Monday, April 20, 2009

Hoover Dam

Bob and I are on a road trip through the Western part of the US to visit family. We took 3 days to drive from home in Redmond to Green Valley, AZ. We left on Thursday afternoon and spent the first night in Burley, ID. The second day we stopped by to see Heather and Baby Brooks in Provo but then drove down to Henderson, NV and spent the night there. We planned on getting up kind of early in the morning to get across Hoover Dam. If you get there too late you get stuck in the traffic because there are security checkpoints to be sure you don't plan on blowing up the dam as you drive across it.

We were at Hoover Dam a few years back and the dam is an amazing thing to see in itself, but they are building a bridge that bypasses the need to drive on the dam and I'm guessing will give some pretty spectacular views to those driving over it. Bob loves to watch great feats of engineering and I have to admit it is pretty amazing to see. It is going to be completed in about another year.
As you approach the dam, you drive right by and under the new bridge. It's massive. They are building it from both sides of the gorge and will meet in the middle.

This is the road deck from the Nevada side. It looks like it is going to be 4 lanes.
This shot is taken from on top of the dam. You can see all of the electrical towers surrounding the dam and it's also a good view of the span and how they will meet up.

I like this view of Lake Mead from the other side of the dam. You can see the high water mark.
This one looks like Bob has ear plugs in his ears.
Hoover Dam has 2 things that I'm a big fan of. Lots of art deco and a ladies bathroom. The bathrooms are actually in the towers on top of the dam. You have to climb some stairs to get to the bathroom and once you do, it has an amazing view. Better than the view from any other bathroom I have ever been in.

This is the view from out of the ladies room window. Pretty cool, huh?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

that is one "Dam" cool place.

The VanderHoeven time machine said...

I hope you took that dam tour!

The VanderHoeven time machine said...

It's amazing that you look on one side, full of water & the other side not so, but it's running. It's amazing that dam how it's holding all that water. It's still curing (sp?) they say.