring Red Rock Canyon and we were turning our car East to head to our next destination.

Some of our friends mentioned that taking a tour of the Hoover Dam was basically a full day event. They also said that periodically they close down the power plant part of the tour and in those instances you are basically just staring at the dam. We knew we didn't want to spend a full day on one site, but we also knew we didn't want to come this close and not say we didn't see it.

So we skirted the Southern part of Vegas and headed over to Hoover Dam. The drive really wasn't that bad and it only took us about an hour to get over there. Since it was a Sunday, the traffic was much less intimidating than I thought it was going to be.

These pictures were taken on I-11 Just before it merges with 93 and you take the exit for the dam. I really wish we had stayed on 93 and driven over the bridge that you are going to see in some of the following pictures. I have a feeling the views of the front of the dam from that vantage point are much better than the views we got by driving over it.

Given this was my first time to the dam, I didn't realize my error and instead we started down the road that takes you right over the dam. A short distance down the access road, but still relatively far away from the actual dam they have a security checkpoint.

Each car is stopped and given a cursory examination by a significantly muscled Homeland Security(?) agent. Some cars, like the one next to ours are made to pull over for a more thorough search. Since our car was a rental we had absolutely nothing in it besides ourselves. This made it a quick stop for us at the checkpoint. I have a feeling before the events of 9-11 this checkpoint either didn't exist or was much more lax than it is now.

This was the one occasion where I wasn't disappointed we had gotten that Kia Soul as our rental car. Had we been in a more sporty sedan or coupe, we probably would have had even less of a view over this wall.

@mrsbozz did a great job grabbing these shots as I was driving and I plan on sharing some of the SP from this post with her.

This is the bridge I had mentioned previously, you can see how massive it is from the pictures. I took a look at Google maps and it does indeed give you a good view of the dam, if you can see over the rail and not get hit by the cars speeding across it. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently this bridge was just finished in 2010. Before that time, your only option was to drive across the dam or go significantly out of your way.

There are lots of places to park on your way down to the dam. I wasn't in the mood to pay $10 just to park for a 15 second photograph though. Instead we slowly made our way over the dam. I say slowly because there were people everywhere! Now that the bypass bridge is in place the road across isn't the major thoroughfare it once was it has been over run by tourists crossing back and forth across the road wherever they want.

On the Arizona side, they actually have the road blocked off now and your only option is to backtrack across the dam to return to the expressway. We didn't mind though because it offered some fantastic views of the back side of the dam.

I had never really seen them before, but out in Nevada and I am guessing other fair weather climates you can rent these vehicles called "Slingshots". It was a beautiful day for our ride and we saw quite a number of them on our travels.

A couple last shots from the dam...

Having "been there and done that" with Hoover Dam, we decided to turn North and check out this place I had read about online before our trip called Valley of Fire.

There isn't really a direct route to Valley of Fire because Lake Mead kind of gets in the way. That meant we had to head back to Vegas and skirt the East side of the city. As we were approaching from the South East side I had @mrsbozz grab a couple shots of the cityscape.

The drive from Hoover Dam to Valley of Fire was about an hour and a half. We stopped on the North East edge of Vegas to get some gas and quick lunch of Raising Cane's. We don't have one of those near us, so it is always a treat when we get to have it.

As we turned off the expressway and started down the road that heads to Valley of Fire State Park I told @mrsbozz she had to get a picture because it reminded me of a scene from a movie or Knight Rider or something. This could have been a really cool road, but the speed limit was 35 and people were bound and determined to stick to that. The curves and other traffic made it hard to pass, so instead we were treated to a slow 14 miles of enjoying the scenery.

Eventually, we got to the entrance booth, paid our $10 for a day pass and made our way into the park...

One of the things I noticed that was very interesting is the fact that the exit for Valley of Fire State Park is either shared or very close to another exit for Lake Mead recreation area. Given the amount of time we had been driving, that should give you a pretty good idea of just how large Lake Mead actually is. If you know a lot about dammed rivers, I guess it might not surprise you that much.

Valley of Fire State Park was awesome and I really wish we could have spent more time there. In the future I would plan on spending a full day there if I ever made my way back. Many movies have had scenes filmed in this area and the TV show Airwolf was also partially filmed in this area. I thought about stopping to pour one out for Jan-Michael Vincent, but when I mentioned it to @mrsbozz she just said "who"?

Realistically, we could have spent more time in Valley of Fire, but our phone batteries were starting to get low and we had neglected to bring charges. I needed to make sure I had enough juice for Google maps to get us safely back to the car rental place. On top of that, I wasn't sure where the road through the park was going to dump us out. I didn't like the thought of having to drive back through the park, but I liked even less the idea of having to go all the way around the East and South side of Lake Mead to get back to the city.

We turned around about halfway through the park and started making our way back to Vegas. We arrived about two or three hours before the car was due to be returned, headed to our hotel room and freshened up before meeting up with our friends at The Paris.

It really was a fantastic day trip and probably one of my favorite parts of our overall trip to Vegas.

You can check out some of the past Vegas posts here:

https://steemit.com/busy/@bozz/wednesday-walk-vegas

https://steemit.com/busy/@bozz/bozz-eats-vegas-edition-i

https://steemit.com/busy/@bozz/bozz-eats-vegas-edition-ii

https://steemit.com/wednesdaywalk/@bozz/wednesdaywalk-mob-museum

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