Las Vegas in April is a sunny retreat from the chilly Northeast in early spring. But a week-long convention is enough to exhaust even the most enthusiastic sun-seeker. Vegas had dissolved into a blur of vendors, nametags, and long lines for the convention center shuttle. At night, there was no refuge in the hotel from the din of slot machines and bad cabaret acts. I had also eaten enough fried chicken, gravy, and creamed vegetables to last me a year.

On the last day of the conference, my boyfriend and I high-tailed it out of Las Vegas. We knew nothing about Boulder City except it was near the Colorado River and, more importantly, hot springs. We arrived in the evening and explored the downtown: a supermarket, an antique shop, a pizza parlor, and a wine bar that doubled as a retail store. We decided to save our energy for getting up extra early.

The next day, we made a requisite stop at the Hoover Dam. Or rather, my boyfriend made the stop and I tagged along, complaining about the sheer crush of cars and tourists just to see a piece of concrete. It didn’t look very impressive from above. It was one of those “been there, seen that” type of stops, and then back on the road to the main destination.


We didn’t have enough time to kayak 9 miles on the Colorado to the hot springs, so we rented a boat instead. There were no signs for the springs, so we relied on descriptions culled from internet research, such as “narrow canyon near mile marker 17” or “large rock outcrop near two smaller outcrops”. After careful searching, and retracing our trail, we found one of the three springs. We reached the spring after a bit of climbing, and spent an hour soaking away the last bits of stress from Sin City.

After the hot spring we decided to head further up the river. The water came to a near standstill at the base of the Hoover Dam. We were about 200 feet from the base, with the dam towering over 700 feet above us. There were no lines of cars anywhere, or throngs of tourists, or massive placards touting the glory of hydroelectric power. Just two sunburnt people, straining their necks, struck by how impressive concrete is from a different angle.

- by Diana Kuan of Indietrekker fame