Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, Lake Mead & new tires for the truck

Vegas is always a good time, tons to see and do. Taryn started off sick the first 2 days but was quickly back on track drinking with me. We celebrated our anniversary with my parents, 5 years on Sept 29, I still don’t know how Taryn puts up with me…. ;) I visited a boat factory with my Dad and Taryn got a spa day. We all meet for an Italian dinner at Venice (thanks Mon & Dad).

Then T & I walked the strip in two nights, the casionos just get better and more expensive. We visited the Hoover dam and got the full tour. The stats are incredible, it creates 2080 megawatts of power, enough for over a million homes. Its 726’ high and goes from 660’ at the base to 1244’ wide at the top. Just looking down the dam from the top is an incredible experience, it always amazes me what we could build back in 1936!

Lake Mead was another incredible site, it’s the largest man made lake. It holds 9.2 trillion gallons of water and goes to 500’ deep. But what really got me going was what kind of fishing they do there, go old stripers up to 50 lbs, now that’s my kind of lake! We proceeded to drive the western shore of the lake and stopped at one of the boat ramps (the largest I have ever seen) and a marina, boy did we get a surprise. There is no fishing in this marina basin and the fish knew it. Huge schools of carp and stripers were hanging out right at the dock, see the pic below. People would just feed them and you could make them go nuts by just putting your hand near the water, I don’t think you would want to fall in, they were aggressive.


Also in Vegas I put 4 new tires on the truck, I figured I could make the trip on the last 1/3 of my tread life, nope, towing the big rig eats through tires quick. Also they wore unevenly, center wearing down first to the wear bars with the shoulders having 5/32 left, it probably means they were over inflated. I am a bit of a nut following exactly what the manual says for inflation pressures, they might not have it right. I’ve dropped 5 lbs off the rear, 80 to 75, I will try that for a bit then maybe drop to 70 and see how the rig feels. Also when not towing or with a heavy load I will drop the rears to the from 55 lbs. I went with Michelins this time and they feel good except they wander a bit when the rod is grooved longitudinally, time will tell…… One good lesson learned from this, on a big trip like this don’t cheap out on the tires, have the best on before you go.

Right now we are in Bryce Canyon Utah, it's pouring but at lest we have good internet!!

K & T