Hoover Dam

Ok, so we finally made it to Hoover Dam which is about 35 miles from the Luxor Hotel where we're staying and it only took a little over two hours. Part of the problem was that there were big security checks for the dam. As I saw on the Las Vegas local news, Nevada gets a fair bit of Homeland Security cash, which is currently being challenged by Congress so I guess they have to do something for the money. (Though, fair enough perhaps the terrorists realise that they could take out the castles of Europe, skyscrapers of New York, the Eiffel tower and the Egyptian pyramids with limited legwork.)

After we finally passed the security checkpoint it was about 30 more minutes before we got to the dam. I was a little disappointed I guess. Hoover Dam didn't look too impressive from the angle we approached. It's across a rather small gap on the Colorado River gorge, and until you look down on the steep side, you don't get an impression of the scale. I guess it had been built up in my mind by photos taken from the bottom of the gorge, a really great docu-drama which was part of a series on the industrial wonders of the world and the song the Highwayman.

(The documentary puts paid to the lines from the song "...I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below. They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound...". Although working conditions were terrible and around 100 men died on the site, anyone who died in the concrete was pulled out. My impression was that it was more for the stuctual integrity of the concrete than for sentimentality and humanity.)

Anyway, we arrived too late to take the tour. But the Vol-in-Law and I walked across the dam and into Arizona. (This means the Vol-in-Law hit four states he'd not visited yet, NC, AZ, CA and NV and we've been in all 4 time zones of the continental United States).

It began raining when we were on the AZ side of the bridge and were soaked by the time we got back to the great honkin' SUV VolMom rented. I caught a bit of a chill on the way back which got quite strong by the time I got back to the hotel and I hit the bed at 7:45 pm and sweated and shivered til morning.