Third time's a charm. After wanting to visit it the last two times we've been in Vegas, I finally got to see the Hoover Dam up close and personal. Many years ago, I watched a National Geographic TV show on the building of the Hoover Dam and was inspired to see this feat of human strength and engineering. Glen was game but Meg and Mike declined, they had plans to see the National Atomic Testing Museum (dams are boring whereas blowing things up, aren't). It did sound fascinating but I had my heart set on seeing the dam.We spent the morning relaxing by the pool then ate hot dogs at Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs in NYNY's Greenwich Village. Nathon's Famous was founded by a Polish immigrant called Nathan Handwerker who sold his wife, Ida's hot dogs at a stand in Coney Island, New York. The hot dogs became so famous that President Franklin D. Roosevelt served them to the King and Queen of England in 1939. Last year, over 435 million Nathan's hot dogs were consumed.
Our tour van, run by Casino Travel & Tours, was 20 minutes late picking us up but we were the penultimate stop so left the city on schedule. We were 11 on the tour with our guide, Mark. He drove us through the outskirts of the city along the highway to the dam. He flooded us with information on both the dam and surrounding countryside. I learned (in no particular order):
1) The water feeding Lake Mead created by the dam, comes from the Rocky Mountains (in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming). It's the largest reservoir in the United States
2) Most of the electricity generated by the dam goes to southern California
3) The dam straddles the border--half in Nevada and half in Arizona
4) A $29 helicopter ride lasts 90 seconds
5) Boulder City is one of two places in Nevada where you can't gamble (you couldn't drink there either until the late 60s). Just outside of town is the oldest casino in the state, The Hacienda
6) 96 people died building the dam; workers got 2 holidays a year--Christmas and Independence Day
7) It was the first time hard hats were used at a construction site
8) It was built in 5 years (2 years ahead of schedule) and under budget
9) It was originally called Boulder Dam
10) It was always meant to be a tourist attraction
Our guide had the 'gift of the gab' but I have forgotten most of what he said so I'll give you my own take on the dam story.
The raging waters of the Colorado River roared through Black Canyon and was prone to ebbs and flows of drying up or flooding. Farmland (and families) in Southern California suffered. In 1928, the government (Bureau of Reclamation) authorize the building of a dam to provide electricity and irrigation water for the southwestern states. The Colorado River runs through seven states so the dam would impact more than just Nevada, California, and Arizona. Future president, Herbert Hoover, a professional mining engineer and then Secretary of Commerce, tried to reach a deal to build the dam but it was the Supreme Court that finally forced the states into an agreement.
The Hoover Dam is an arch-gravity design that uses the strength of the canyon walls to hold the water so the dam itself need not be as massive. Still, the Hoover Dam is immense. At its bottom, it's 660 feet thick and the top is 45 feet wide (designed to be a highway between Nevada and Arizona). Construction began in 1931 as America suffered its Great Depression and the dam project attracted thousands of workers. Las Vegas wanted to be the headquarters for construction but the government required Six Companies (the winning bidder for the dam) to create a model city called Boulder City where workers would be housed.
We began our tour in the art-deco style visitor's centre where a Bureau of Reclamation guide took us into the bowels of the dam. First stop was to see one of the diversion tunnels that were used to divert the river around the construction site. Coffer dams were constructed to keep the site dry as the dam was built. The tunnels now are steel pipes which direct the water to the turbines.
The group separated to enter two elevators and I left Glen behind. We met again at the enormous turbines. There are eight on the Nevada side and nine on the Arizona one. A smaller one provides electricity for the dam itself. Here the floors were done in lovely black and white tiles as the power plant was meant as a showcase for tourists.
After learning all that there was to know about the dam, we headed outside for photographs. I couldn't hang over the walls (vertigo issues) so Glen took all the photos of the base of the dam. Soaring overhead is another feat of construction, the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. As early as the 1960s, the dam's highway became congested but it was only after the September 11, 2001 attacks that the government realized the dam could also be a terrorist target (you must pass through security twice before entering the dam area). The by-pass is an arch bridge spanning (1060 feet) the Black Canyon and was completed in 2010 (construction began in 2003).
Walking on the dam was painfully hot. Our guide had given us cold, bottled water which warmed to tepid in minutes. I was determined to walk to the Arizona side where a clock told us the state's time. That's when we remembered Arizona is like Saskatchewan and doesn't go on Daylight Savings Time so its clock gave the same time as our watches. Glen insisted I take a picture of the back of the dam as who does that?
First on a tour bus is always first off so it was approaching 6:00 when we finally got back to our hotel. After a quick stop in our room, we met Meg and Mike for dinner. The Sporting House is not a restaurant we would normally dine in but Meg had checked out the menu and it looked good. There was a game on (hockey and baseball) so we had to assured the hostess we would be spending more than $15/hour of our stay. It is a large venue and she sat us in a alcove with some quiet hockey fans (an oxymoron but this is America). Glen and I ordered buffalo shrimp and Meg and Mike ordered crab stuff mushroom caps which we shared. Both were delicious! That's when we learned about their day at the museum.
Meg felt they could walk from the Flamingo to the museum forgetting that one, Vegas blocks are long and two, it was 43ºC. Mike's beer & Clamato juice drink became soup. The Atomic Testing Museum (part of the Smithsonian) was worth the effort as they saw all the relics of the United States nuclear program from 1951 to the present and in the Ground Zero Theater, experienced an atmospheric nuclear test. Due to the heat, they opted to take a cab back. Most impressive to Meg was a B53 nuclear bomb on display.
In my opinion, our dam tour was better than the museum bomb.
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