Thursday - October 27, 2011

From Bakersfield we went east along Highway 15. About 50 miles along we hit the Mojave desert. Lots of mountains all along the route and lots of sand and rocks. In its own way the desert is very beautiful. Lots of colour in the hills and with some the bushes that grow in the desert. Very few places to stop and with the traffic, difficult to pull over to take pictures but I do have a few.

Highway 15 leads to Las Vegas. The traffic along 15 was very heavy, probably as a result of a lot of people going to Las Vegas. We knew we had hit the Nevada border because right at the California/Nevada border were a number of Casinos built right to the edge of the border. Going into Las Vegas traffic was heavy and we passed by all the major casinos. We decided to only stay one night in Las Vegas and neither of us was interested in gambling and while there were a number of shows in the casinos, none of them were attractive enough for us to stay. However we found another 3D place very close to our motel called the Four Kegs, a nice sports bar. Watched a bit of game 6 of the World Series while we ate. The bar also had a map they asked guests to indicate their home city on.







Obviously more than a few people are following 3D and doing the same thing we are.






Notice the windmills on the hills. There are lots of them but I would like to know why only about 25% of them are operating when there is lots of wind. Seems to me yo want them to provide electrical energy to replace that obtained from coal plants. If there are too many, why build them? I saw several big trucks heading down the highway with parts of the windmills. I wonder if that energy is factored into the CO2 emissions of the windmills. These things are not really very attractive and with the concentration of the windmills on the hills and valleys, you can see why a lot of birds are being killed.






















Amazing how the terrain is constantly changing in the desert!