We started out from Barstow, California at around 8 am. It was already 85 degrees and hot! We drove down the road and stopped at Baker for some diet coke. Elizabeth was having fun taking pictures with her daddy's camera that he graciously let her borrow for the trip. We learned that the man who discovered the North Pole was the grandson of the man who founded the city of Baker, California. One of the restaurants has a statue of him outside in the parking lot. It looks a little incongruent to see a statue of a man in Artic gear in the middle of an extremely hot spot!
We continued down the road towards Las Vegas. We were amazed to see how much the area at the California/Nevada border had grown. As we headed into Vegas, we exited at Blue Diamond Road and went into the Casino Lodge with the Bill Bass Pro shop. We spent about two hours there. We wandered around the store - amazed at the animal displays. We decided that the Bill Bass Pro Shop is rather like Disneyland with their attention to detail. Even the parking lot was themed. Rather than stripes to designate where cars were to park, there were lines of fish.
The only thing that disappointed us was that this Bill Bass did not have its own restaurant. We decided that was because the store is attached to the casino and they want all the money to go there. We went into the casino area and ate at Johnny Rockets.
We then drove to Mesquite where we stopped for...what else....diet coke!
Elizabeth enjoyed traveling through the Virgin River Gorge. She does not remember it from her other trips through there. She took many pictures.
After passing through St. George, we pulled off at the historic town of Silver Reef. We drove back into the hills to see the old Wells Fargo Bank and other town ruins. It was amazing to see how that area had grown up also. Christie remembers it being fairly isolated. Now, there are several very large houses back there. It was a lovely drive and we enjoyed it. The museum was closed by the time we got there (around 5:00 pm), but we still were able to see the building and the surrounding area.
We drove into Beaver. The temperature had been 106 degrees in St. George, but it dropped to 82 degress by the time we reached Beaver around 7:00 pm. There was a lot of construction on the I-15 between Silver Reef and Beaver. At one point, the traffic came to a stand still. But, overall, it wasn't too bad.
We thought that we wanted to stay at the Butch Cassidy Great Western Hotel in Beaver. The advertisements said it was recently redone and it offers a full hot breakfast. However, when we drove to it, it was very small and old. So, we decided to go to the Comfort Inn. It is very nice. We went to dinner at the Timber Line Restaurent across the road. It was very good and we continued our two day tradition of sharing a dessert with their Oreo Cheesecake. It was very good (see other dessert post for more details).
It was a great day and we are looking forward to tomorrow.
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