Lake Meade National Recreation Area

We really have remarkable luck when it comes to finding good places to park Shiny. However, we were thinking that it had run out when we discovered that there were no empty sites at the Big Bend of the Colorado State Recreation Area in Laughlin, Nevada. So, making the best of a not so good situation, we signed up for one of the last spots at Don Laughlin’s Riverside RV Park. This was a big one with 750 sites. Many of them bordered the main drag where the casinos are. Shiny’s luck pulled through again when we found our site on the top level facing the mountains. We were also a short distance from the shower rooms and laundry. Both, ahem, were needed! It wasn’t a very friendly place. Unlike many parks, no one gave us more than a curt nod. Maybe they were afraid after having read the signs posted everywhere about, “Beware of Scammers!” I never thought we looked like a scammer but…

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Things got a bit noisy when the 2020 King Shocks Laughlin Desert Classic got started right near our site. The first day it rained but that didn’t stop the action.We were regaled with the whine of desert buggies racing until 1:30 AM. Larry knows the precise time because that is when he finally fell asleep. 5 helicopters circled the event all day long. I suppose they were filming the live action. We thought we might take a look at the race just out of curiosity until we found out that the tickets were $70 apiece.

We drove past Nevada Solar One off of route 95 on the way in to Laughlin. It is a huge Solar farm that went on for miles along the highway. This picture doesn’t do it justice but it was very impressive. It was nice to see such huge alternative energy production.

While we stayed a the Casino Resort, we drove a short way to Grapevine Canyon which is a part of Lake Meade National Recreation Area. A .3 mile walk led us to a splendid array of Petroglyphs. I was thrilled to be there and took about 500 pictures. It’ll take me months to paint each of those.

In the photo below, maybe you can see a figure of a man on a ladder similar to ones we use to pick apples. It has one leg on the bottom and splits off into two pieces with hand rails in between. Some people have suggested that the makers of these petroglyphs used these ladders to reach some of the higher spots.

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I am continuing with my daily drawing and painting of petroglyphs. I enjoy it immensely. I recently saw a splendid sketch made by one of my nephews and I felt like I should just throw out my paints because my work looks so feeble compared to his. Then, I reminded myself what was important to me was how I felt when I was drawing. It isn’t about production and selling and even anybody else liking it (although that’s cool, too). Who am I being when I paint? I am curious and open and filled with awe and respect and curiosity. That’s why I paint. It just took me a bit to remember that! What do your creative projects do for you???

After Laughlin, we headed into Lake Meade National Recreation Area and set up camp at a much quieter Callville Bay Campground. We had a great hike at the Redstone Dune Trail. The rock formations were beautiful beyond words. We pretty much had the place ourselves. It’s so amazing to think that this whole area used to be part of a big ocean.

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Lake Meade was formed by the creation of the Hoover Dam which blocked the flow of the Colorado River. For a man made lake, it is actually very beautiful.

The dam was built during the Great Depression between 1931 and 1936. It was originally called Bolder Dam. Over one hundred workers lost their lives while building the dam. We walked along the historic railroad trail. It passed under 5 massive tunnels that were built to be tall enough to allow huge turbines to pass onto the dam. Below is a photo from Wikipedia of a ‘Jumbo Rig’ used for drilling the tunnels.

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Callville campground, were we stayed was a great little place and we met some nice people there from eastern Oregon. Joe and Glenda played guitar and keyboard. Larry joined them with his fiddle to some lovely old Country tunes. They invited us up to their camp in the mountains. That sounds like fun! We did some great rock hounding and spent several days just puttering around, going for hikes, playing the fiddle, knitting and getting to know people including our very helpful campground host, Jason. He was a wealth of information about the area.

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We really love the raw, wide open feel of this part of the country, warts and all. And, we are looking forward to our next explorations just up the way at the Valley of Fire State Park.