That’s a big dam, enough concrete to make a sidewalk around the world, something about a structure to moon, something about a big driveway .. I don’t remember. There were several different examples of how much concrete they used. For the time it was a lot, maybe it is now… I hope my kids learned more than I did, lol. Alas, that’s not my job here. All joking aside, its interesting how they accomplished such a task and the difference it made in the desert. While driving through the desert later in our trip I can say I appreciate it. If you want to read The Bureau of Reclamation has plenty of information.
It’s hard to know where to start, if I follow my outline we are looking at another 3 page article and I feel like doing something different. I’m not sure if at this point people are reading the posts or just looking at the pictures. So, for the Hoover Dam I will make this short and sweet and stick to our experiences. I’ll let the pictures and captions tell the story. After admiring the cool mosaic tile plugin I added to WP please make sure to click on the pictures, the individual slides have captions that tell our story.
Our first stop was this bridge. The mike something or other memorial bridge- I can’t read it with this tiny thumbnail word press has given me
This is the foreboding path to the bridge, It doesn’t say how long the hike will be.
It turns out its a short walk. From the middle of the bridge you have some a stunning view of the dam.
A wide fun shot of the bridge and the dam where they hide the Transformers
The evidence we were there.. I’m not good at photo shop, not this good anyways.
The whole family was there… my kids are still learning how to picture, if you couldn’t tell from past photos.
My camera does a cool stitching thing lets me take tall pictures too, thought this would be cool.
After walking the Mike’s bridge we went back to the truck and drove the rest of the way to the dam. Parking was fun, some … dude … from CA took my parking space as I was pulling in. I honked, he ignored me. While the Hover Dam may be a great place to hide a body, it wasn’t worth the delays so I let it slide. We found another spot, ate lunch and headed to the dam. If you plan on going taking the tour, don’t take anything but your keys, wallet, and maybe a water bottle. They claim they have massive scary MIB kind of security.
The Transformers are protected by giant Daleks.
It is also protected by two angels that were made when the dam opened, people touch their feet for good luck… which I would understand if they were thousands of years old and from china..
On the floor is the exact arrangement of the major stars that could be seen when the dam was opened and dedicated. My kid is on the bench.
The winged man in all his glory.
There is a flag.
We planned on taking the tour.. I actually researched it before hand and we were ready.
You have been warned!
We were allowed to take any pictures we want, on the tour the hallways are cared out of rock…interesting.
Rock and Conduit, blurry bad pic, not sure why it is here.
Look up Gail…eh never mind too late.
Over flow and bypass pipe…. or a pipe that goes to the generators, I don’t remember.
The secret entrance to the Transformers base?
How the water flows, no expense was spared here, this is the peak of 1940’s electronics, wavy lights to make it look like water is flowing. I use a similar trick on a website 10 years ago, they both look kinda lame now.
AH they are paying attention now.
Scary tunnel.
You get the idea.
The stuff overhead keeps the water from dripping on us. It’s only ground water, they say, there are no leaks in the dam.
My wife took this picture to show the awkward doors in the bathroom, apparently it uploaded to dropbox faster than the other pictures I took.
Board much?
Cool cave leading to the Transformers hide out.
The tunnel er … eh or these turbine generators.
This was a rare opportunity to see these serviced, they are serviced once every 30 years. That or they were repairing an Autobot.
More of the same.
The sinks in the bathrooms are uber short.
Stitched picture more in the view.. Dern kids won’t sit still.
The hallway to where the transformers base is.
I tried to get over there but they stopped me, I took this picture as cover.
A tall stitch. Kinda cool.
More evidence we were there.
After the walking tour there were was a museum of sorts, Gails messed up SD card is to blame for this being the only image of the museum
After the museum we were allowed to go out to the observation deck. You have to pay if you want to go onto the deck, and until the highway was built this was the only way to get sweet pictures.
The dam wall
More dam.
Panoramic pic of the view from the observation deck.
Cool big stitched pic of the dam
This turned out to be a great picture =). It’s goin on my favorites pics of Nevada. I never know if a stitched picture will work out until later.
The view down river, that’s the bridge from earlier.
The only picture from the bridge that survived. The darn dead SD card is killing this post. We bought a new one in CA.
The visit was pretty cool. I have wanted to see it since I was in grade school. We were all in pain from the vegas urban hike just the day before, but the trip was well worth it. We loved it and felt privileged to be there. If you had asked me month abou the hoover dam I would have told you it was on the list. Like most things though it was far cooler checking it off the list that it was seeing it sit on the list. What have you checked of the list lately?
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