Grand Circle Tour of the Canyons - 4

Day Eight: Hoover Dam - Fri

As I was staying in a hotel 5 minutes drive from Hoover Dam, I decided to do the dam, properly. This meant a $30 tour, including the power plant and within the dam itself. All a bit geeky really. After driving through the security checkpoint to get onto the dam, I avoided the expensive car parks and walked across the dam to the visitor centre. After another security check to get into the centre there’s a 10 minute film about the building of the dam. It’s very American and patriotic, which made me chuckle. After the film, we were squeezed into an elevator, shoulder to shoulder and facing the front, down to the old nuclear fallout shelter and the huge water pipes, which are big enough to drive a car through.

We then got in another lift to the power plant, where there are big turbine/engine/generator things, three of which were turned on at the time, they had their lights switched on so you could tell. We were told lots of technical things about the huge room, much of which went over my head. I did learn that all the floors are covered with terrazzo marble, which cost a fortune and artistic designs were made into the marble. The dam was built during the Great Depression and is very Art Deco in decoration. It does seem very peculiar that an electrical plant has such expensive designs, especially when built when no one had any money. When they built they deliberately used supplies from every State in the country, to try and get the economy going, so citrus fruits from California were sent for the food supplies, trees from Oregon and Florida etc.

After the power plant we headed off, in our yellow hats, to the stairs of heaven or was it hell? An incredibly steep set of stairs that the workers used to access the plant in the old days. We also headed to the face of the dam and looked out through a vent to the Colorado river. It was about an hour long tour, which actually seemed to go quite quickly.

After the tour it was photos from the top of the dam and then I drove over to the Lake Mead lookout to see the lake that had been created by damming the river. After that I went to Boulder City, which was built as a town for the workers on the dam. It’s now primarily a tourist town, still providing workers for the dam and local area. Not very pretty, nor exciting.

Day Nine - Las Vegas - Sat

 
Finally back to safety and no more threats of snow or storms, maybe some rain and a bit chilly but that was it. I returned the car and got my full deposit back, even though it was a totally different colour than when I took it out, but that may have hidden any dings from the road. Then it was the shuttle buses back to the Stratosphere hotel and a day walking and people watching on the Strip.

The Rodeo Championships were still happening so there were lots of cowboys about, but also lots of tourists with hope in their eyes of winning a fortune.

I headed back to the hotel to do the rides on top of the tower in the dark, hoping it would add to the drama of taking rides on top of a tower. They have three: Insanity, X-Scream and Big Shot, and of course I did all three. X-Scream launches you full pelt over the edge of the tower, like a see-saw so you are suspended over the strip. Big Shot is in the centre of the tower and you’re whizzed up and down the central pole at the same as watching the lights on the Strip. Finally there’s, Insanity, which is like a swing that whirls you out over the edge of the tower so you’re suspended over nothing and zooming around in circles - all great fun!

Then it was a wander down the Strip at night, to see everything lit up and the Bellagio Fountains doing their thing.

And no, I didn’t gamble a single penny, but that will come as no surprise to those that know me, plus I had no idea what most of the games were, so I had no chance of winning anything!

Next Stop: Mexico City