We headed for the Hoover Dam from Vegas…there was no way Bill wasn’t hitting the Hoover Dam. He’s obsessed with that place! On the way, we took in the views of Lake Mead, which is the world’s largest, by volume, man-made reservoir, created as a result of the Hoover Dam. When we got to the dam, we took the Dam Tour, and walked around the area for a long time. Bill enjoyed every bit of the time we spent there. It was cool, but not four hours worth of cool, in my opinion, when it’s 95 degrees. Just kidding, it was neat. We took lots of pictures, got the bumper sticker for the Thule car top, and the pin for Bill’s hat (did that just about everywhere we went so far), and then moved on eastward toward the Grand Canyon.
What we learned in this part of the trip and on into the
Grand Canyon and its greater area, is just how much the Colorado River has
impacted the development of the southwest terrain and how all of these places
are politically and geographically connected.
The 7 southwest states all depend on this river. The Hoover Dam and the whole dam system along
the river was all about providing water to these 7 states and limiting the
flood risk along the river. The
electrical power resulting from the dam has helped pay for the dam but was
never the driving force. I believe the
tour said the dam was one of the few government projects to ever directly pay
for itself.
The Colorado Rover starts high in the Rocky Mountains and extends southward to Mexico. The river runs for over 1,400 miles and drains approximately 12% of the 48 states’ land mass. I don’t think easterners understand the importance of this river. As we continued our journey towards home we essentially followed the river from the dam all the way to Denver. Crazy!
We all loved the Hoover Dam! When we were there we didn't do the tour but we walked all around and marveled at the engineering.
ReplyDeleteThe dam tour is damn good!
ReplyDelete