Hoover Dam

First sight of Lake Mead... keep driving toward the right of the picture and you will go through hills and rocks and some amazing views until you see the dam and the river that feeds this lake... the Colorado River.
Anticipation!!!
Lake Mead up closer and the road the wraps around it to get to the dam, which is much higher into an area full of high jagged rocks.
Electricity... and a lot of it.
A huge bridge just a little down stream of the dam.
Arizona time. This means we have driven across the dam and weren't in Nevada anymore. We have one of the Nevada clock too but I am already posting tons of pictures!!! LOL
This is a spillway (I believe that's what the guy said.) like in a bathtub or sink, when there is a great flooding it will help get the water down without it getting to the top of the dam. We just drove over the top of it.
Looking back on the dam and a little higher you can see the parking garage built right into the side of the cliff. We drove from the left side of the picture (in front of the garage) to the right and then curved back over the Hoover Dam to the left side of the picture again and then the road curved along side of the cliff until we were looking back at where we had come.
Looking out the other direction and you could see the water from Lake Mead. One time it flooded really bad and left all that white sediment along the walls of the canyon.
Interesting art everywhere (such as the ball on top of that stand on the left) and elevators that were built into the walls of the canyon. A lot of gold doors.
Looking down from the garage.

What a sweet man!!! And such a good boy!!!
Waiting in line on the stairs to get to our tour. A lot of waiting. After we go into the doors we had to go through security, then pay for our tour, then wait for them to let us watch a movie on the dam (every 15 min. they let 120 people in to watch it) and then we had to wait for our tour to start.
One of the best pictures of the day!!! Love my handsome boy!!!!

What a silly!!!
Looking down on the dam before the tour began.
Here we are waiting for our tour to start. We went down in an elevator, at about 6 miles an hour, in 17 seconds we were 540 feet below the surface.
Yes, there was water coming out of the rock walls. A little unnerving...
Unnerving... yet extremely fascinating.

In the depths of the earth... waiting for the tour to start... again. :D
Woohoo!!! Riding on dad's shoulders! Best seat in the house!
Walking through the tunnels under the ground.

This pipe was 44 feet diameter (I am pretty sure, there was a lot of information that day.). And yes, the ground vibrated in the room we were in because of the amount of water passing under us!
This is a photo of the inner workings of the dam. The yellow tubes are the pipes they used to redirect the water away from the Colorado river's original path. They have since filled them with concrete once they weren't needed anymore. They also used cofferdams to stop it from flowing back up through the work site. Now the water is directed through pipes to create electricity.
The minute she stepped onto this floor it was time to dance!!! I love my sweet ballerina!!!
The generator room! I believe there are nine generators (yes, those huge round things) on the Nevada side and eight on the Arizona side.
Hahaha I have to say that my camera has a delay in taking the picture and so sometimes I get these dismal expressions! We really were having a great time. :D
See... at least I am having a great time. Hahahahaha
This was a Native American symbol for electricity (I think, don't quote me on that). But a man named true set up symbols like this for decoration. If this floor was made today it would be extremely expensive... to expensive to do.
Leaving the generator room.
Still going strong! What a good little man!!!
Reentering the tunnels deep under the earth.
Seeing the dam from a window!! What a great view!!!
She loved getting her picture taken so much! This one was her idea (as was a lot of pictures of her hahaha).
Baby Bear didn't know what he was looking at half the time but it sure was interesting to him!!! I think the "toy" sized models were intriguing to the kids.
SUCH a handsome boy!!! You have to agree about that! My sweet Joseph!!!
Pretending to be electrocuted by a transformer. hahaha Of course, though we teach him to be safe with electricity.

It was so exciting to see how interested the kids were in all the stuff we were seeing!!!
This is a model of the dam about half built. See the little boxes that the cement was dropped into. Slowly it rose way above the floor of the canyon.
The giant pot thing that hovered over the dam and brought the cement to the work spot.
Then the men mixed it into it's boxes.
These leaning electrical things were amazing! I have never seen leaning ones before!
You may remember this scene. It is because just to the right of the pictures are the stairs we had to stand on to wait in line for the tour. The line was so long they closed off the escalators. So we had to go back and ride them!!! Of course, because escalators are FUN!!!!
Yes, I had to jump into some of the pictures just so you would know I went with them. hahaha

Sittin' because we just like enjoying the ride. :D
Loved the escalator ride!!!
Later we went to Applebees and had a yummy dinner and then for another great surprise of the weekend... but you have to keep reading to find what that is. :D