Boulder City Nevada Part 2

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We are halfway thru the stay in Boulder City and really enjoying the area. The day before Thanksgiving was cold and windy and after the long day at Valley of Fire State Park, we opted for a more simple day. Just to the west of town is Bootleg Canyon. A parking area provides access to both paved trails and mountain biking trails. We were here for something even easier. Just off the parking area is the Nature Discovery Trail. It’s less than a half mile but has a nice rock garden as well as a handful of very large concrete animals that can be found in this area of the country. At each statue is a plaque with some interesting facts about the animal in front of us. Did ya know jackrabbits can run 40 MPH? Chris even overcame her fear of snakes. From here, we did do a mile or so of the main paved trail but only to get in a few geocaches before deciding the cold wind wasn’t pleasant.

No Fear of Snakes

Tortoise

Jackrabbit

Big Scorpion

When we had checked in at the Elks Lodge, the camp host had informed us about a Thanksgiving dinner in the lodge. There were two full meals planned. One at 11 for non-Elk members and another one at 2 for the lodge members and all the traveling Elks camped here. We head over and find a nearly packed room. We met a few local members at our table and had an excellent meal. It was nice that Chis didn’t need to cook. Although that would mean we would not have any leftovers for the next couple days. It was still a nice time and we didn’t have far to go back home after eating too much.

A couple days later, we head over to nearby Henderson Nevada to check out the Clark County Heritage Museum. It had sounded interesting and the price was right - $2 per person. When we went to pay, we saw their definition of senior was 55, so we qualified and only had to pay half price. The museum and the surrounding grounds are dedicated to the history of this area in Nevada. We figured it would be a quirky diversion but turned out to be quite the place. We spent well over 2 hours exploring all the different things. There are several rail cars including a locomotive.

Locomotive

Caboose

There nearly a dozen buildings on the property.  Many of them are old houses that were relocated to the museum grounds and restored. They are all open to the public and we timed our visit to get to enjoy them decorated in their Christmas finest.

Bungalow

Stockings Hung by Fireplace with Care

One of My Relatives Had THIS Tree!

We really enjoyed going thru the homes. So much of the furniture and decorations were just like we would have seen in our parents home or the homes of my aunts and uncles and grandma. It was just like stepping back in time. The memories seemed to rush thru my head as we peeked in each of the rooms. They seemed to be decorated with furniture that came straight out of my childhood. The kitchen table, chairs and stool all seemed so familiar to me. I nearly expected to hear my mom call me in for dinner.

So Familiar

Babcock/Wilcox House

Mom Liked These Colors

Another building housed a large amount of printing equipment from back in the day when the type needed to be set manually. We learned something interesting about the etymology of the terms upper and lower case. Originally capital letters were stored in a tray or case that was placed above the case that held the small letters. Just think if they had reversed the position of the two trays, we would be calling capital letters lower case and vice versa. Today’s lesson is over!

Printing Press

Learning About Upper and Lower Case

Even an old church got relocated to the museum grounds. The Candlelight Wedding Chapel had been a fixture on Las Vegas Boulevard for 4 decades. It was moved to the museum grounds in 2007 and fully renovated. Some of the old wedding certificates and pictures were in several books. We flipped thru them hoping to find somebody we knew but had no success. For anybody that did get married there, it would be a trip down memory lane to visit the chapel.

Going to the Chapel

There are a few other outdoor exhibits including a car and a vintage Spartanette aluminum trailer. We peeked inside and weren’t tempted to trade for it. Inside a few other buildings were a plethora of old things. Some vintage gambling machines seemed appropriate being right next to Vegas. Of course the winning display might just be the Spirograph. Chris and I both had this set and can’t begin to say just how many hours we spent playing with it.

Spartanette Trailer

1880 Cabin

Vintage Gaming Machines

Interesting Natural Rock Pattern 

What Memories!

A second trip into Henderson brought us to the Ethel M chocolate factory and botanical gardens. We likely would have stopped here for either aspect but I’ll admit the chocolate was the real selling point. The gardens were actually pretty nice. We walked around the various paths thru the gardens. The plants were all creatively adorned with Christmas lights and decorations. Since a large number of the plants are various forms of cacti, it wasn’t really clear how someone was able to wrap them with strings of lights and not get seriously hurt. It wasn’t quite dark when we toured the gardens but the lights were turned on. Later, when it was nearly dark, all the lights on plants were off and the staff didn’t seem to understand why.

Peacock

Very Cool Ornament

There aren’t tours of the chocolate factory, but the one wall of the factory is glass and the visitors can watch all the aspects of the chocolate making process. There wasn’t a lot of work happening but there were a handful of workers running various machines. It probably isn’t too surprising that the place looked extremely clean. There is a large gift shop area with all the different types of candy they make. We went up and down the aisles trying to decided which ones sounded best. Unlike the Theo Chocolate tour we did in Freeport Washington, they don’t have samples of the various types of chocolate to try. We managed to get a select few chocolate bars and some chocolate covered marshmallows for an appetizer before heading home for dinner.

Ideal Job?

We spent the next day exploring another local park. Red Rock Canyon is a national conservation area on the west side of Las Vegas. From Boulder City, it’s about an hourlong drive. Being part of the national park system, our annual parks pass gets us in for free. We stop at a very nice visitor center to see what the park has to offer. There is a 13 mile long, one way scenic drive that loops thru the park. Chris gets some info about various hikes that we may be interested in. Besides the normal indoor displays for a park like this, there were numerous outside displays and even some desert tortoise enclosures. It was a very cold morning so they seemed to be staying put in their holes until it warmed up a bit. The views from the center of the rest of the park were pretty nice and we knew we would enjoy spending time checking it out.

Red Rock Canyon View from Visitor Center

We stopped at the first parking area named Calico I. It was a busy spot with many other people out enjoying the cool weather and great views. This park has over 2000 rock climbing routes and we saw dozens of people attempting climbs that frankly scared us for their safety. I suppose if I was into rock climbing, I would spend a great deal of time testing my skills. We did a couple miles of the trails in the Calico Hills area and found the rock formations to be as astounding as those in other National Parks and Monuments.

Along Calico Hills

Next we stopped at the Sandstone Quarry parking area and had our lunch before going out for a more substantial hike. There are several trails that start in this parking area but we managed to stay on the one we were intending on tackling - Calico Tanks. This 2.5 mile round trip hike heads up a wash and climbs about 500 feet in elevation as we work our way up the small canyon between two sets of hills.

Heading Up Correct Trail

The views along the trail, especially when stopping and looking back over the park as we gain elevation, are wonderful. We did discover that the trail wasn’t all that well marked and even though the canyon is only a couple hundred feet wide, we occasionally found ourselves heading up on the wrong side of the wash. We ran into a local woman as we were making our way back to the real trail. She has done the hike numerous times and gave us the advice to look around for trail as it often switches from being on the north side to the south side.

Red Capped

Up the Wash

Most of the trail is in the shade and it was rather cool even in mid afternoon. We even ran into a couple spots of snow as we approached the end of the trail. We did see one guy climbing the cliff along the trail and watched him for a few minutes.

Some Snow

Climber Nears Top

The trail ends at a large overlook to the southeast. Even the high rise towers of Las Vegas look small from this vantage point. It would be really neat to see at night but the park closes at 5PM this time of year. Well that and the fact that this hike would be a real challenge coming down in the dark. There is also a large pool of water that appeared to be skimmed over with ice. I suppose this is the Calico Tank the trail is named after.

Calico Tank

First View from End of Calico Tank

The view from the overlook was nice, but we could see a bunch of people had worked their way to the other side of the overlook. The path from one side to the other wasn’t completely obvious and Chris was content to stay put and not risk the climb down and back up. There was a mother, father and their 8 year old son with us at this point. The kid was pleading to continue to the other side but the father wasn’t having it. I told Chris I’d be back and slowly worked my way across. It was worth the effort since the view from this side was even better. As I was taking it all in, I noticed the kid and his mother had followed my lead, leaving the father to chat with Chris. It was a slow hike back and even though we intended to stay on the trail, we found ourselves on the wrong side of the canyon at one point looking down at other hikers on the correct path.

View from Other Side

This hike ended up taking longer and more out of us than we were expecting. We were only about a third of the way around the loop drive and had planned on seeing much more. But we had to be content to get a few pictures at the High Point Overlook. When we make it back to this area, we need to revisit Red Rock Canyon.

Quick Stop at High Point Lookout

On what was to be our last full day in the area, we had an RVillage get together with our friends we met up in Grand Teton National Park this past summer. They had setup the gathering at a pizza joint in Las Vegas late afternoon. We decided to drive into the city and get a little bit of sightseeing in. Hard to believe we were this close to Vegas for 2 weeks and hadn’t bothered to come visit the Strip. We parked the car at a shopping mall and headed out on foot to see some of the sites. We didn’t make it nearly as far as we had hoped. Probably because the large crowds of people and the need to cross busy intersections really slowed down our pace. Before we knew it we needed to turn around and head back to the pizza joint named Rickety Cricket.

We knew it was near a marijuana dispensary that had recently opened. It took us awhile before we realized there are several other establishments inside the same large building as the dispensary. There was a pretty good turnout of other RVillagers. Besides pizza, the place also is a micro brewery, so we all stood around talking and comparing travel notes before ordering some good pizza and continuing the conversations. It was a long day but fun.

We had seen the forecast for our travel day and driving in the expected wet weather didn’t really appeal to us. We asked the camp host at the Elks Lodge if we could stay another night. Since it wasn’t close to being full, she said no problem and didn’t even want our money for the extra night. We definitely liked this place and will stay here the next time we come through Vegas.

After staying put for the rainy day, we had much better weather to pack up and head out. Our next real destination is back to Desert Hot Springs where we had stayed 2 years ago. It was a bit longer drive than we like so we did an overnight stop near some outlet malls in Barstow California. There is a large dirt lot next to what appears to be a completely deserted outlet mall and across the street from a much newer outlet mall. We arrived early enough to get setup and head to the mall for some window shopping. It was a quiet night without any semi trucks parking too close. Now we have just over 110 miles to get to the wonderful mineral hot tubs at Sam’s Family Spa.