The trains that had run all night did not disturb my sleep. On the contrary, they made a beautiful sound as the crossed the country in their dozens, with seemingly only minutes between them. I woke at first light again (this is becoming a habit), another beautiful sunrise against a backdrop of desert mountains. I was planning on a sleep-in and some bacon and eggs for breakfast, but as I lay in bed, I looked at the lonely planet guide to Las Vegas and decided there was too much to see to sit around! I had some quick cereal.

I was feeling very bum-like having not showered in a few days and could feel it on my body. It was still a little cold to have a shower though, so I thought I’d have one later on that day. That was before I decided to go and check out Amboy Crater, more because I felt like I had to than because I wanted to. At the main carpark, I discovered there was a 1.5 mile trail out to the crater. Now I was interested. The signage suggested it was a three hour round trip hike (not sure why, since it’s only three miles) so I decided to run it. I put some shoes on, changed my clothes and did a very slow run over sand and volcanic rocks to the crater. I could feel that it would be a warm day in the desert with the sun sun already beating down at 8am. I was surprised how much the trail twisted and turned since there wasn’t really much between the carpark and the crater, but it made it interesting. The trail up to the crater was a walk to prevent any rolled ankles, but it wasn’t too steep. The crater itself wasn’t too deep, but at the centre of it, the ground looked like mud, but instead was dry and sandy, but the cracks had remained. The rest of the crater was a collection of black jagged rock. At the peak there was only desert to look at, expanding for miles, with the town of Amboy just visible to the North-East. The run back was slightly downhill but I still took it easy.

Back at the car I was feeling really dirty now, and warm, so it was shower time. I think I may have given up on the shower bag. The carpark was abandoned and was likely to stay that way, so I felt good about my privacy. I wrapped my tarp around the back doors (it only half did the job, but good enough). I filled a squeezy water bottle and did my hair first. Next, I filled a bowl with some water and shaved everywhere. With another squeezy bottle, I washed my body. I put a bit of water over me, then scrubbed with soap, then used the rest of the bottle to rinse. The whole process used less than 1.5L of water – not bad for efficiency! I got dressed for desert weather (shirt and shorts), then put all the shower goods away and hit the road, feeling a lot more like a civilised lady than I had the previous two days.

The town of Amboy was only a service station, which I walked into to fill my water bottles, only for Roy to tell me that all the water out here is salty, all the drinking water was bottled. Definitely in the middle of nowhere. No matter, I had plenty. The road east from Amboy is actually a section of Route 66 and is probably well travelled by tourists, many of which have written their names using rocks on the mounds of dirt aside the road. It was a nice way for people to leave their mark without actually vandalising anything. I drove north of Amboy staying off the highways and through the Mojave Desert. This scenery is desolate and unique. The roads barely turn and are like a rollercoaster, dipping and rising frequently. At one point I saw a sign that read “Watch for Tortoise”, which I dutifully did. I switched between music and podcasts for the drive, honestly keeping one ear out for car trouble which I was more aware of in this huge land mass of isolation.

The views of the desert changed from mountains to boulders to Joshua trees all the way through the national preserve until I exited and reached the border to Nevada. I stopped at the welcome sign and it occurred to me that this would be my last time in California. It made me reflect on what had been my home away from home for the last 18 months. Of all the places I could have lived in the world, I think I had been pretty lucky. Not only does California offer some of the best natural wonders on the planet, it also introduced me to some amazing people and experiences that I will never forget. Goodbye Cali. Thank you for everything.

Now in Nevada, I was skirting Las Vegas heading for Boulder City and Hoover Dam. When I was in Vegas at Christmas last year, we’d decided we couldn’t be bothered driving the forty-five minutes from the city to the dam and in the back of my mind, I’d always regretted it. Boulder City is a bigger town than I thought it would be. I was starving for lunch when I got there, so I pulled in to a Macca’s to use their bathroom and Wifi while I made a wrap. I didn’t have much patience for sitting in my car in the sun. Did I mention it is now stifling hot? Talk about going from one extreme to the other, I would hate to think what it’s like here in the middle of summer. I moved on, keen to get to Hoover Dam.

There are vehicle security checks about a mile away from the dam, which consisted of a man waving all four of the cars through that were in front of me, then failing me and sending me to a secondary inspection. I must look dodgy, but I know I smelled clean! I pulled up and a very serious man asked me to open up the back of the car. “I’m well officer, how about you?” No pleasantries required. Then a woman came over to inspect the car (obviously the man was not the inspecting officer, only the instructing officer). She was lovely, carling me darling, just asked me to open my fridge, then asked when I would be making dinner for her. Before she sent me on my way, she told me that the vest viewpoint was from the bypass bridge and that I should only do the $15 tour, instead of the $30 option because you get to see pretty much the same stuff, but the $30 version includes more information, history and talking by the guide. “But you didn’t hear it from me!” she said laughing.

It was spectacular to see the dam, then to drive across it. I passed the $10 parking at the visitor’s centre, electing to park on the Arizona side of the dam at a free spot that meant I had to walk over the dam (because that obviously doesn’t suck!). This was my third state in three hours. I didn’t muck around taking photos as I walked over, because I was sure there would be a wait for a tour, but I did marvel at the scale of this construction and also the water level. The high water mark is very obvious in white against the red/black colour of the canyon rocks and the water level was a long way below it.

Another security check inside the visitor’s centre, then at the ticketing booth where they had a single A4 page explaining the options and a cashier rushing you to decide what you’d like to do. Maybe some screens guys so that you can decide before you’re at the register? Anyway, put under pressure and fear of missing out, I elected for the $30 tour. Something told me that I was going to find this very interesting and I considered $30 reasonable for an hour-long tour. I would only have to wait 1.5 hours for my tour to start at 3:30pm. In the mean time, there was a 12 minute video to watch in a mini-cinema, which I did, then an exhibition centre which was included in the price of the ticket. I took my time at the exhibitions, learning about the history, the statistics, the politics and the construction of the dam. It was all very intriguing what they achieved back in the 1930s with such limited technology. It really was a feat of innovation to get it done in five years. I was disheartened to learn that while the dam took five years to build, the bypass bridge that now sits above the dam, also took five years and it was finished in 2015! How poor, to think that something as simple as a bridge with all the fancy technology available to us now, took the same amount of time as the complex beast that is Hoover!

I was stationed for the start of the tour as instructed fifteen minutes before the start time and our group was only about 20-people strong. I won the competition of who had travelled the farthest (I said Australia) when our guide asked. I’ve forgotten his name, but he was an older guy, short and very awkward, looking at everyone’s knees as he talked and not improvising well, but he knew what he was talking about. We went down in an elevator with a group on the $15 Powerplant tour to one of the pipelines that feeds into the powerplant of the dam. The inlet pipe was 10 m in diameter and you could hear the rumbling of water gushing through it. Another guide used a diagram on the wall to explain the flow of water from the Colorado River through the dam. The flow rate through the dam is determined by water supply needs for seven US states for farming irrigation and also power supply needs. The dam has 17 generators, two of which are required to power the dam itself and all of its amenities, while the remaining 15 are all used to commercially supply electricity to certain regions.

Next stop, via a tunnel and short elevator trip, was to a view of the generators on the Nevada side of the dam. They work in the same theory as any electric motor with the water spinning a turbine, which spins a rotor that is in close proximity to a stator. It was like the large drive unit of a Tesla multiplied by about 100. We spent a few minutes here as our guide rattled off yet more statistics, my favourite one of which being that the amount of concrete used to build the dam is enough to build a 4-foot wide sidewalk around the circumference of the earth. They had a lot of analogies like this to quantify the scale of the dam. This is where the powerplant tour ended and the $30 dam tour carried on.

We walked down another tunnel for a short way, then got into another elevator that let us out at one of the four air vents that overlook the exit of the dam. Our guide told us that people always travel in pairs around the dam, in case they should get lost and never again be found. The view from the air vent was really cool, the tunnel was not tall enough for me, so I had to crouch down as I walked. Everyone had a look through the air vent, taking photos then we all shuffled back out the way we’d come.

Our awkward guide would explain certain things along the way. As we walked through the next tunnel, he pointed out markings on the wall as evidence that engineering inspections had been carried out. Not only were there markers for distance noted, but there were marks where cracks had formed and even what looked like equations. Seems as though the engineers hadn’t brought any paper with them, so they were doing their sums on the wall. Very cool. Our guide also pointed out bolts in the wall around expansion joints that are used with instrumentation to measure the relative vibrations between two separate concrete blocks. He showed us an earthquake measurement station and the never-ending stairs that serve engineers while doing inspections and also act as an emergency exit for people like us. Not that they’ve ever been used in that capacity.

I asked a bunch of questions about the spillways (they sit 27 feet below the main dam), how often the flow rate changes (every day, depending on needs) and how many people work at the dam today excluding the tourism (this is classified for security purposes…. Huh?). The tour had lasted at least an hour and despite the three wankers in attendance who were obviously on a Vegas high and had been dicking around the whole time (making stupid noises and teasing our guide), I had thoroughly enjoyed it. It was nice to be in such a small group and I felt like we’d taken our time to see everything. We exited atop the second tower along the dam and the day had cooled off slightly as the sun dipped. I spoke to Dad while I walked back along the dam to the car. He was reminding me with a na-ni-na-ni-na that he had been to the Hoover Dam before me, but I think I won because they’d been stingy and not done the tour. I was ready for camp so I got onto casinocampers.com (thanks for the recommendation Michael!) and freecampsites.net to find a spot close by. I didn’t even have to go three miles to find the Hoover Dam Lodge which was listed as a free camping spot on both websites. I was happy not to go too far.

There was one other RV in the back corner of the carpark when I got there and the rest of the carpark was cordoned off for a historic car show that would be happening tomorrow, so there was some nice bling to look at! I wasn’t sure how legit the camping was so I wandered into the casino to see what I could suss out. On the way, I asked the security guard about the car show (better to make friends to seem like I’m innocent). Inside the casino, I enjoyed a free coke from the soda fountain and looked around. They had a lot of memorabilia about the dam and a documentary was playing in one of the foyers. I stopped to watch a bit, then eventually sat on one of the comfy couches to watch it all the way through. Even though I’d already learnt a lot about the dam in the last few hours, this documentary was told through the eyes of the people who had been there and lived it, so was interesting. When it finished I kept wandering and saw a mountain bike on display. It was promoting the historic railroad trail that leaves from behind the casino and goes all the way to the dam, through a series of old railroad tunnels. I think the bike was way over-kitted for a ride like that, but they offered rentals so people could do it. I perused the list of 101 things to do in Boulder City and that triggered me to look at MTB trails later because I’d heard they were good in this region.

Back out to the car, the other RV had gone, so it was only me for the night, we will see if I have any troubles, but I’m out of everyone’s way. There is so much coming and going with people parking their cars for the car show that I don’t think anyone will pay me much attention. Here’s to hoping!