I interviewed British vlogger Anthony Padbury to learn all about England over a couple of pints of porter in a San Francisco pub.

Thanks to Anthony:
http://uk.youtube.com/user/ajdpadbury
and to Cat:
http://uk.youtube.com/user/21stcenturycat

England YouTuber “Ajdpadbury” is my guest host on this video, about our visit to Hoover Dam, which sits on the border of Nevada and Arizona, not far from Las Vegas. The video also shows how construction   more...is progressing on the bypass highway that will one day speed motorists past Hoover Dam, instead of having to do the “snail paced” crawl across the dam that currently occurs on the narrow two lane road.

Hoover Dam was constructed between 1931 and 1936. It cost $165 million to build and took 4,400,000 CUBIC YARDS of CONCRETE!! The dam is 726.4 feet tall.

The Lake Mead water level “crests” at the dam at a height of 1,232 feet above sea level. The current water level is only at about 1,110 feet high. Rapidly expanding Las Vegas gets 90% of its water from Lake Mead. If the water level were to ever drop below 1,000 feet, then Vegas would be in HUGE trouble, since the water intakes for Vegas are set at that level. Here’s an interesting website that charts the water levels of Lake Mead: http://www.arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/index.html and here’s a website with more statistics about the dam: http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/dams/nv10122.htm

The song is “Trip Around the Sun” by Jimmy Buffett and Martina McBride.  less

The Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area is located just a few miles west of Las Vegas and encompasses 197,000 acres within the Mojave Desert. Red Rock is an area of worldwide geologic interest   more...and beauty.

The most significant geologic feature of Red Rock Canyon is the Keystone Thrust Fault. A thrust fault is a fracture in the earth's crust where one rock plate is thrust horizontally over another. About 65 million years ago, it is believed that two of the earth's crustal plates collided with such force that part of one plate was shoved up and over younger sandstones. This thrust contact is clearly defined by the sharp contrast between the grey limestones and the red sandstones. The Keystone Thrust Fault extends from the Cottonwoood Fault (along the Pahrump Highway) 13 miles northward to the vicinity of La Madre Mountain, where it is obscured by more complex faulting.

Rock art within Red Rock comes in two varieties, petroglyphs and pictographs. The difference between the two types is the manner in which they were made. Petroglyphs were pecked into the surface of the rock. Pictographs were painted on the rock. In Red Rock Canyon a coating of dark "desert varnish" on lighter sandstone provides the perfect medium for petroglyphs, which are the most common of the two types of rock art found at Red Rock. If you want to discover some petroglyphs firsthand, the Red Spring area has a wide variety of different styles on the cliff faces and fallen boulders.

(The above information was taken from the following websites:
http://www.desertusa.com/redrock/ and
http://www.redrockcanyonlv.org/ )

The song is “Lost Highway” by Bon Jovi  less

YouTubers “LifeJourneyGuy” and England’s “Ajdpadbury” (aka Anthony) headed out from Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago to check out “Grand Canyon West” and the “Skywalk”. We had a GREAT time!!!! Here’s   more...the info on the skywalk from the official website (http://destinationgrandcanyon.com/skywalk.html):

“The Glass Bridge Construction of the Skywalk began March of 2004 and will open March 28, 2007.

“Upon completion, the Glass Bridge will be suspended 4,000 feet above the Colorado River on the very edge of the Grand Canyon. On May 2005, the final test was conducted and the stucture passed engineering requirements by 400 percent, enabling it to withstand the weight of 71 fully loaded Boeing 747 airplanes (more than 71 million pounds). The bridge will be able to sustain winds in excess of 100 miles per hour from 8 different directions, as well as an 8.0 magnitude earthquake within 50 miles. More than one million pounds of steel will go into the construction of the Grand Canyon Skywalk.”

- - - - -

To get to and from the Skywalk, it requires you to drive on 28 miles of VERY dusty dirt road with sections of fairly deep gravel and “washboard” surfacing, so after again reaching the “land of paved roads”, I pulled over and wiped the dirt off my SUV, and we visited with two really adventurous Harley riders from Alaska who had done the dirt road on their big Harleys! I’ve been a motorcyclist for 38 years, but would only wanna do THAT road on a off-road type DIRT bike!!

No cameras of ANY kind are allowed ON the Skywalk, and it’s difficult (and becoming INCREASINGLY difficult) to even film the Skywalk while OFF the structure, so just be aware of that if you plan to visit this unique structure, because most of your memories of your visit will be IN your memory!! You can tho’ buy commemorative photos, taken by Skywalk employees, of yourself on the Skywalk, but, if I recall correctly, those photos start at around $26, so Anthony and I stood off to the side of the Skywalk, and used our camera zoom lenses instead! Also, it costs a minimum of $74.95 per person to walk on the Skywalk, so we considered it a “once in a lifetime” kinda experience, but the view FROM the Skywalk, and the view THROUGH the TOTALLY “SEE-THROUGH” type WALKWAY SURFACE of the Skywalk below your feet to the ground thousands of feet below was WELL worth it!, altho’ we noticed that quite a few people experienced a DEFINITE fear of heights once they’d look down and see “nothing” supporting them! LOL

The song is “You Can Go Your Own Way” by Chris Rea.  less

Here's a short video clip of the volcano show that happens every 60 minutes nightly at The Mirage in Las Vegas. One of my YouTube friends from England, "Ajdpadbury" (Anthony), and I saw this   more...the other night.

The song I added is the circa 1967 hit "Fire!" by Arthur Brown . . . it's hard to believe it's already been 40 years!! since this song came out! GEEZ!, "tempus fugits"!! LOL  less

Please think twice before meeting up with your online friends, it doesn't always go to plan.

Featuring Anthony Padbury:
http://uk.youtube.com/user/ajdpadbury

My England lady friend and I met up with YouTube friends Dominika (YTer "Nika441") and Anthony (YTer "Ajdpadbury") to ride on the London Eye, and wander around London for the day,   more...so we saw some great street performers at the Thames River area near the London Eye. It's also fun to look at the expressions of the people as they pass by this performer :)

The song is “Relax, Take It Easy” by Mika.  less

England YouTuber "AjdPadbury" (Anthony) and I went for a drive along the Las Vegas Strip the other night. I drove (and watched out for OTHER sightseein' motorists! LOL), as Anthony worked the   more...camcorder. Thanks Anthony for sending me the half hour or so of camcorder footage from that drive, so I could then edit it down and make a five minute LifeJourneyGuy video out of it.

The song is the ZZ Top version of "Viva Las Vegas".  less