Home Again

We went home from Arizona via the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas.
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We crossed so quickly I basically missed the part where we were driving on the dam.
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The water level of Lake Mead seemed alarmingly low, especially after we learned on our tour that 1/3 of America's fruits and vegetables are grown from this water supply. It turns out that yes, the levels are low (42%) but the ideal level is only 50%. Residents in the area probably worry more if the levels get too high.

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There are a couple of choices of tours at the dam. The top tour takes you into the dam for $30/person. (Everything seems expensive when you multiply it by six people!) We chose the Power Plant tour which was $10/person. All the tours start out together watching a movie about the building of the dam. The film had a very 1950's propaganda feel to it which kept me chuckling, but at the same time it was interesting and inspiring to learn about the history of the Hoover Dam.

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After the film we descended down into one of the shafts that had diverted the Colorado river while the dam was being built.

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Our guide then took us over to the power plant. There are 9 turbines on the Arizona side and 8 turbines on the Nevada side. Water supply, not electricity, was the objective of the Hoover Dam, but the electricity produced serves 1.3 million homes and pays for the operation costs of the dam - you Americans aren't putting any tax dollars into maintenance of the dam. Well actually, neither am I .
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Here's a look at the power plants from above.

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The tourists in the yellow plastic *hard* hats continued on deeper into the dam while the rest of us went back up the elevators to the museum. Chloe was a little jealous of the hard hats but not of continuing the tour. Later, in the gift shop, an adult asked Chloe out of the blue if she'd like to have her yellow hard hat. Chloe was thrilled and no longer wanted anything from the gift shop, Woo-hoo!

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Steven took this photo of the dam from the back. I love the curve in this picture (the shape of the dam forces the pressures it is under into the sides of the canyon wall) and the reflection of the intake towers in the water (I didn't realize before that no water passes through the dam, but rather is taken in through these towers and diverted around or through the power plant).

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The Hoover Dam was always intended to be a tourist attraction and there are many sculptures and plaques. (The floor of the power plant is marble and inlaid with artist renditions of water and electricity.)
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Our only family picture of the trip. It seems like I am having trouble with graininess from my camera lately, but this was by far the worst - I don't know how that nice lady managed to take such a bad picture.

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We'll probably take this new bridge the next time we cross from Arizona into Nevada and by-pass the traffic on the Hoover Dam. I think we'll get spectacular pictures of the dam from our moving car as long as we travel from east to west. We actually had no wait at all on the Arizona side, but when we left we saw traffic backed up on the Nevada side all the way to Boulder City.

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As for being home, I've adjusted quickly and happily back to our cold winter. Surprising, considering how I enjoyed the warm weather and snow-free sidewalks in Arizona. I think it helps that my best clothes are winter clothes and I love all my cute scarves, boots, hats, gloves and mittens. As Chloe shared with Emerson while we were shopping: "We're lucky we're girls because we get to have accessories."