Courtney, Sean and Dante, on a boat ride on Christmas morning.

(I will post about the Dam tour later)

There is a small fee, approximately $5 per car, to get into the Lake Mead park, inside you have access to the beaches, campgrounds and marinas.

Once inside, our first stop was a small Marina.

The boat pictured is an authentic paddle-wheeler called the Desert Princess, that offers Lake Mead cruises.

We sat on the dock of the Lake Mead Marina, eating Popsicles and watching the ducks and fish in the water. The water was gorgeous and crystal clear.

Please look at this sign:

It really was 115 degrees that day, Ryan and I tried to catch the high on our rental car thermometer but the highest we got was 113:

One hundred fifteen degrees, in Nevada, is hot, it really is, but it does not compare to 95 degrees in Virginia.  Everyone always says it’s different, it’s dry heat.  It is different.  It is dry.  It is so dry that I think it makes your sweat evaporate.  It may sound strange, but I am a sweater, if I spend a lot of time outside on a hot day (85+ in Virginia), I am going to sweat.  Somehow, while at the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, when it was 115 degrees, I didn’t sweat.  Dry Heat.

The sign says the water temperature was 81 degrees, it felt like 95 degrees, like bathwater.

Lake  Mead surprised me because I didn’t know what to expect. The barren “beaches”, floating marina’s, the mountains, and hundreds of boats, it all surprised me.   I would like to visit again with more time, and a bathing suit, maybe in the spring or fall, when warm water is more welcoming.

]]> http://dumbyoungins.com/2009/07/24/lake-mead/feed/ 3 http://dumbyoungins.com/2009/06/30/puppy-loves-carova-beach/ http://dumbyoungins.com/2009/06/30/puppy-loves-carova-beach/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:58:47 +0000 Ashley http://dumbyoungins.com/?p=850 My parents recently got a new black labrador retriever puppy. She is adorable!

While we were visiting last week, she had some of her first experiences with the beach.

I must show you how cute it was!

On the boat ride to Carova.

Sport would be so jealous!

Ginger, my parents’ older chocolate lab, and Mollie the new pup.

Ginger loves to chase the tennis ball, and Mollie, she loves to chase Ginger.

Mollie soon got bored chasing Ginger, and decided to do a little beach combing.

She found a nice clamshell!

She is so sweet!

So content to be covered in sand.