Back when I was a kid, I remember watching the Reno Air Races on TV. It looked really cool, and I thought that I'd like to go one day. Earlier this year a friend who lives in Reno, posted that this would be the last year of them being held in Reno. In others words, don't miss it if you are thinking about coming.
I know JT is really into airplanes so I figured it would be an easy sell. It also coincided with his 30th birthday being within a week of it. I made the call and he was in. I booked the hotel even before the tickets went on sale.
This was the reason for the whole rest of the trip up to now. It turned out that he got the extra time off and the whole Vegas portion got thrown on top of this. It was almost like two seperate trips as we flew from Vegas to Reno (90 min).
We bought the 3 day pass for the show and I spent the extra $$$ and got a reserved grandstand tickets as well as the pit passes. It was money well spent. We didn't use the seats that much, but it was nice to have a spot to plunk down when we wanted to. I'm putting all 3 days in one post as it was a bit repetitive each day, although we saw different things.
Our first day was Thursday and of course the lightest attended day. It was easy as we used a shuttle sevrvice from the hotel which did 2 things. Made it relaxing and less expensive as we didn't need a rental, or have to worry about parking at the air races ($$ and a PITA). Luxury Prevost bus and it dropped us right by the gate.
This is a Curtis P40 Warhawk painted in the Flying Tigers colors. Used pre WW2 in China against the Japanese, they became quite famous. Also is a 1972 Chevy Impala Kingswood station wagon. Both were in beautiful condition.
North American P51 Mustang. the majority of unlimited racers were flying these.
Bell P-63 Air Cobra. The engine is behind the pilot!
A Russian Yak, forget which model
T6 Trainers on the flight line getting ready to go up for a race.
T6s racing by. They have to fly between 50 and 200 feet to stay on course.
I found this video from back in the hey day of the 1980s. Much more vareity of planes in the unlimited class (F4U, P38, etc) than what we saw and alot more up close and personal. As there have been many crashes and fatalities over the years. I believe you can't get anywhere on the course any more to stand underneath them. I guess this is what we both hoped we would see. It was still fun though.
Of course the military was there for demos and recruitment. They had prbably a dozen different planes from small to the biggest we have (Galaxy). Didn't get a pic of the big ones as they wouldn't fit in the camera lol.
Heritage flight with and A10 and P51
P51 and I think a Northrop F89 (not sure though).
F6F Hellcat
View of downtown Reno from the hotel. It's not a big city at all and I liked that about it.
Had to fly through Vegas on the way home, and got a nice view of Hoover Dam from the air. You can plainly see how much the water has dropped.
As a sad epilogue, after my returpsn to Florida I found out that there had been a crash of two T6s on the last day of racing. In fact they just came in first and second for the event. There were a few more races after them and they got called off as both pilots died in the crash. They hit mid air somehow and that's all she wrote. Due to the investigation, all the video has been taken offline and no details until the investigation wraps up.
We left the Hoover Dam around 3PM and headed to Vegas. We had an agenda. Return the cooler to Victoria, check into the hotel, and meet my cousin John at 6PM. It went off without a hitch, although our visit with Victoria was brief at 30 min. First time JT and her met and they had lots to talk about. Hopefully, he will meet up with her and the family on his next visit.
Our visit with my cousin went really well, I hadn't seen him in years, so it was good to catch up with him! Honestly, since we got up pre-dawn and did alot during the day, our night was a bit early by Vegas standards, but we had some fun.
The next day, JT wanted binoculars (they came in really handy at the air races!) and when we came out of the store we saw this ''little' cloud dumping on the mountain. It was a HUGE thurnderhead taking up what seemed like half the sky. It was impressive. zoom in and you can see the rain dumping.
We putzed around the next morning, kind of a relax day. JT was starting a new job the day after we returned to our respective homes, so he had some online paperwork to sort through. I watched Gilligan's Island re-runs on TV :)
We went to the Atomic History museum and that was pretty cool to learn about all the testing out in the desert.. The new sphere watched us to make sure we got our of town ok. Parting shot out the plane window ha ha.
We were back on the road around 9:30 AM and on our schedule that we made the night before. Our intenerary was set, but informal as we just had to be in certain places on specific days for hotels. Everything in between was at our whim, but we had to consider driving times as we were going over a thousand miles in 4 days.
The ride up to the Dam was pretty uneventful, but I kept wanting to drive faster, but knew better. Once we got on US 93 I set the cruise control as the road was empty. Soon one, two, three, more cars pass me going quite a bit faster. Ok, blockers! I pick up the pace to about 84 aand and the group is still getting away......
We come over a crest and lots of flashy lights. I take my foot off and coast by the highway patrol at about 5 over the limit....Not this cowboys's first rodeo. Set the cruise back and wait for the next set of blockers. Aside from that one instance, the rest of the trip was mostly free of police.
These pictures loaded in reverse order, but it's not that big of deal. When I last went to the dam it was 1998 so no 9/11 stuff. You still had to drive across the top of the dam as part of US 93. You actually still can and I did by accident as I missed the turn for the parking garage. I made a 3 point turn in the middle of the road just on the other side of the dam. The bypass road was actually started a couple of months prior to 9/11 as the hairpin turns snaking down on both sides made for slow travel and congestion.
These awesome Art Deco statues are on the Nevada side of the dam next to the old museum. The new museum is further off to the side and much larger. The statues are being restored currently. Google had this to say about them: "Winged Figures of the Republic – Boulder City, Nevada - Atlas ...
The figures are sentries at the entrance to Hoover Dam, part angel, part symbol of the strength of man, they are the work of a sculptor named Oskar J.W. Hansen, a Norwegian immigrant who came to the United States after some time in the merchant marines." They were bad ass and big. the low part of that wood is 6ft. high.
We couldn't see anything staring into the sun for this picture. Just out of frame on the bottom is the Nevada (my side) and Arizona (JT's side) border, We were in two time zones and different states at the same time! The tour ends with you popping out in the middle of the top of the dam.
When I was here in 1998, the water was at the top of the these intake columns! They had a good winter and the lake rose 30 feet!
20 years of drought have not been kind. I can't even imagine how many cubic miles of water are missing...
The Pat Tillman memorial bridge. Opened in 2010. Killer view of the dam as you drive across. On the way in, they stop you and interview, etc. They were searching a cargo van, but let us right through. Guess JT's pseudo military look was still working for us.
The circular walkway up to the air vent inside the dam. We were about halfway up from the bottom. The forms were wood, so you can see the wood imprint in the cement.
Selfie at the vent. I had no Harrison Ford visions in my head, lol.
He looks to be alot lower than I was ha ha. Oh and the water wasn't spilling out.
View of the bridge from the vent.
This is the first time this stator has been removed for maintenance since it was installed in 1935 per our tour guide!!! If you zoom in the photo below you will see the one with the top missing. It's this one.
Back in 1998, Lucy and I took the tour and they took us down on this floor and we walked it from end to end and got to go ourside at the bottom. These turbines are HUGE, like the size of a 3 story building.
The terazzo work in this dam is AMAZING.. It is an Art Deco masterpiece. Why? The builders knew it was so far ahead of its time it would last for many generations and they had pride in workmanship.
Front side of the dam. If you get the chance, the tour is totally worth the money and time. The sheer scale of this is amazing and the fact it was built 90 years ago is amazing. We actually never stopped in Boulder City either. Vegas is only an hour away.
I'm breaking down the GC portion into multiple entries as of course it's photo intensive :)
Last installment, we had left the east watchtower and headed to GC village. It was quite a bit further than I anticipated (close to an hour). We got there and in my confusion of stressing (for no reason) and the very general email they sent out, I had JT drop me at the wrong lobby. I realized it as I was on deck for the receptionist. They were quite pleasant an pulled up my reservation (all the hotels are run by one group). She redirected me and in doing so, I had to walk past the daily train that runs up from Williams, AZ
Observation car.
Back of the train, about 9 cars or so. 2nd caris a vista dome caar
1950s era F series diesel. Saw a lot of these when I was a little kid. This was off on a siding, not sure if it's useable or not.
Modern motive power to pull the tourists. The cars I would guess are from late 40s to 50s with the aluminum sides. There is one train a day for passengers. The next morning we heard another around sunrise. We are guessing they bring a frieght and have another siding away from the tourists to bring food and other consumeables (proably a couple times per week). This is the only national park with a K-12 school in the park (up to 5K park employees live in the park).
After checking into the room, we took the 200 yard walk up to the rim. Pretty much right at the top of the Bright Angel Trail. 180 panorama shot. 25 years ago Lucy and I took the one day mule ride down into the canyon. Would have liked an overnight but it wasn't available, so we jumped on the only available one.. Later I will point our how far we got down to Plateau Point.
Late afternoon sun throwing cool shadows. I was excited to spend the nnight so I could watch the sun go down.
We decided to beat the dinner rush and ate a little early, then headed back to the room and grabbed some warmer clothes and headed toward Mather Point and the Visitor Center as after sunset there was an astronomy program. Here we are at the Visitor Center Parking lot. Yep we missed it by a few minutes due to anelk traffic jam.
Dying light looking west from Mather Point. Pics don't capture how you could see darkness strate sweeping over the canyoun. We had about an hour to kill until the program. We poked around looking for a sunrise option for the morning and then went to the talk. The resident astronmer was good, he talked about a lot of the general stuff for newbies, pointing out many of the well known features of the northern night time sky.
Because of the dark sky, he did go a bit deeper and we asked him a couple of questions that made him realize there were a few more well versed auidence members. Prior to going outside to look up (scattered clouds was a little bit of a damper) He asked if anyone would be in Flagstaff the next night and to come to talk to him.
He had passes to go to Lowell Obseritory the follwiing night. Of all the luck, we were in Flagstaff LAST night.and had reservations in Vegas the following night. Oh well.... He later pointed out a bunch of visible constellations and it was a good talk. We headed back to the room and set the alarm early for sunrise.
Hard to tell, but this is the first light from the east the following morning. The cloud deck was in full play so it wasni't a banner sunrise, but hey, I'm at the Grand Canyon watching the sun come up. Can't complatin too much!
Sun over the top of the lower cloud deck lighting up the cumulus far to the north.
The museum didn't open for another 90 min, so we headed back and checked out and had breakfast. There were a fair amount of the these Rocky Mountain Elk around. It was dating season so the bucks were friskiy!
Back at the hotel, JT went in the shower and I opened the blind and Mommy and baby were 10 feet from the window. I sat there with my coffee and muffin watching them eat grass for at least 15-20 min until they left.
View from the Geology museum. The flat plateau on the left with the point is, you guessed it, Plateau Point. Lucy and I rode out there on the mule ride we went on in 1998. From this pic it is (per the signage) 2 miles line of site to the point. It is 4000' lower than us and 1000' above the river. It took us 14 hours to go down and come back with all but about 40 minutes in the saddle.....yeah my butt hurt.
Actual rain in the GC. First time I have gone in Sept. Other trips were both in May. Apparently this is the we season. Other two trips were zero clouds, so this was neat
The geology museum was also well worth the stop. They had this really cool 3D map of the canyon and lots of other good info on the formation and history..
It was about a 4 hour drive to Hoover Dam and we had a dinner date inn Vegas, so by 9:30 we were back on he road heading west again.
Again, we were up and at them early this morning. Stopped the night before and got more food, etc. as we had some drivining but also were going to be far away from towns.
We had coffee and muffins in the room while we got ready as this hotel didn't have breakfast. We got on the road for the short jaunt of about 45 minutes to Meteor Crater.
The low rise on the left is actually the rim of the crater. This was from about 10 miles away, maybe 12. I didn't notice it last time I came 25 years ago until I got alot closer. It's several hundred feet high.
When you stand on the edge of the crater, there is no frame of reference and you think, oh. it's not that big. Then the tourguide points to a tiny rock on the rim and says it's the size of a two story house. It's close to a mile wide rim to rim. Lot's of cool history, it is privately owned Natural Landmark, so not part of the Park Service.. about 50,000 years ago, a 150 foot chunk of iron and nickel blasted the hole into the earth at 26,000 MPH. They have a chunk they found a dozen or so miles away in the museum.
This open window looking out across the plain looked like a painting in real life. Its actually an opening in the wall. Kinda had a Wes Anderson feel to it. I liked it. It's a cool spot, worth the stop, but 2 hours maybe a tad more is plenty to see everything about the crater.
Here is a good overview video of the site and some of its history
We were back on the road before noon and I jumped off a few exits early to catch about 10 miles or so of the historic ride. There were practically no cars on it until we got into the built up area. Saw some folks posing with their convertible at another of these signs. We stopped for gas and another run into the grocery store as we had run out of a couple of items overnight.
Back north on US 89 to the reservation and then we made a left onto AZ 64.
Looking at the map above this is the first red arrow on the right. It is outside the park and I thought it was part of the Grand Canyon, but it is not. It is the Little Colorado River Gorge and it does feed into the park itself. I'm pretty sure this in on Navajo land as we passed several roadside vendors selling jewelry and art. I wanted some, but I had zero room in my bag for anything. All I bought were a couple of fridge magnets and a t-shirt.
Panaroma from the east watch tower and JT's first view of the canyon. This is the other arrow on the map. I was a little concerned with the rain the day before, but as you can see the visibility was outstanding.
On my previous two trips I drove up from the south from Williams. AZ. This is a great way to come into the park (or leave). My manager at work suggested that I take it and boy was he on the money.
Here we are waiting for our turn to go up in the watchtower. It's 70 feet high and there are a lot of paintings on the walls inside it that tell stories. We could have spent hours in it, but you get 20 minutes and then the next group comes through. This picture is looking to the north rim.
Phone reception was not very good in the park and I was concerned about our reservation (there was no problem, but recalling an experience from 1990 at the lodge in Yosemtie I had unfounded concerns but we were G2G). I also forgot that AZ does NOT do daylight savings time, so I thought it was an hour later than it really was.
