Our second day in Vegas started early as we rushed out to meet a tour. We almost didn’t make it when the car refused to start but luckily I was able to find a hard-reset guide on youtube and we got it started. We were due to the meet the tour at the Circus Circus casino, home of the largest permanent circus in the world. It was originally opened in 1968 but struggled due to a lack of an attached hotel. A 15 story hotel was built in 1972 and another in 1975. The casino is 11,5002.
The casino was originally planned to be a Roman circus but instead became a circus circus, hence the name. This was at a time when most casinos were competing to be the most luxurious, so a circus was a deviation from the norm. Unfortunately the casino is starting to look its age and we didn’t really look around it much. Instead we parked in a nearby free carpark. Instead of walking around the outside of the casino we decided to take a covered walkway into the casino, but then couldn’t find an easy way out. We’d given ourselves plenty of time to meet the 6:30 pickup time, but with the car delays we were getting close. Eventually we found an exit, but it was at the rear of the casino and we had to walk the entire way around to find the giant neon clown sign and our pickup point.
The tour for the day was with MAX Tours and included the Vegas Sign, Seven Magic Mountains, Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. Our tour guide was Chad and he was excellent. The tour had space for 14 people, so our 5 made over a third of it.
We stopped briefly at the Fontainebleau and Palazzo to pick up the remaining guests and then headed out to the Vegas Sign.
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| Car sculpture outside Fontainebleau |
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| Roof artwork art Palazzo |
The “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign is a famous sight in most movies showing Vegas and a major landmark. The first sign was built in 1959. In 2008 a median was added to allow tourists to safely park and take photos with the sign.
At one point a “Welcome to Fabulous Downtown Las Vegas” sign was added just within the city limits (the original is about 6km south) in 2002. In 2016 the sign was destroyed in a car crash.
After finishing up at the sign, our next stop was further south, just outside Vegas, the art installation Seven Magic Mountains. It was created by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone in 2016 and consists of stacks of coloured boulders. To make the effect, he cored through the centre of the rocks and installed a metal framework that is dug into the ground. The stacks are 9 – 11m tall.
The intent was for the artwork to be temporary and be removed at the end of 2018 but it was so popular it was retained until May 2027, when it will likely be removed and relocated. It cost $3.5 million (raised by private donors) – a large amount of which was used to cover overheads such as obtaining permission to built it on Bureau of Land Management property.
Behind the artwork lies the Mojave desert and an area where a number of movie scenes were filmed.
Building started in the early 1930s as a project during the Great Depression. The intent was to dam the Colorado River in order to provide irrigation water for developing the western United States and to control flooding. There was also a consideration for the significant potential for generating hydro-electric power.
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| The power poles were deliberately built on strange angles to make for easier straight line connections |
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| One of the intakes |
Workers were enticed to the area by significant wages ($1 a day vs 25c on similar projects), bringing their families to the area and expanding the population of Las Vegas by more than three times. In order to house the large number of workers, Boulder City was constructed as well as bunkhouses on the canyon walls. Being a desert area, the conditions were nasty in summer (with highs reaching almost 49C) and several workers died of heat stroke. Working conditions were not governed by a safety oversight and more than 112 workers were killed during the construction. Injured workers were laid off, often leaving them homeless and unable to work. Several drowned and a majority were killed by either falls or falling objects. There were 3 suicides of workers and 96 of the deaths occurred during construction. An additional 42 workers died of pneumonia, which it is alleged may have been caused by truck fumes and extreme heat (60C) in the diversion tunnels where they were working and may have been a cover for carbon monoxide poisoning.
In order to build the huge concrete foundations needed for the arch-gravity, the river needed to be diverted from its current course. For this, four tunnels were built, using drills to make holes in the canyon walls and dynamite to expand them. The tunnels were of 17m diameter and together they spanned 5km. Once the tunnels were dug, they were lined by concrete a meter thick. These diverted the river until the completion of the dam, when the tunnels were partially plugged and used to house intakes for the power plant.
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| One of the bypass tunnels |
The next step was removal of loose rock and soil, involving “high scalers” who were roped to the top of the dam and climbed down the walls using jackhammers and dynamite to remove loose rock. This helped make the area safer from falling rocks, which had claimed a number of lives. Hardhats did not exist at the time, so workers dipped cloth hats in tar, which hardened and created a protective headgear. There is a common myth that this led to the creation of hard hats and that E.D Bullard company, who made the first hard hats, used this as the basis for their “hard boiled hat” and provided these to the Hoover Dam workers as a donation. However, this style of helmet had already been used in mines since the early 1900s and Hoover was the first place where a large number of hard hats were mandated.
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| Statue for the High Scalers |
The walls and foundation of the canyon were reinforced with grout. The first concrete was poured in 1933. In order to prevent cracking and contracting, the concrete was poured in blocks and columns lined with pipes running cold water. These pipes were used to help the concrete cure and were then filled with grout. Over 2,480,000 cubic meters of concrete was used for the dam and 850,000m3 for the power plant. This included 940km of cooling pipe.
The dam was opened in 1935 and named Boulder Dam. The name Hoover Dam had been used informally since 1930 (when was president), but after he was defeated in 1932 the decision was that the dam should be known as Boulder Dam. The name never really stuck and most people referred to the dam as Hoover Dam and was passed by bill in 1947.
The power generators were completed over the next few years, the first in 1936 and the last in 1961. The generation at the time was 1,345 Megawatts. The water from Lake Mead (the reservoir created by Hoover Dam) enters intake towers and then through turbines to create the power. The falling water levels in Lake Mead are a concern to power generation as the lower level means that less water and water pressure enter the turbines. The water levels in Lake Mead have continued to fall due to drought and extra demand on water. The levels in 2026 are a record low and the lake appears to continue to be falling. The lake provides most of the drinking water to Arizonam California, Nevada and some parts of Mexico, and 20 million people are reliant on it for drinking water. A continued falling water level will affect drinking water as well as the power that Hoover Dam can provide, with the Dam being unable to generate water if the level drops below 290m – this is after a fix was already implemented to lower the required water level from 320m to 290m. In 2022 it was 317m deep.
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| Lake Mead |
The dam can be driven across, however in 2010 a four lane bypass was built, making it possible to pass from Nevada to Arizona without having to drive across the dam. The bridge is 580m long and 270m high and named the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. Since it spans between Arizona and Nevada, both states were given naming rights. Nevada chose Mike O’Callaghan, the governor of Nevada (1971-1979) and Arizona chose Pat Tillman, an NFL player for the Arizona Cardinals who enlisted in the Army after September 11 and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004.
First we drove over the dam into Arizona:
We spent some time at an overlook above the dam, looking down:
Then we had some time to walk around and over the dam:
After walking across the dam, we then headed out for the longest part of our trip – toward the Western edge of the Grand Canyon.
On the way to our last stops, we drove through the town of Dolan Springs. This is an unincorporated community with a population around 2000. Property sells cheaply as the town does not having running water. Instead they work on septic systems and have water carted in, which residents can pick up a daily allowance. There is a fire station that has two full trucks of water, but limited options to obtain more. The nearest hospital or police are miles away and can take hours to respond. A single ambulance covered 2,200 square miles.
We also came across an almond plantation. That may not seem very exciting, but almonds use one of the highest ratios of water to yield, needing a gallon of water for a single almond. So having a plantation in the middle of the desert with no major water source seemed crazy. The University of Arizona owned the site and was running tests to see if they could get a good yield with less water by using different fertilizers or water delivery.
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| An imposter! Not a Joshua Tree, but a Buckhorn Cholla cactus |
Our drive to the canyon passed some cool landscapes:
The Grand Canyon is one of the must-see things in the US and with good reason. It is 446km long, up to 30km wide and has a max depth of 1.9km. The canyon was created by the Colorado River, the same river that is dammed by the Hoover Dam. We visited the west rim, which is a native reserve under the stewardship of the Hualapai people. The area that we visited consisted of two sites, Eagle Point and Guano Point.
After passing through the ticket booth and into the Hualapai Reservation (as opposed the national park that houses the South rim, the west is under owned and operated by the Hualapai tribe who use tourism to generate income) we stopped at Eagle Point.
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| The Eagle Formation |
The location is named after an Eagle like rock formation across the canyon, but the site is most famous for the Skywalk. The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a cantilever (fixed at one end only) bridge that extends out over the canyon. It has a glass bottom and walls and juts out 150-240m above the floor of the canyon. It was opened in 2007 and draws over a million visitors a year.
The skywalk is 20m wide and extends 21m over the edge of the canyon. We had to leave all of our loose belongings, including Kristine's handbag and camera, in a locker before we went out onto the skybridge. Originally phones had not been allowed, but this rule had changed fairly recently (May 2025).
We took our turn on the Skywalk and took some photos at Eagle Point, but Chad had informed us that Guano Point was a much better use of our limited time (we had 2 hours at the canyon). Our tickets had included a meal, so while Alana and Cameron got food from a food truck, Kristine, Tom and I caught the free shuttle up to Guano Point. Before we did any exploring we claimed our meal vouchers for a pot roast lunch and then set off to explore the area.
Guano point is named after bat faeces, which are an important part of fertiliser and explosives. In 1930 a cave was seen in the walls of the canyon that appeared to be filled with bats. A mining company built a gondola (sky-tram) system to extract the guano and an airstrip to ship it out. Despite it looking like there was a large amount of guano in the cave, only 1,000 tons was retrieved (this sold for $100 a ton, which did not cover the $3.5million investment). When the company closed, the mining equipment remained. However a US Air Force jet illegally flew down the canyon and destroyed one of the cables for the sky-tram system just shortly after the mine closed. The majority of the mining equipment was removed after this, however the original tram station remains.
Guano point sits in a curve of the canyon, meaning that from the end of the area you are almost completely surrounded by the canyon.
One thing that struck me initially was the lack of railings or protections around the canyon and the 1.2km drop to the bottom of the canyon. In a country as litigious as the USA I found this strange, but the concept is to maintain the unspoiled views and natural look of the canyon. After my shoe slid on some loose rubble in the middle of the path, I was a little cautious about going too close to the edges, but there were people right on the edge of the canyon, which was a bit nerve-wracking. We walked to the abandoned sky-tram station, which was situated at the base of a large rock mound. We climbed up to the top but, even though I am normally good with heights, I felt my legs getting a little shaky and had to climb back down. An average of 2 or 3 people die every year falling into the canyon and to be honest I was surprised it is not more!
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| Lizard |
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| The view from the top |
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| The lookout - the top of the pyramid mound |
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| From the lookout back to the bus stop |
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| This isn't the edge that drops 1km, there's a path just below, but this picture still makes my legs wobbly.. and Cam is the one most afraid of heights |
Overall though it was an amazing experience and some incredible sights of nature.
Our final stop on the way home was at Hemenway Park in Boulder City, to see Bighorn Sheep. The sheep come down to feed in the park and there were a decent number there. The sheep are native to North America and capable of standing on a ledge of rock as wide a pinkie finger, making them very agile in the mountains. We got some great pics with Lake Mead in the background.
After taking some photos of the sheep we were dropped back off at our Circus Circus carpark. It was a great tour and Chad was an excellent tour guide. We can highly recommend MAX Tours.
We had considered heading straight back home to rest, but we were keen to see more of Vegas, so we headed out to the Fremont Street Experience. We had expected free parking as advertised, but it turned out that there was an event on (we later found out it was First Friday, an art celebration) so we had to pay $20 to park.
The Fremont Street Experience is a pedestrian mall that houses some of the original Vegas casinos and features a massive overhead barrel vault canopy 27m high, 419m long which is the world’s largest video screen.
Fremont Street wad the site of the first Vegas Hotel (Hotel Nevada, 1906), first telephone (1907), first paved street (1925), first gaming licence, first traffic light, first elevator (1932), first high rise (1956) and first casino with carpeting. The Golden Nugget casino was the first true casino structure built purely as a casino.
The street hosted music concerts, light shows, a zip line (SlotZilla Zip Line) and was a crazy sensory overload – leading Cameron to love it and Tomas to hate it.
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| The Slotzilla zip-line |
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| The Hacienda Horse and Rider (from the old Hacienda Casino, 1967) |
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| Zipliners |
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| The infamous Heart Attack Grill |
From the Golden Nugget, we walked back down the street and came to the Downtown Container Park marking the end of the strip. It is an outdoor shopping mall made from shipping containers and was built in 2012. The entrance is marked by a preying mantis sculpture with flaming antennae.
After a quick look around, we headed back to the car. The Fremont Street Experience is limited to over 21 year olds after 9:30pm and we were getting hungry. We stopped in at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and then headed back to our apartment for a swim in the pool and a sleep.
We later found out that there had been a shooting that night which killed a 15 year old and injured two others after a fight broke out just south of where we had been. There was also another shooting at a graveyard when a man armed with a beretta 9mm and a Mossberg 5.56 assault rifle fired at his family members and then fired at police from a graveyard just south of the airport.
None of these put us at risk or affected us in any way, but it did show a darker side of Vegas than the one we had seen.
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