Dam, red rocks and flags

Just 20 miles out of the bright neon and over the top nature of Vegas is Red Rock Canyon. It is, as it says, red. You can see it from quite a way off and it's certainly striking. Considering how close it is to Vegas it's actually a fairly quiet place and a great escape from the madness. A 13 mile scenic drive takes you around with the option of a few walking trails.

We were tired from Vegas and had already walked miles from casino to casino so weren't up to any more.
Still the landscape looks tremendous with it's visible layers of bright red rock and bizarre formations.


Even though it's the end of February it's warm enough to decide to camp. That evening we camp on the national park with a red rock backdrop and a clear sky, with a slight glow to one side.
Once that sun goes you soon remember it's still February. It's difficult to remember that we're still in the desert with Vegas being so close. It's an awful nights sleep as the hard gravel floor is a bit of a comedown to a king size motel bed.
In the morning we have breakfast in the baking sun under clear blue skies and everything is good.
On the way out of the park a few cyclists dot the scenic road, some of only very few we've seen in America so far. Probably due to American roads being not conducive to cycling and even national parks seem to have little or no provisions for cyclists of any type.
Only a few days in Nevada and already we're over the border and into Arizona. Crossing the border itself is the Hoover Dam.
We have to pass through a car checkpoint to drive across it and as we do so do many others in a long line of traffic that seemed to appear out of nowhere in the desert. The place is packed. We park up and walk back across to have a nosey.
To be honest, although the dam is a great engineering achievement, it felt a bit like making a tourist attraction out of a power station. A bit dull.
Lake Mead, which has been created by the dam, is a large blue mass that looks much better than the large grey concrete mass of the dam. I'd heard that the dam produces all of the power for Vegas and even some for California but the truth is only 7% of Vegas' power is generated from the dam. But as we've seen on the Strip that's still a hell of a lot of power.
Onwards we go onto the famous Route 66 into Flagstaff, so named due to a tree made into a flag pole by a group from Boston on a scouting mission celebrating the centennial year of America.


There's not a great deal to Flagstaff, it's a decent enough looking place in which we manage to walk the main streets in less than 20 minutes, and that includes buying some guitar strings.
A nearby University make the town a bit more lively than it otherwise would be. Downtown is fairly dead but many evenings the handful of bars hosts live music and a small theatre draws in some of the best bands in the world. I wonder quite how they manage it but it seems Flagstaff is a town that is placed well enough to be near enough to other major locations. A hub of sorts with the added bonus of a student populous.
It's certainly a transport hub, as well as a freight train thoroughfare, around 100 trains pass through town every day, partly splitting a main road in the process.
For some reason, as we've learned in a lot of towns in America, the train drivers will sound their horns at all times of day and night, great.
We need a break from crap fast food and spend 4 times as much to eat at another great Mexican place. We didn't come here for the food or music though. There's a certain world famous canyon up the road that we can not miss.