Day 14 (April 11) - HOOVER DAM
Our last beautiful day together with Carls and Maks. :(
Carla was flying off to Toronto and Mako would be returning to Vancouver in the late afternoon.
While we were scheduled to drive to Los Angeles to meet up with the Castillos and Santamarias who left in the morning.
Huhuhuhuhuhu!
Sniff. Sniff.
:(
So we decided to make the most out of our last day and headed over on to the historic HOOVER DAM!
Right Daddy's Darling?
Right DAD!The Hoover Dam is only 30 miles/ 48 kms from Las Vegas. It's around a 45 minute drive. Much closer than our 5 hour drive to the Grand Canyon the other day.
You actually drive on top of the Hoover Dam going to the Grand Canyon and back.
It's the best way and primary link for travelling between Las Vegas and Phoenix.
However, traffic can get pretty slow when peeps travel across the dam due to the narrow two lane road and increased security concerns due to terrorism.
That's why they're constructing this:
THE HOOVER DAM BYPASS
The construction of this bridge is so immense, difficult and complex that they've already been featuring the building of the bypass on National Geographic and Discovery Channel even before its completion!
Here's how it's supposed to look when its finished.
(Source)And here's how the new road will join up with the existing one along with other features.
As per the latest update on wiki, they'll be allowing people to park and walk across the bridge for viewing, picture-taking etc!
Cool!
We finally got to park and get our first gander at the Hoover Dam from the parking area.
Magnificent!
"Hoover Dam, originally known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. When completed in 1936, it was both the world's largest electric-power generating station and the world's largest concrete structure."
It was surpassed in both these respects by the Grand Coulee Dam in 1945. It is currently the world's 35th-largest hydroelectric generating station."
We then headed down towards the inside of the dam for our guided Powerplant tour.
THE TRANSFORMERS WERE HERE!
After purchasing our USD 11 tickets (Cara was free) we checked out the Theater Level displays and watched a 10-minute film describing:
a) The contributions of Hoover Dam to the developing West (Flood control, irrigation, electricity, the BIRTH OF LAS VEGAS??)
b) The massive construction effort behind the engineering marvel.
Afterwards, we took a 70-second elevator ride that took us 530 feet down through the rock wall of Black Canyon to begin a 30-minute guided tour.
"You'll exit the elevator into a tunnel drilled in the 1930s for construction, and take a short walk to the Penstock Viewing Platform." - from the official site
Underground!
And on the way to the..
PENSTOCK!!
Penstock Viewing: This location is atop one (of four) of the huge 30-foot-diameter pipes that can transport nearly 90,000 gallons of water each second from Lake Mead to the dam's hydroelectric generators.
- from the official site
Afterwards we took another quick elevator ride up to the Nevada powerplant balcony.
Where we were treated to a panoramic view of the 650-foot-long Nevada wing of the powerplant and eight of the dam's 17 huge generators.
What are we checking out again?
Why the...
POWER GENERATORS!!
We exited the Power Plant balcony through the canyon tunnel and took another elevator up to the Visitor Center Exhibit Gallery.
The kids were starting to get tired na (the trip was starting to take its toll on them) so we ditched the Gallery and headed straight up to the Observation Viewing Deck to take some real nice DAM and Bypass photos.
WHAT AN EXQUISITE TOUR!!
WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH CARLS AND MAKS!!!!!
WE'RE GONNA MISS YOU TERRIBLY!!!
IT WAS SO AWESOME SPENDING TIME WITH YOU TWO.
Our epic adventures will be remembered forever!!
L.A.
HERE WE COME!
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