If I offended anyone living in Las Vegas, please accept my sincere apology. I just thought this week "Sin Sky" would be a good fit following the theme from last Friday, "The Dam Sky".
I don't remember seeing a palm tree next to the Eiffel Tower when we visitied Paris - haa haa
And I don't remember cars passing by right in front of Lady Liberty either - unless they were watertaxis - hee hee
After our visit to Hoover Dam (Monday, June 28th), we drove 35 miles to Las Vegas. We decided to seek overnight accomodation at one of fine motels since it was already 7:30 p.m.
Las Vegas has many attractions and plenty of entertainment. The city is one of those “love it” or “hate it” places. Personally I don’t feel strongly one way or the other. I don’t enjoy the casino scene and I don’t gamble. If we had more time, I would have enjoyed attending one of the shows. 
We were tired and hungry so we just got a couples of sandwiches from a food court. After a short walk along the main strip, we went back to the motel. If you asked what else happened while we were in Las Vegas. Well, for two boring geezers, nothing happened and that would stay in Las Vegas or anywhere else!
I am about 2 days late with this post. (My faithful readers know that I am "a day late and a dollar short" kind of blogger.) According to a news article, "Thousands of people of all ages and walks of life gathered in Times Square for a group "kiss-in" on Saturday, August 14, 2010, in the first national day of remembrance for the World War II generation.
At estimated 6,000 buglers played "Taps" coast to coast and numerous events were held at World War II memorials and City Halls all across the country. In future years, the commemoration will be held on the second Sunday of August.
These two palm trees stood outside a rest stop at a welcome center in Nevada. With the heat still over 90 and would be back to 100, I thought the palm trees would be fitting for this week "Tuesday Two" post.
The weather people were right when they predicted that the whole week would be hot. It was 100+ everyday. I went into the office, stayed inside until time to go home. 
Simple joy - yesterday morning as I was making an egg sandwich, I cracked the first egg, one yolk came out. The second egg came a nice surprise with two yolks. Together the yolks formed a face that looked like a Mickey Mouse! Believe it or not, I have been making breakfast, very simple egg sandwiches or cheese omelets, on the weekends. Save money and avoid the heat. I am a simple person with simple joy :) 
Late afternoon on Saturday, we did brave the heat to go to the First Classic Car Cruise on Route 66 along Watson Road, the original Route 66 in St. Louis. In addition to the vintage automobiles, carnival games, food and various local bands performed on the main stage in the parking lot of Crestwood Mall.
After the noon Mass, we went to the Mall looking for a new pair of polarized sunglasses for me. We decided to shop on-line for something less since those at the stores were over $200 and I would feel guilty spending that much money on a pair of sunglasses, even though they were from reputable companies.
Have a good week, everyone. Stay cool and don't forget to wear sunscreen!
This sculpture is a tribune to the highscalers who worked on the canyon walls removing more than one million cubic yards of rock. These men either climbed up ropes or were suspended from anchors sunk in the canyon walls, at times swinging in a pendulum fashion, hundreds of feet above the river. 
Transmission lines carry power from the Dam to farms, factories, pumping plants, refineries, to southern Nevada, Arizona and across the Nevada desert to southern California.
BTW, Happy Friday the 13th everyone :)
For a person who knows nothing about engineering, never built anything or don't know how to use any tools, I just could not stop talking about Hoover Dam. I thanked my husband for his suggestion that we included a visit to this wonderful marvel structure. It was definitely one of the highlights of our recent westward road trip. 
These are photos of the Bypass Bridge showing its near completion stage. I already have plans for a visit in the near future.
From this angle, the Bypass Bridge looks like the St. Louis Gateway Arch has been moved and placed here high above the Colorado River. 
Construction for the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, on the Arizona and Nevada approaches began in 2002. According to the official website, it should be completed by the late 2010.
Here is what I found from the official website, http://www.hooverdambypass.org/, "Construction of the Colorado River Bridge is advancing on the 1,060 foot twin-rib concrete arch. The Colorado River Bridge is the central portion of the Hoover Dam Bypass Project. Construction on the nearly 2,000 foot long bridge began in late January 2005 and the completion of the entire Hoover Dam Bypass Project is expected in Late 2010. When completed, this signature bridge will span the Black Canyon (about 1,500 feet south of the Hoover Dam), connecting the Arizona and Nevada Approach highways nearly 900-feet above the Colorado River. Use the web cam icon to the left, to see real-time images of construction on the bridge! Visit the What's New and Construction Activities pages for more details on how this project is advancing."
At 9:10 a.m. we decided to stop in Santa Rosa and thought the Silver Moon Café would be a good place to enjoy a nice breakfast. One table with a family of 4 was eating, and a couple at another table just got their food served as we walked in. After we were seated, another couple came thru the door. We informed a 30-something waitress that we were ready to place our order when she brought us coffee. Another waitress in her 60s took care of the other customers. Half an hour later, we still did not get the scrambled eggs, ham and toast for me and an egg with American cheese omelet with toast for my husband. We inquired and were told it would be ready in a few minutes. We exchanged disappointing looks with the other customers and we all questioned the reasons for the delay when the place was almost empty. We finally got our food and got on the road at 10:45 a.m.
Ten minutes later, we encountered heavy traffic going westbound on I-40. Motorists were directed to use the right shoulder while the eastbound was completely shutdown. I was able to take these photos while emergency vehicles were still on the scene.
I was not happy when the right contact lense gave me trouble earlier. We were upset when the service at Silver Moon Café was unreasonable slow. Then we realized if it was not for the delay, we could have been on the road where the 18-wheeler came crashing thru. Talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time!
While driving near Silverado Ranch Boulevard in Las Vegas, Nevada, we saw this sign, "When you die, You will meet God." If I may add a comment, "When you die, You will meet God or you might not because You might be going down the escalator to Hell."
Monday, June 28th, we left Kingman, Arizona, took US 93 to get to Hoover Dam. It was a 90 minutes drive. I don't remember if anything eventful happened on that drive except seeing the temperature kept getting hotter and hotter. It was 115 when we were purchasing admission tickets at 4:59 p.m. for the last tour of the day. 
Hoover Dam was the biggest man-made masonry marvel to surpass the Great Pyramid of Giza. The dam is made of more than 5 million barrels of cement and 4.5 million cubic yards of aggregate – enough to pave a standard 16-foot-wide highway stretching from San Francisco to New York City. 
Hoover Dam was originally known as the Boulder Dam project and named after the 31st President of the United States, Herbert Hoover. It was started in 1931 and completed in 1935, during the Great Depression, and two full years ahead of schedule.
Hoover Dam is 728 feet high (70-story building), and at the base is 660 feet thick (a little over 2 football fields).
This striking figures, a pair of 30-foot bronze statues, are called Winged Figures of the Republic, were sculpted by Oskar J. W. Hansen, a Norwegian born, naturalized American artist. The statues were formed from sand molds weighing 492 tons.
I highly recommend putting Hoover Dam on your Bucket List, a must visit and must see.
At the end of the tour, we had just enough time to visit "the dam gift shop". Being an engineer, my husband had to obtain a piece of history, a piece of the original copper transmission line that carried electricity between Hoover Dam and Los Angeles beginning in the 1930's. In 2002, to make room for the new Hoover Dam bypass bridge and highway, several transmission line towers in the vicinity of the dam were relocated and the original high-quality copper cable was replaced.
I read in a book about the Navajo that “The number four is very significant and is found throughout Navajo culture and religion. There are four directions, four seasons, four original clans, and four colors associated with the four sacred mountains. Most ceremonies consist of four songs or multiple of four songs.” (From our recent road trip to New Mexico and Arizona, I became interested and have been reading about the Yavapai, the Navajo, the Apache, the Hopi, and the Pueblo.)
I like to post TOTA's First Entry on Friday, August 4, 2006, just like parents looking at baby photos and see how their child has grown.
However, the Chinese, in both Mandarin and Cantonese dialects, do not care for number four because they believe the word for the number four sounds like the word for death. They avoid number 4 like some people avoid number 13.
Here we are, the first week of August. The hot and humid weather is expected for the entire coming weeks and months. You would think that living in St. Louis since 1995, we should get used to this "scorching" temperature by now. After our 9-day, 4,437 miles road trip, it was back to working, daily chores, weekend errands, putting away "stuff" that we obtained on the trip but most of the time, we stay in the cool basement, and taking naps on the futon. It took me a whole week to get the 2,000+ photos organized, copied onto CDs and also back-up copies on the laptop. 
Sunday, July 25th we went to a Ford Mustangs and Classic Cars Show (top photo). There were, of course, lot of cool Mustangs, a dozen T-birds (none with the Merlot color) and also a few good-looking Fairlane. I specially like the Galaxie 500 Skyliner with a Retractable Hardtop. 
On Sunday, July 18th someone at my husband's workplace gave us 2 tickets to see the St. Louis Cardinals taking on the Los Angeles Dodgers. At first I did not wish to go since it would be too hot at 12:15 p.m. but the tickets were two rows behind the dugout (above photos show how close we were to the field) and it was the Dodgers (Brooklyn connection). I know that the team moved from Brooklyn in 1958 but to me it will always be the Brooklyn Dodgers! I was glad we went because we got to sing Happy Birthday to Joe Torre. He looks good for a 70 years old guy.
I want to share a beautiful sunset, seen and captured (bottom image) from my backyard. Wishing all five of my faithful readers and three loyal followers and everyone who reads my blog, whether for a good laugh or to help with your insomnia, a safe, fun and enjoyable summer. Be cool!
