It's Hoover Dam Day

We drove just an hour or so along the north shore of Lake Mead and around to the Hoover Dam, which is the dam that created Lake Mead out of the Colorado River.  And we toured all around the dam, but as we were doing so we got a phone call from Emily and Jerry, Doreen's sister-in-law and brother who live in the state of Georgia (just above Florida).  Jerry had a stroke and heart attack a few days ago, but in the last few days he has gone from not being able to speak etc. to almost fully recovered.  There have been a lot of people praying, and their prayers have been answered.  After getting off the phone, Doreen said maybe we should drive over there, but then realized it was a long way, and would have none of it.

There is no parking for RVs on the Nevada side of the dam, so Miss Travelaire had to drive right across the dam into Arizona to parking lots on that side of the river, not before being searched by security people in case she was carrying unwanted merchandise 😂.  Then we walked back and across the dam.  It's hard to get a photo of the whole dam because it over fills the frame, as you see here.

Looking down from the top, again you just can capture part of it.

So it tried a pano with my iphone, and there it is, distorted and all.

This picture is taken from the middle of the dam looking downstream with the new bridge opened in 2010 that carries Interstate 11 and US93.  This bridge is an amazing structure itself!

We took the power plant tour of the dam, which you enter from the Nevada side, and go down down down on huge elevator that carries 20 or 30 people.  This is the row of turbines that generate electricity in that white building along the right side of the river in that last photo.  The purpose for the dam was really for flood control in the river, but the electricity generated has paid for the original cost of construction and for maintenance of the dam.

We went through all sorts of tunnels through the rock which made Doreen feel a little queasy 🙂.  In this picture we are inside a huge tunnel which is one of the two original tunnels constructed to divert water around the dam area while it was being built.  The big pipe inside this tunnel now carries water from Lake Mead to the turbines below.

As we were walking back across the dam to Arizona I yelled for Doreen to turn around to snap this photo.  That's the roadway on top of the Dam which Miss Travelaire drove across.  As you can see there was no reason for her to be scared at all of the height.

Here is Lake Mead above the dam.  The two towers (there are four altogether) are the intake towers for water to flow to the electric turbines.  The light coloured ring around the edge of Lake Mead shows the highest water mark.  Since the dam is for flood control, this extra level in Lake Mead can take care of excess water in case of large snow years in the mountains.

Here is one of two spillways for the dam.  In 1983, there was a huge snowfall and quick melting, and it is the only time (other than when they originally tested them) that the water has gone over the spillways.  They try not to have this situation because then they have no control over water levels in the river.  By the way, you can see Miss Travelaire, the white dot in the upper right of the picture, sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting for our return.

Well, here we are back in Arizona on our way back to join Miss Travelaire.  As you can see Doreen walked all the way from Arizona to Nevada and back!

We had picked out our campsite for the night on the way to Hoover Dam this morning.  We are back at the campsite at Boulder Beach Campground (N36 02 09.5, W114 48 03.8) just down the road 5 miles or so from the dam.  I wouldn't have bothered with another picture of a campsite except for the beautiful Eucalyptus tree shading Miss Travelaire!  You can also see the same solid government issued picnic tables with the curved tops and benches 😀.