November 2-5, 2024
I arrived at Boulder Beach Campground at Lake Mead in the early afternoon on Saturday, November 2. The drive from Valley of Fire along Utah Route 167 is spectacular. It is a roller coaster on a good road that rises and falls along continual curves between mountain ranges almost the entire way. It is about fifty miles from Valley of Fire to Lake Mead Road East, near the Henderson entrance to Lake Mead National Recreation Area. From there, it is another ten miles to Boulder Beach Campground. There are a variety of rock formations and colors. There are no services or communities along the way. It is stark desert.
Saturday afternoon, I drove up to Boulder City, which is about six miles from the campground. The reason I went there was to pick things up at an Amazon Locker. As I drove through town, I saw there was a VW car show going on. There were VW Beetles and VW Busses parked on a large green lawn. There were at least fifty vehicles there. The lawn, it turns out, was the Boulder City Green.
I parked my van and picked up my items at the Amazon Locker, which was located in a coffee shop, The Boulder City Co. Shop.
Boulder City is an interesting little place with several coffee shops, restaurants, and other businesses. It has a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, and that is where I spent my time walking around. It’s eclectic. I had been here one other time, in May of 2012, with Mom, my brother Richie, and my sister Patty. We were there because Richie and I had given Mom a Christmas present of a trip to Grand Canyon. We invited our other three siblings, but only Patty wanted to go.
Some history is needed here. Richie and Mom went to Vegas every year for many years, sometimes twice a year. They both loved walking around Vegas and playing the inexpensive (cheap) slots in the casinos. They each generally budgeted about fifteen dollars per day as gambling money, and Mom and Richie would play penny or nickel slots for hours and hours, moving from machine to machine and casino to casino. Mom derived a great deal of fun and satisfaction from this and from other activities they did regularly, such as going to In’ n ’Out Burger and other restaurants. Mom liked to stay at Paris Casino and Hotel, though they stayed at several other places, too. Richie was an expert at finding the best Vegas deals.
In addition to Vegas activities, another adventure they enjoyed was a drive to Hoover Dam. On this drive, they would pass through Boulder City, and they had done this so often that a ritual had developed. They would stop at a place called Mel’s Diner on Nevada Avenue when going through Boulder City. Every time they went to Vegas, they went to Hoover Dam, and on the way there, they’d have breakfast or lunch at Mel’s Diner in Boulder City.
So, it was not unusual for them to go to Vegas, but it was unusual for me to join them. Richie and I wanted to give Mom something out of the ordinary to Mom for Christmas in 2011. We decided a trip to Grand Canyon was it.
That’s some history. Now, back to present day. After my visit to Boulder City Co., I walked two blocks to the city green and the VW show. I was amazed at the cars and busses. The majority were either Beetles or Busses, but there were other models such as the 411sedan and station wagon and the Kharma Ghia. There were a few Porches and for some reason, there were some Chevy Corvairs. I reminisced about VWs in the timeline of my life. Dad had two VW Beetles while we lived there. One was a green 1957 with small, dual windows in the back and a canvas, retractable sunroof. The other was a blue 1962. He used both for transportation to work and back, as well as to deliver bundles of newspapers to “paperboys” on their routes. For that, he always took out the front passenger seat in order to fit all the bundles!
I had a red, 1973 Beetle that I bought in 1975. When I was a kid, we lived on High Ridge Road on a hill. There were many winter morning when Dad would head out the door to work, only to come back and ask us kids for help push the car down the hill because it would not start in the cold. We would give Dad a push, he’d “pop the clutch,” and usually the car would start. There were some days we had to push a few times before it would start. The hill was long enough for that. It’s a good thing we did not live on a flat road.
One of my high school best friends, Bob Bolander, had a VW Bus in the family. True to the stereotype, we used it once in senior year, in Spring 1973, to skip school and go to a Grateful Dead concert at the Long Island Coliseum. There were seven of us riding the bus that day.
A second place in Boulder City that Mom and Richie visited regularly was a shop named the “Western-Mexican Center.” They have a million different artistic creations and souvenirs, many interesting things in the store, both Mexican and Native American in origin. There are fantastic, colorful, ceramic lawn ornaments such as dogs, birds, and other animals. They have clothing from the two cultures and plenty of glass enclosed displays of Native American jewelry. There are paintings and wall coverings, dream weavers, and other items.
After visiting the VW show, I went to this shop, where I browsed and met the owners. The original owners were Petra and Ramiro, and their names on their business cards. The next generation is Angelica and Bill. I talked with both of them. Petra was there as well. Angelica told me they have been in business 59 years! I told her about Mom and Richie, and how they went to Mel’s and then stopped in their shop. I asked them about Mel’s. She told me that “Mel” was short for Melody, and they had the diner on the corner for many years until she became ill. She and her husband sold the business, and he cared for her for at home several years. She passed away four years ago. “Mel’s” was now a coffee shop.
Angelica told me that Mel had been an English teacher at the high school, and her husband had run the school’s automotive shop. One day, Mel decided she was going to open a restaurant. People told her she was crazy, but she did it, and it was a success. It was a great place, wonderful for breakfast and lunch. We went there on our trip in 2012. I remember Mom talked with Mel like they knew each other. Since Mom and Richie went to Vegas so many times, it might have been 15-20 times, and each time they went to Mel’s, Mom felt right at home.
An interesting thing, concerning the confluence of the shop and the VW show, was that Bill had bought a VW bus many years ago. He and two friends took the bus, who he named Victoria, on a trip to Mexico in the mid-1980s. Bill was around 25 at the time. They had a great time adventuring with the bus. Later, after Bill and Angelica married and had kids, he divested of the bus, basically giving it away to a friend of a friend.
Many years later, I think he said 1998, Bill went to the VW show on the green. It seems it is an annual event, and he recognized his bus! He did not know the guy who now owned it, but there were unmistakable markings that confirmed it to be “Victoria.” Bill showed me photos he had of Victoria. And Victoria was up at the show that day, too, another twenty-five or so years later.
On Sunday and Tuesday, I did bike rides from the campground. There is a thirty-five-mile bike path, the River Mountain Loop, that circumvents a large area of mountainous landscape on the west side of Lake Mead. Lake Mead is surround by mountains on all sides. Desert mountains, dry and rugged with very little vegetation. On Sunday I rode counterclockwise, on Tuesday I rode clockwise. It took about three hours each day. Sunday was a very windy day, while Tuesday was less so. According in my Garmin, there was about 2700’ of climbing involved. It is a hilly, up and down route, with a major section of nine miles that accounts for about 1500’ of the changes. The scenery is fantastic, and the workout is, too.
I met two interesting people on my ride Sunday. In the first case, I was about halfway up that big hill when I passed a guy walking in the other direction. He had on a t-shirt that I recognized instantly, something one would not expect. It was a shirt from the 1991 Pikes Peak Ascent. It has a mountain graphic on the front with a bright green and pink highlights. The Pikes Peak Ascent is a 13.4 mile trail run from Manitou Springs to the top of the peak. I did it six years, 1991-1996. I won my age group that first year, too. I got rid of my 1991 shirt years ago, as it had deteriorated into shreds in some areas. I stopped riding and turned around to talk with the guy.
The shirt had belonged to his Dad, who had done the Ascent several times. He said his dad loved that race. They had lived in Colorado Springs for many years, settling there after his Dad retired from the army. I looked up his Dad, as there is a Pikes Peak website with full results over the years. I was 26 that year, and according to the race results, his Dad was 54. I also learned he was a retired Army Lt. Colonel who had been in the service 26 years. He said his Dad did his last Ascent around age 70, but had kept running for many years after that, and kept playing tennis into his 80s. He passed away a couple years ago.
We had spent about ten minutes talking, and it felt meaningful, good. He was glad o talk about his Dad.
The other guy I met was riding a touring bike fully packed with gear. He was from the Netherlands, and he had been on the road for two and a half months, beginning in Alaska. He was heading south, far south, as in all the way into South America. We chit-chatted about touring and a few of its pros and cons, such as the right gears, how much water to carry, tents and sleeping pads, etc. while riding together for about ten minutes.
We were riding along when, at one point, I turned around, after going down a hill, and he was gone. I am not sure what happened, but I think when we hit an uphill, he must have slowed and/or stopped, or maybe he jumped off the trail onto the road, which at one point was adjacent to the trail, and the road had a better surface. I just know I turned around and he was not to be seen. I waited a few minutes to see if he caught up with me. He didn’t. Maybe he just wanted to ride solo?
One other short ride, on Monday I rode down to the Marina and launch site for Lake Mead. There is a very long “driveway,’ about 6/10 of a mile, that is poured concrete with a diagonal pattern cut into it the entire length. It is about was wide as an eight-lane highway. I rode my bike down the steep (about 6% grade) incline all the way to the water. There are a few signs marking where the water level was in year’s past. The one with the highest level was 2002. I took some photos and measured the change. From the sign to the water’s edge, it was .45 miles, while the water level had dropped 112 feet between the two points. Wow.
Tuesday night I had a campfire. It was a good night for it. There was little wind, and I thought it would be nice to have a fire and monitor the results of the election while enjoying it. Well, the fire was nice anyway 😊.
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