Ups and Downs

Our first adventure of the day was a visit to Hoover Dam.  Arrived at about 10 a.m. and booked a tour - earliest available was 1:30 p.m.  So, we walked across the dam both ways.........watched the movie and took in the audio presentation........checked out all the exhibits......and waited on a bench for an hour and a half.  But it was worth it.

Lake Mead side.  Boats in background beyond boom.

You can see by the colour of the rocks that the lake is over one hundred feet below capacity.

Nevada side power plant. The tour went down inside the dam to get to it.

There are eight generators on the Nevada side (nine on the Arizona side).

But one of them is being rebuilt

The rotor alone weighs over 600 tons.   The "baby" generator on its side behind the rotor provides the power to run the power plant itself.

The dam is over 700 feet high and the base is 612 feet wide.  Somewhere inside all that cement is the elevator shaft that took us down to the power plant.  If you look carefully in approximately the middle of the sunlit area you will see a ventilation shaft grate.  The following picture was taken from that shaft.

This bridge was being built when Malcolm and I toured the dam.  Highway traffic used to have to cross the dam but now bypasses it and the old road is now available only for tours.  Unfortunately, to avoid distractions, the sides of the bridge are cement, so no view.

After the tour we headed out on a two hour drive to visit the Skywalk.  Along the way we passed a Joshua Tree forest.

The Skywalk is outside the western end of Grand Canyon National Park on Havasupai lands.  In the picture below you can see the eagle rock to my left (your right).  The wings form the vee at the top of the rock wall.  the head and body are below the wings.   It is a sacred place for the Havasupai.  Would be for me too.

The picture above was taken from the Skywalk.  The one below from the edge of the canyon.

Can't take a camera on the Skywalk, so you end up buying the pictures they take of you, which are pretty awesome!  Note the bottom of canyon, 4,000 feet blow Ewen.

The shadows block it out, but the Colorado River is somewhere behind Ewen.

And, one special shot of our hero!

We drove through the dark to get back to Las Vegas, so decided to spend some time at The Fremont Experience.

The overhead video screen covers two blocks of Fremont Street.

After about five minutes there, Ewen suggested that we leave.  Don't know whether it was the people we passed who were talking to themselves, or the drunks, or the gaudy lights or the blaring noise, but I agreed with him.

A busy day.