Most of the group left of Wednesday when we waved Hannah & Mark off to their skiing honeymoon in California. That left me, Judy, Paul and my Oli to shop - so we've done all the malls and viwed all the sights on the strip.When Paul and Judy left, I hired a car and went to Death Valley and Hoover Dam.
Car hire was simple, only cost around $40 dollars for 24hrs and as this was my first time driving in the USA a bit of an adventure - the highways are incredibly busy and nobody signals!
The stars in DV were stunning, this is the place in the US where there is the least light pollution, I'd love to spend a few days here to explore. Hoover Dam is interesting to say the least... we did the damn tour to see the innards of the structure - this only started again a month ago after is was cancelled after 911. The finished design of the dam is Art Deco and by far the most intriguing feature is the site dedicated to the opening of the dam.
The base of the site is inlaid with a star chart/celestial map, which preserves 'for future generations' (ie 200,000 years into the future or reading between the lines, ETs) the date on which the dam was opened (September 30, 1935). The stars on the chart are shown as they would appear to the naked eye at a distance of about 190 trillion miles from earth and are placed so that an astonomer could calculate the precession of the Pole Star for approximately the next 14,000 years. Weird to say the least - incidentally, the dam is compared with the pyramids of Giza in terms of construction genius... no other comment.
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