It was a nice cool morning when we left the campground at 9:00. The campground cleared out as campers went about their day business or moved on in their journey. Our trip to Las Vegas today would be 225 miles. So far on this trip we’ve gone over 3,000 miles (minus the 400 miles round trip to go back home for Irma.) We started our day with a climb and then a 6% grade drop.
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From the top we could see Mt. Floyd (El. 7441 ft.) in the distance.
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The road took us closer and closer.
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We traveled on I-40 from Williams to Kingman, AZ. The terrain changed constantly. If you wait 5 minutes, you can see something altogether different.
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We saw this sign on the highway and kept a sharp lookout. We never saw anyone going in the wrong direction. Hmmm!
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This was one of the most interesting drives we’ve had on this trip. We decided to take highway 95 instead of 93 from Kingman to Las Vegas because Bob wanted to avoid having to drive over Hoover Dam. He read that high profile vehicles should not drive over the dam when there are high winds and it was windy today. It probably took us out of our way a little bit, but it is what it is. Besides, the drive was very interesting. The road here had two notches cut out of the hillside.
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There wasn’t much wildlife to see along the way, but we did see 2 antelope and these two riders.
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We had some construction along the way and we ended up following this rental RV for quite a few miles. Traffic was clogged up behind this piece of heavy equipment going up the other side.
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As we neared Kingman, we could see Hualapai Peak (El. 8417 ft.)
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The highway had a lot of up and down and many 6 or 7% grades. It made things very interesting. We could see the highway that we would be traveling on from a long way off.
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From Kingman, we took divided Highway 68 west through the town of Golden Valley. We climbed out of Golden Valley to Union Pass (El. 3571 ft.)
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Going down the other side was another 6% grade for 11 miles.
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The rock formations were amazing!
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We passed through Bullhead City near the Nevada border. It was quite a metropolis with high rise casinos.
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At the border of Arizona and Nevada, we crossed the Colorado River and into the Pacific Time Zone at noon.
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The temp had been rising all day and by now it was 83 degrees. There will be no need to use the fireplace or furnace for awhile. We took Highway 163 across the very southern tip of Nevada and made a turn north on Highway 95 right at the border. This truck was struggling to make the climb ahead of us.
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From there, we traveled north into Las Vegas with the Dead Mountains to the west and Lake Mead Recreational Area to the east. We were in the middle of nowhere, we could see a McDonald’s sign standing high above the hillside. Really? A McDonald’s sign?
About 1/2 way on this road to Vegas, we came around a bend in the road and encountered a stoplight? That meant that we were in the town of Searchlight–a town in the middle of nowhere with a casino. What a kick!
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The road continued straight as an arrow for 17 miles.
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We saw something off in the distance, but didn’t realize what it was. As we got closer, we could see that it was a solar farm….a HUGE solar farm. It was the largest we’ve ever seen.
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It spanned for at least 5 miles and there had to be (no exaggeration) a million solar panels. There were 5 rows of high power lines coming from the solar farm. It could probably power up a good portion of Las Vegas, I’m sure!
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These huge “cactus trees” were everywhere. They were nothing like we’ve ever seen before.
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Around 1:30, we finally saw the skyline of Las Vegas. We came out of the desert and there it was. We were getting closer.
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We drove through the southern end of town to our campground, the Las Vegas RV Resort and checked in.
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We had a “deluxe” site in the middle of the park and it was very nice. It was nice and long, with some shade and the dog park for Auggie right behind us. Perfect!
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We set up camp and I did some wash. It was a beautiful day–warm, but no humidity. We had dinner and gave Auggie a chance to run in the dog park. He had the place all to himself. It was a beautiful evening in Las Vegas and quiet—no trains or highway traffic. Awesome!