Day 21, three weeks. Hoover Dam

What an amazing experience!  First of all, I want to say that I read Richard's post yesterday.  He really has good, interesting things to say.  It's good to hear his perspective of the same things I see.
Today we got up early to go to the Hoover Dam.  I've never been.  The last time Richard had gone was in the 70's.  After 9/11 some of the tourist spots were no longer offered for the safety of the dam.  Richard showed me where the elevators were in the middle of the top of the dam that lead down to where they went before.  The tour we went on was great anyway.  First here are a few pictures of driving to the dam.

This is the first view of Lake Meade.  This lake was formed because of the Hoover Dam.  The main reason that the dam was built wasn't for power, but to be able to control the Colorado River.  Before the dam there were too many floods or droughts that caused havoc in Southern CA.  Building the dam has made it possible to stop flooding, and to create many dykes for agriculture.  

I have known about the Hoover Dam, but I always thought it was just to provide power, and it does.  Everything I learned today was mind boggling.  For example, it took 6 1/2 years to totally fill Lake Meade.  Presently it is only at 1/3 capacity.   

What's Nevada without a Casino?  They aren't just on the strip!  This one is the Hoover Dam Casino.  

I thought the rocky mountains all around were really beautiful.  All the pictures I took today don't go anywhere near the massive beauty I saw.  This is a place I highly recommend everyone go to.

This is the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge.  I'm not sure who they are, I'll look it up later.  The bridge was built to take car traffic off of the dam.  You can go up there and walk, too, but we didn't.  

I saw this just walking out of the parking garage.  I joke with Richard saying it was a zipline across the canyon to the other side.  Later I found out it was a crane of sorts used to pass things from one side to the other while building the dam.  It was strong enough to hold 9 buses!  Thinking back to when this was built......no radios to use.  Sometimes when they would send someong off they couldn't see where it was going, so there would be someone down below using hand signals to communicate between launch and land.  

This is a big power tower that has a fancy name I can't remember.  The lean in towards the water to keep the electrical wires from touching the rocks and shorting out.

We arrived early-20 minutes after opening, which I highly recommend you do if you go visiting.  Parking was easy.  Getting a tour was easy.  We toured the power turbines, and heard a great talk.  

We walked down a hall forged into the mountain.  Remember, Richard's tour was different in the 70's.  I hope he talks about it on his blog.  Just type in Richard Machida and you'll find his blog.  BTW-I don't know how he likes to make it on his phone.  I need my computer and keyboard.  I can type much faster on a keyboard.

This was a massive room.  Our guide said they had tours down to this room since 1937.  These are the big turbines.  There are 17 all together-not all in this room.  I wonder why it is an odd number?  He gave us all kinds of facts about this and that.  Like the concrete blocks when poured would have taken a few years to cool, but they had pipes going through them with cold water to cool them faster.  They are in the process of replacing the turbines with ones that run just as fast with lesser water.  Probably because of the drought going on.

I don't know what this is, but it was interesting.  

A movie of the turbine turning.

This black box is a speaker on the railing.  They went all around the corner railing.  I just put this in because I was so thankful to be able to hear.  At the beginning of the talk we were in a group of about 30.  I thought, "Just great, another tour where I am too short to see, and I won't hear anything."  But that wasn't the case.  There were microphones all over when he spoke.  

This is a smaller turbine getting power.  This one powers the dam itself.  

There was also art work around.  This is a design similar to Native pottery.

Remember the blog post awhile ago where I was wondering about watts and volts?  

Here is the dam.  My picture isn't going to look like the postcards or other pictures on line because this thing is so massive you can't get a picture while you are on it.  You just can't understand it unless you are there yourself.  Kind of reminds me of when I saw my first "famous" painting in NYC.  I couldn't believe how alive it looked.  You just can't get a photograph of a painting to look like the real thing.

This was comparing the height

from the top-looking down.  The base is only 78 feet across.  One plack said it was like an upside down pyramid.

This kind of gives you an idea of how high we were.

I just love the rocks!  I did pick one up for my rock garden I plan to build next summer.  I also have one piece from Yosemite.  Well, the RV park at Yosemite.

Hi, Richard

The rock wall, and the observation building.

From the middle top, looking down

Lake Meade-the white rock shows how low the lake is.  

It was a good day to spend 15 minutes of my morning curling my hair!!!!  :)  My silver is really showing well.

I love Art Deco.  They've kept up with that theme so much so that the highway 5 miles towards Las Vegas has Art Deco towers.

They built these two bronze angel statues.  There was something said about the black blocks they sit on were brought in on ice.  As the ice melted they were able to put the blocks in place without scratching them.

Palm trees

A memorial to a dog that showed up as a stray while they were building the dam. The dog could go where ever he wanted.  He was being fed too much by the workers, so someone decided to pack him his own food.  The dog would be seen going to work with the men carrying a bag with his food in it.  He would even ride lifts around and bark when he wanted off.

That's the end of my pictures.  

I also jotted down some interesting facts.  96 people died while this was being built.  It was finished 26 months early.  Everything else I jotted down I filled in already.  

Like I said, worth the visit.  It is possible to walk on the dam without paying money, but the $15.00 tour was worth it if you want to hear stories.  There was also a $30.00 tour that goes more extensively into the dam.  I wonder if that tour you would see more of what Richard saw in the 70's.  I don't know.

Tomorrow we head to Utah.  We will be camping at another free Harvest Host parking lot.  This one would be a museum for airplanes.  I'm not happy about loosing the pool, but the dogs will be happy to loose the concrete.  This park is very, very strict because the city has been on their case about pets.  $25.00-$100.00 fine for not picking up poop.  If they would only enforce it.  They do have 2 walking areas with ample poop bags.  The dogs are allowed on the small patch of grass here.  It's near the pool.  They weren't allowed on the grass at the Orange Grove.  

I think Artie is a little stir crazy and wants another 3.5 mile hike.

I am going to hopefully get them up early again today and walk them to a few geocaches.  

Ta ta for now!  ttfn.