July 25, 2013 - Thursday

Since we were out until 3:30, we slept in until 10 today. We checked out and ventured over to the famous Peppermill for breakfast. This place was awesome! The décor was very 70s and the waitresses were dressed to match the time period of the décor. Everyone was very friendly. The wait was about 15 minutes so we found a cozy spot at the bar. We found out lots of famous people have dined here and one person even crafted a bar to match the Peppermill’s booths. The portions were huge and well worth every penny we spent. They still make homemade bloody marys, so I had to have one-I ordered it spicy; it was delicious! We sat at the bar and got to watch everything going on in the kitchen. The chefs were amazing-they were all so calm and collected as they whipped up meals and placed them in the window. There were six guys cooking, one expediting and several waitresses; the whole experience was fun for us.

After breakfast, we got back in the AC of the tahoe since it was now about 106. There is still zero humidity, but when it is this hot, there’s absolutely no relief. At this temperature, your ankles start to feel like they’re burning the longer you walk because of the heat coming off the blacktop. We drove by the Pawn Stars’ shop and got a couple pictures. We then headed to American Restoration and got in on the free tour; it was great! We got to see Cowboy and Kyle while we were there. I haven’t watched the show as frequently as Chris, but it was really cool to be taken through the actual shop where these people are working. They’re up to 20 full-time employees now, a few of which solely give tours and work in the gift shop.

The Hoover Dam was 45 minutes from the American Restoration shop. The drive was not bad. The temperature was bad. It had been creeping up and was now at 110. The drive to the actual dam was interesting. We had to have the camper searched which made us feel good because they are watching who enters and exits. They didn’t really search very hard-I guess we didn’t look too suspicious. I learned about the Hoover Dam in school but must have tuned out during that lesson. It was so awesome to see it in person. It’s unbelievably big. It was constructed from 1931-1935. The base of the dam is almost 700 feet thick with concrete. We took the power plant tour and got to go down in an elevator to 500+ feet below the surface of the earth. We were in a tunnel made from bedrock. People’s ears were popping as we went down and I could feel it in my sinuses. There was a lot of pressure down here. We got to stand above one of the pipes carrying water at 96,000 gallons/second. You could feel the vibration. The pipe was 30 feet around. We learned how the dam works and then traveled up 100 feet to see the generators. This area was really cool. We got to see the 7 Nevada generators and how they worked. Arizona has generators on their side of the dam, too. The lake that feeds into the dam is Meade Lake and it would cover the entire state of PA with one foot of water-it’s huge-500 feet deep in some spots. The dam generates electricity and provides a controlled source of water to farmers in a few states. We also found it interesting that with the amount of concrete used, it could take 100 years to fully cure, that means it’s still not completely done curing. They ran pipes through the concrete to send water through to cool the concrete faster and were done the project two years sooner. We were amazed at this whole area.

We were ready to leave when we did because the temperature had reached 111 and got up to 117 while we were driving. It was so, so hot and dry here. Arizona was hot and dry most of the way. We did see a rainbow and knew there had to be rain up ahead and hopefully some greener land. Sure enough, we started to see small trees and some greener grass. We hopped off 40 onto the scenic route 66 in Seligman(Slig-man), where we grabbed dinner at Road Kill Café. This place was clean, was appropriately decorated with stuffed animals around the restaurant and the food was also excellent. The wait staff was kind and the little gift shop area was cute. The names of each dish were appropriately titled with road kill names. After dinner, we followed 66 for awhile and hopped back on 40 to get to our campground. Even though we did not arrive until 9:30, it appears to be a nice campground. We’ll be getting up at 4:30 to leave at 5 for an all day rafting trip. Until tomorrow…