Focht Family Blog

After leaving the Grand Canyon we headed towards Las Vegas. We had planned to go to the Hoover Dam during our time there but decided if we could find a parking spot we would take a tour of Hoover Dam while driving through. Here is a picture of the parking spot we found…

So it was a little walk to the tour. :) Here is a picture that I took from the RV.

This picture shows how low the water level is right now. The white areas are usually under water.

We decided to take the power plant tour because the Hoover Dam tour doesn’t allow kids under 8. While waiting for the elevator to take us down to the bottom (very fast), I took a picture of the Dam from the window.

The tour takes you down into one of the bypass tunnels that were built to divert the Colorado River while the dam was being built. Here is a picture of one of the tunnels that the water still flows through at 80,000 gallons a minute. You could feel and hear the water rushing under your feet.

This is a diagram that shows where we were.

Then they take you to the room that has the power generation turbines. Here is a picture of them.

Here is one last picture that I took while we were driving away…

I was a nervous wreck the whole day. It was extremely terrifying to see my children anywhere near the edge. Our first stop was to walk to the information center. We could have taken a shuttle but it seemed like a nice day. Here is Nathan and the boys playing king of the hill.

At the information center, we got books for each of the kids so they could become Junior Rangers. Here is a picture of Samantha and Joshua doing an assignment in their books at a safe distance. Timmy was sitting on the rock ledge with Nathan giving me a small heart attack. :)

Here are two pictures I took while I was making sure Timmy was okay.

After finishing all of their assignments except attending a ranger class we stopped for lunch at a cafeteria. The food was not very good. While waiting for the shuttle Timmy started a snowball fight with Nathan and he thought he was well hidden behind something. Nathan threw one and it accidently hit Timmy on the cheek. Timmy wasn’t happy…

The shuttle took us to the Yavapai Observation Station where the kids took part in a class taught by a ranger about the geology in the Canyon.

While she was explaining the path the river takes she let Josh help with the demonstration…

After the lesson, the kids were sworn in to receive their badges…

Here is one last picture of the Canyon and a picture of the family in front of it.

Well, we arrived at the Grand Canyon and I called to find out where our mail was since it showed as being delivered. They gave me directions to an office a bit of a drive away from the campground. Since we had to drive to get the mail anyway, we put the kids in the car and drove on the scenic road and stopped to look at some of the overlooks. It is terrifying to realize how close you can get to the edge. Either there isn’t anything blocking you or there is a 2 foot rock ledge or a pipe railing with large openings. Here are some pictures from the first day.

While at the campground we looked out the windshield and saw two deer feeding. They started butting their horns together while we watched but the picture I took had too  much shade in it to see well. Here is one of the pictures of the deer.

I didn’t take a picture of our sites. They were basic sites with LOTS of snow!

Things I like: For a campground in a National Park this has lots of ammenities. There is 50amp electric, water, sewer, AND cable at all the sites.

Things I don’t like: I think the only negative is that if you need groceries you will be stuck with what is at the small store at the park because there aren’t any towns nearby.

We left St. Louis on Friday morning. Friday night we stayed at a Walmart in Oklahoma City. We actually stopped at a Walmart between Tulsa and Oklahoma City first but Nathan didn’t feel good about staying there so after we made dinner we continued on to a bigger area. We made good enough time that we were able to have short driving days the next two days. It was so nice to go outside on Saturday morning in a short sleeved shirt! :)

Saturday night we drove until Amarillo. There isn’t much available for overnight anywhere outside of Amarillo if you are traveling on I-40 so that is why there were 9 or so campers in the lot with us. :) Unfortunately a cold front came through so the short sleeves are back in the closet. Tonight we are at a KOA in Bernalilo, NM. This is the KOA we stayed at right after we purchased our Allstar. We were going to stay at the Cummins because they are going to fix an oil leak in the morning but it was a bad area so we decided to just pay for a campground so we could dump and fill up with water. If we need to be in NM tomorrow night we will probably just stay at a Walmart. Once we leave here we are headed to the Grand Canyon.