Boulder City, Nevada

While we were eating breakfast yesterday morning, I happened to look out the window and noticed frost on the ATV's. It was another reminder that snow was coming, and it was time for us to get out of the way.

We fueled up the truck and then headed west on I-40 toward Boulder City, Nevada, a distance of a little under 250 miles. We started out in a Ponderosa Pine forest. In the distance, we could see Bill Williams Peak. 

Our map identified it by name and estimated its elevation at 9,259 feet. Well, doncha know we needed to know who Bill Williams was. As it turns out, he was a a noted mountain man and frontiersman. He served as an interpreter for the government, and led several expeditions in the West. Fluent in several languages, he lived with the Ute and the Osage, where he married the daughter of a chief. There's even a statue of him in Williams, Arizona.

That isn't my image; it's one I stole off the internet. I encouraged Mike to pull a short distance off the road so we could see the statue with our very own eyes. He really didn't want to, and so I didn't insist. I think we will regret this for the rest of our lives.

Driving on, we noticed Picacho Butte ahead. It reminded us of the volcanic "plugs" we'd seen in New Mexico. Inquiring of my friend, The Google, we learned this is a a silicic volcanic dome, meaning it is made up of about 68% silica. Its elevation is 7,171 feet.

Driving on, the Ponderosa Pines gave way to a more open landscape. There was some ranching in this area.

Approaching Kingman, we learned that it is named after Lewis Kingman, a civil engineer. The city's historical significance is that Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a U.S. Navy officer in the service of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, was ordered by the U.S. War Department to build a federal wagon road across the 35th Parallel. His secondary orders were to test the feasibility of the use of camels as pack animals in the southwestern desert. Beale traveled through the present day Kingman in 1857 surveying the road and in 1859 to build the road. Beale's Wagon Road became part of Highway 66 and Interstate Highway 40. Remnants of the wagon road can still be seen in White Cliffs Canyon near Kingman.

In Kingman, we left the interstate to travel US Hwy 93 north the rest of the way into Boulder City, Nevada. Along the way we spotted this mine. It is what remains of the Mineral Park mine. The Mineral Park mine is a large open pit copper mine located in the Cerbat Mountains 14 miles northwest of Kingman. A 2013 report said that Mineral Park represented one of the largest copper reserves in the United States and in the world, having estimated reserves of 389 million tons of ore grading 0.14% copper and 31 million ounces of silver.

I found this satellite image of the area online. I believe we were only seeing the section in the lower left corner of the image below. The mine changed ownership several times over the years, and went bankrupt and closed in 2014. As far as I know, it is not operational at this time.

Between Kingman and Boulder City, we came upon a few historic markers. This one in the town of Chloride:

And this one in the town of Willow Beach. One assumes this is the same "White Hills" spoken of when we looked up the significance of Kingman earlier.

As we approached Boulder City, we noticed this wind turbine farm off in the distance. It's the only one we've seen in Arizona. It was windy in the area.

Coming over the final rise before reaching Boulder City, we were able to take in the beauty of the Colorado River canyon. This area is designated as a part of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

At one point, we got a glimpse of the Colorado River. This is the part of the river that flows after passing through the spillway at Hoover Dam.

It's a beautiful canyon, and vast.

We knew we would have to cross the tall scary bridge at Hoover Dam where the Arizona-Nevada state line is located. This was the first of the two bridges.

"High Profile Vehicles": That would be us.

And here we go. If you're afraid of heights, you might want to shut your eyes here.

I cut off the name of the bridge with our antenna, and so I'm recycling a picture from our trip last winter.

So, here we go. That motorhome ahead of us is in the wrong lane. They must be very brave.

Since I couldn't get good pictures of the bridge or the dam, I'm recycling some more images from our visit last winter. We walked up on the bridge and all around the dam at the beginning of the year on our "Rainbirds" trip. If you want to see the dam and the bridge up close and personal, you can read my blog post from February right here. Here's a picture of the bridge, standing on the dam.

Here's a picture of the dam:

When you're up on the bridge, there are a series of commemorative plaques. It was a joint effort between Arizona and Nevada.

Crossing to the far side of the dam, we crossed the state line into Nevada.

There were just a few miles left before we reached the RV park. Looking back, we could see Lake Mead.

We arrived early in the afternoon, and I desperately needed to do some laundry. I practically sprinted to the laundromat here in the park. While I was gone, Sadie and Smitty worked on their new social media profile pictures. Sadie is thinking of using this one on her Tinder profile.

Smitty isn't on Tinder. He was in such high demand, he left the site. Now, he's only on Facebook. This might be his new profile picture.

Some birds landed in the tree outside and distracted him, and so we haven't finished deciding which of his many handsome shots we should use.

So, we're here in Boulder City for three nights (two now). We're only about a mile from town, and so we'll walk over there today and get some lunch at Boulder Dam Brewing Co. We really like Boulder City, and we've visited every year for about the past four years. We always get at least one meal there. Aside from that, we have no plans. We'll just hang out for now and head off to Tonopah and toward home on Wednesday morning.