Big Doin's in Boulder City

November 2, 2010
Boulder City, Nevada

We decided to stay a night or two right here in Boulder City so we would have some time to see the local sights, and WOW!!! They have a dam here! It's huge. They call it Hoover Dam and it is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

I have trouble figuring out how people paint murals on walls, so comprehending how to engineer a dam that will fit against the walls of a canyon, be tall enough and strong enough to hold back the Colorado River, and still remain standing years later is really difficult.

It is really neat, though, and close up seems larger than life. You can see the bridge we drove over yesterday from Arizona in the first and last photos. It seemed large as we were driving but so much larger today when we could see it from a bit of a distance.

The water level is really low, so the dam looks unused and over-sized for the job. The Colorado River is just a small ribbon of water and while Lake Mead is huge, the low water level makes it look shallow.

One of the great things about this is that so much of the construction was documented at the time---there is a time-lapse movie of the dam being built, plus a lot of still photos and objects. The new visitor center is really nice with some aural domes to "hear" the construction workers talking, and several hands-on exhibits. Turning a wheel to generate enough wattage to run a computer or lights in a room was a popular station.

Bob was intrigued with the pillbox on the Arizona side, used during World War II since the dam was providing power to the California shipyards and thought to be a possible target. It's being stabilized and roads that are compliant with current regulations are being designed so that it can be opened to the public. That should happen in a couple of years and then you can see what the sentries could see. Can you imagine sentry duty out here in the desert in the 1940s? I'm guessing air conditioning didn't figure in.

There were workers on the face of the far side of the canyon who seemed to be climbing down by ropes, but when we looked at them with binoculars, we saw that they had stopped for a sandwich.  Nice view while hanging from a rope and eating your PB&J.

It's warm here---78 at 9:30 this morning---and bright and sunny with just a little breeze. I love the warmth. Not the HOT, but the warmth is, well, you know, it's a dry heat, so it's just pleasant. We hear it's been raining and storming at home, so we will soak up as much sun as we can before we get back.

We'll leave here tomorrow morning and head north into Utah. No Vegas stop for us....can't afford to lose the pennies we have left. It's great to be in Pacific Time again, but we think we'll lose it for awhile in Utah, only to be faced with the daylight-to-standard time shift. By the time we get home, we may not know what time it is!