Hoover Dam

I have been begging Michael for months now to take the Hoover Dam Tour, and there has always been some good reason not to go. This weekend my cold finally gave up in torturing me, I wasn't nauseous, and it wasn't too hot, So we went!

We parked on the Arizona side, its free!

We didn't know it at the time but this is a Spillway. It originally was one of the diversion tunnels they made to build the Dam.

Another angle of it.

This leads to Lake Mead. The tower is what sucks up the water (I didn't know that.)

Isn't this guy sweet? He carried my purse the whole day. My prego brain didn't think about using a backpack.

This is the Hoover Dam Byway. It is scheduled to open this November. (Part of me doesn't want to go on it and another part of me says I have too!)

This is underground beside the dam. It's inside of the Spillway. (ps. This room vibrated cause of all the water rushing thru the huge pipe. kinda made me nauseous...

This Diagram shows how the Dam works. The tour guide said we were in the top tunnel.

This picture is of the only time they had to use the Spillway back in 1983. The water level was 7 feet from the top of the Dam.

These are the original tunnels they mined out to make the spillways.

The Power Plant

This is where the tour spit us out.

The Dam was covered in these pretty informational plaques. Everything was dated back to the Art Deco Period. I loved it! It was like walking back in time. I didn't get any pictures of the floors but they were beautiful designs too.

This picture show how they built the dam so that the canyon walls absorb the pressure from the water pushing on it. It's impressive how well designed the Dam is. I wouldn't have thought they would know how to do that back in 1931.

I told him not to squint... lol.

All in all the day was perfect. Michael and I soaked in all the information we learned, and how we have a totally different opinion of Hoover Dam.