Leaving Las Vegas is a great thing, no wonder they made a movie with that title 🙂
We left to the NorthWest this morning, to make a stop at the famous “Gold and Silver Pawn Shop”. It’s supposed to be 24 hours, but it ain’t. Anyway, we got there just as it was opening. It’s cool, but yeah, it’s a pawn shop. Apparently the guys from Pawn Stars are there quite often but I have yet to see them there. They mostly just come in for filming these days.
Anyway, after that, we stopped for breakfast at the “The Omelette House” on Charleston and had a good breakfast, and then headed out of the city, to Red Rock Canyon. For anyone going to Vegas, make sure to go to Red Rock. You can go to an interpretive centre (which we didn’t), drive around the canyon, and do several hikes. Anyway, the canyon is this crazy brilliant Red, I guess because of loads of iron in the rock. Quite stunning really, and you can see it for miles.
After the canyon we made our way across Vegas and started down hwy 93 to Kingman. On the way, we made the obligatory stop at Hoover Dam, one of the American Wonders. It’s a very impressive place, and the scale of it is kinda mind-blowing. I’ve been there several times, and I am sure that every time I am there the water level is a lot lower…it’s gotta be a bit scary for everyone in these parts. Anyway, it was a lot of walking and sweating (it was around 35°C), but we made a stop for some ice cream and all was good 🙂
After Hoover, we got back on 93 and headed south towards Kingman. I stopped for some gas about half way, but the lineup was insane, and for whatever reason the gas pumps always ask for a zipcode when I try to use my card, so pre-pay seems to be the only option. Anyway, the station was crazy busy and we just decided to try to make it on the gas we had left. Little did we know that with the labour day traffic heading back to Phoenix, and a crazy-short left turn signal onto the interstate, the traffic was backed up for about 5 miles outside of Kingman. Well, I started getting kinda nervous, so I did something a little crazy – I got on the should and rode it all the way into town, saving us probably about an hour in the parking lot situation, and definitely from running out of gas. Good thing there were no state troopers around!
Our motel in Kingman, the Quality Inn, is fantastic – $50/night with cable, high-speed wi-fi, a great pool, full breakfast, and excellent service all included. It was a great way to wind up the day, hanging around the pool and just feeling really content and relaxed. All in all, another fantastic day!
Tomorrow we’re on to Williams, just south of the Grand Canyon.
Peace out,
Byron
