LIFT OFF TO BOULDER CITY

Our friends, Bob & Diana were out the door at 8am yesterday, with Denise, the Realtor. They were on their way to more closely inspect the house that they might be purchasing. We weren't too far behind, pulling the motor home out of the yard about an hour later.

Part of our routine when we leave, is Patty secures the gate, as I pull the motor home out of the yard, then follows me down to the very large High School Parking Lot. That's where I hook up the Jeep, and then we're off. Yesterday, when I pulled into the Football Field Parking Lot, there were a lot more cars than usual, and I noticed Police Cars & Fire Trucks all over the place. About the same time I was parking, waiting for Patty, the local Medi-Flight Helicopter was landing in front of the bleachers. At first I thought there was some sort of disaster that was being responded to by all of the local emergency services. When I noticed that the stadium was full of students, and there was an overturned car on the football field, it didn't take long to figure out that this was a disaster drill being staged by the school, and local authorities. A small sigh of relief, as I first thought that I might have driven into some sort of disaster zone.

We made one stop in Kingman, as I had an appointment at the commercial section of the D.M.V. for the purpose of transferring my drivers license from Alaska to Arizona. From there, it was smooth sailing up Hwy 93 to the new bridge above Hoover Dam, and down to the RV Park between the dam and Boulder City.

We're here for the next 3 days, with our RV group of "Golden Spikers". We had a social hour yesterday evening, and it was good to see many of our friends who we last saw at the Indio Rally in January.

Part of the agenda last night was an introduction of Tony, the local Interpretive Ranger, who will be giving us more information about the building of Hoover Dam, and in particular, more history about the railroad that was instrumental in the actual construction of the Dam. He told us a fascinating story about the American Flag pictured on the downstream side of the Dam. When it was displayed in 1996, as part of the Olympic Torch's travels to Atlanta, it was the largest flag in the world, covering a huge section of the dam face. The story of the individual responsible for the creation of this flag, was especially intriguing. We have lots of activities on the schedule, starting this morning with a tour of the dam. Should be a fun 3 days!