*apologies in advance for spelling and grammar mistakes… I’ll fix in the morning after some sleep and coffee 🤪*

Vacation is one of the few times in our lives, we are early and/or on time for anything. Plus, being on west coast time, means 8am here is really 11am to us. The Best Western in Boulder City was really nice. And the fact that it was a whopping $65 a night with breakfast was even better 😉

We packed up and headed out to the Hoover Dam. Apparently, this was a bucket list item for Mike. The drive and scenery were beautiful. The pictures really don’t do it justice. The Hoover Dam is HUGE! It is just hard to wrap your mind around how big this thing is.

The tour is worth every penny to see not just the Dam but the power plant portion. And the boys thoroughly enjoyed discussing “the Dam Tour” and “how awesome the Dam Tour is.” The guides told us “kids love coming on the Dam Tour” and even point out “the Dam bat” who lived in the Dam 🤣🤣I became hilariously obsessed with this guy who filmed EVERYTHING the guide said! Seriously, everything! I can’t imagine he is going to go home and sit and watch Ben, the tour guide’s speech on water distributions to the 7 states who have water rights at the Dam. We loved the tunnels and looking out of vent grate, that was just a little high 😳.

and watching Mike nervously cross a floor grate that was so deep you couldn’t see the bottom!

Leo found out they were serious that you should go to restroom before the tour starts because there is NO restroom on the Dam tour. The size of the generators inside the power plant were shocking. They alternate which generators run each day, and using the power of water, they generate enough power for a 1.5 million homes. They also have enough water in reserve for 20+ years, although they’ve been in “drought conditions” for the past 23 years.

The Visitors Center had great exhibits on the history of the Dam and how it was built. Turns out despite all the rumors there aren’t any bodies buried in the Hoover Dam… or so they want you to believe 🤨. There were also some “Tony Stark” style touchscreen exhibits that the boys loved.

And awesome views of the Dam.

We spent some time outside looking at the Dam…but OH MY WORD! It was so hot! 🥵 Not regular North Carolina hot. We’re talking surface of the sun hot! ☀️ It was a scorching 114° today 😳🥵 Granted little to no humidity but 114° is HOT!

We left the Hoover Dam and the Dam Tour, headed back Boulder City for lunch. This town was something out of a Hollywood set. Clearly they depend on tourism and they definitely keep everything clean and picturesque.

Lunch was the Southwest Diner recommended by the folks at Best Western. Everything was homemade and the burritos were awesome!We left Boulder City headed to Henderson, Nevada… home to the closest WalMart 🤪 but seriously, we wanted to get a cooler, drinks, sandwich stuff and snacks for the next 2 weeks. On the way we caught sights of a few dust devils.We also passed Nallis Air Force Base. The base is so large that it has it’s own zip code.

It is home to the largest number of squadrons of all US airbases, which the boys happily watched as we drove… including fighter jets!

In planning this trip, I read lots about the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, and it just happened to be only 25 miles off our route 😉

This is the most aptly named place I have ever seen, and as beautiful as the pictures are, they don’t come close to what it really looks like.

Fun fact: The Valley of Fire is the very first state park in Nevada

We hiked and climbed for hours!

you know it’s hot when even the Park Service says the heat is “extreme”

Mike and Michael spotted a long horn sheep

And then we found his girlfriend who held up traffic and refused to move for a while 😂

I hate to post purely landscape photos but the Valley of Fire was just that awesome We drove from one stop to the next, hiking as we wanted (or could stand in the heat… I have a new appreciation for the turkey on Thanksgiving!)

By the time we left the Valley of Fire, and the heat, we were wiped out! We headed on to Utah… said goodbye to Nevada, and hello Arizona – we only clipped the edge of it, but it counts and we’ll be back in a few days

The Terrain was become more mountainous and hilly and then we rolled right on into Utah…

From the cross-country travel, the hiking, the heat…We were wiped out! Monday night excitement was the The Meg on television and Dominoes delivery 🤪 it was perfect! And the snoring soon ensued 😴😴😴