Advertisement
Published: September 28th 2009
Our main event today was visiting Hoover Dam. It turned out that we came on a good day, which was surprising since it was a Saturday, because we were able to park really easily and we didn't have to wait that long for our tour to start. Our tour guide told us that on other days in the summer it could be a 2 hour wait just to park. We decided to do the full blown Dam Tour. There is also a Power Plant Tour, or just entrance to the Visitor's Center. But, we picked the Dam Tour because you get to do everything. We got to be part of the Power Plant Tour where you go down to the power plant. First, we went into a tunnel where we were standing above a 90-foot diameter pipe that takes water to the turbines. The ground was rumbling because of the constant water flow. Also, there was a little bit of water seeping through the tunnel walls, so it seemed like the dam was leaking. This is because the pressure of the water is so great down there, and since the ground is porous, some seeps through. After that, we went into
the room where you see the area where the generator is housed. After that, we got to continue on to the Dam Tour. We had to walk a ways to get into the dam. The first stop was down a long hallway where we got to look out one of the air vents in the dam. As you walk down the hallway, you have to cross over a steel grating section, where you can see a long ways down. Joey walked across it just fine, and even attempted to take a few pictures of how far down it goes, while Jennifer never looked down while crossing. The next stop was to see the 700-step staircase that goes up and down the dam. We were somewhere near the middle, so when you look up and down it, you cannot see the ends at all. Lastly, we ended up at the top of the dam, where we could see the air vent that we were just at. Also, from the dam you could see the new bridge that they're building to help deal with all the traffic there.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.156s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 13; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0466s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Art
non-member comment
dam
I am glad you got to do the whole tour. Impressive place. We did it in '78. I thought the whole tour wasn't available any more. Happy to hear that is wrong.