It's only a short trip from Vegas to see this massive dam. Unfortunately the full tour which takes you inside the actual dam was fully booked so I only went to the turbine hall and the exhibition. Nonetheless cool to see. Funne detail is that the timezone (Pacific and Mountain) runs through the dam, accross the dam in Arizone it's one hour later than in Nevada.

A commission was formed in 1922 with a representative from each of the Basin states and one from the Federal Government. The federal representative was Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce under President Warren Harding. In January 1922, Hoover met with the state governors of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming to work out an equitable arrangement for apportioning the waters of the Colorado River for their states' use. The resulting Colorado River Compact, signed on November 24, 1922, split the river basin into upper and lower halves with the states within each region deciding how the water would be divided. This agreement, known as the Hoover Compromise, paved the way for the Boulder Dam Project. It was built to help keep the silt and sediment out of the Colorado River.

Herbert Hoover

The first attempt to gain Congressional approval for construction of Boulder Dam came in 1922 with the introduction of two bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The bills were introduced by Congressman Phil D. Swing and Senator Hiram W. Johnson and were known as the Swing-Johnson bills. The bills failed to come up for a vote and were subsequently reintroduced several times. In December 1928, both the House and the Senate finally approved the bill and sent it to the President for approval. On December 21, 1928, President Calvin Coolidge signed the bill approving the Boulder Canyon Project. The initial appropriation for construction was made in July 1930, by which time Herbert Hoover had become President.

Early plans called for the dam to be built in Boulder Canyon, so the project was known as the Boulder Canyon Project. The dam site was eventually moved downstream eight miles to Black Canyon, but the project name remained the same.

So remember that drink i had, yeah well here is where it comes back into the picture. me and doc had hired a service called "pink jeep tours" to take us to the hoover dam. the guide shows up in, Surprise! a pink jeep, or in our case a pink suburban. everything was going great we had a father and son from australia with us and the guide was some 50 something chick originally from oregon who knew everything about vegas and its environs. it took about 1.5 to 2 hours to get to the dam. when we got there we took the tour waaaaaaaaay down inside. which was cool except for the elevator, which holds about 60 people and they make sure it's filled to capacity. we saw the generator's and all the diagrams, overall it was pretty cool. then we went back up top to take pictures. and lo and behold my drinks form the night before decided that they hadn't come quite far enough up yet. so i yakked all over myself while we were walking through the little electrical power generation display. yeah, it was awesome! luckily i was wearing a sweatshirt, so the puke was mostly on that, mostly. and so i rode the entire way back to the wynn with my puke filled sweatshirt in my arms, and the wonderful aroma of puke all around me, dude, don't drink absinthe and kahlua, NOT COOL!

My friend, Jenn and I decided to take a little trip out to Vegas, she had never been. I had however, lived in Vegas for four years. So I was the perfect guide! We headed out to Vegas through Dallas. Once we'd set down, we checked in to our hotel then hit the road to Hoover Dam. It was a pretty, blue skyed mid-March day. We got to the dam and took in the views from there first. Lake Mead is a beautiful desert oasis. I'd fished and gone swimming in it back in the early 80's when I went to high school in Vegas (SNVTC alumni). We then bought our tickets for the dam tour (yeah, I know how to show a girl a good time... :p), a checked that out. It's actually very interesting how a hydro electric dam works. We also received a lesson in history of the works, the community around it and what it meant for the state and the country.

Our only real stop today is Hoover Dam. Neither my wife or I have ever been to see it even though we have been to Las Vegas more times than we can count. So this trip we added it to our itinerary and said there was no way we were going to miss it.

We didn’t really get up early, but we had pretty well decided that if at all possible we were going to see the dam and then make a long run straight for home. Cut out one or two more days in Vegas and another coming home, we were just too tired to enjoy any more time away from home.

It was barely over an hour to the dam and we took in as much as we could without taking the full tour. There is lots of construction going on around the dam, as they are building a highway and bridge that will soon span the gorge where the dam is and be well above it. No longer will cars actually drive over it, in fact they won’t even have to slow down as they speed past.

At the end of the day, we took a short stop at the Hoover Dam. 

We crossed Hoover Dam to get to the Grand Canyon. Amazing views...

Cool 2ndtime around.  Went down below.

Oh, so sad to be leaving the Grand Canyon... but it’s ok; we’re off to Las Vegas! Before we got to Vegas though, we stopped for a photo op at Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, the reservoir created behind the dam. Bordering the states of Arizona and Nevada, Hoover Dam was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985.  This is an amazing structure and the scenery is spectacular.

We got up early in the morning. Mom is not officially our alarm clock. She makes us wake up and we groan not wanting to. We checked out and got an expensive breakfast at Coco's. We didn't really start driving until around 9. We were planning on driving over the Hoover Dam and then getting to the Grand Canyon.

The drive started off nice enough. I had driven to Vegas so Mom took the early morning drive to the Dam. I had been there before when i was a kid but it really didn't look anything like I remembered it. The water was really low as well so it was a bit hard to see from the car. We pulled over to take some pictures and then were on our way.

We had wanted to throw a coin out the window like they do in Fools Rush In but we didn't do it. Darn.

We left Las Vegas after having an opulent and yummy breakfast at our hotel. Some 39 miles (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas we reached the first highlight of the day: Hoover Dam. It is a concrete dam located in the Black Canyon of the Colorado directly on the border between the states Nevada and Arizona. The dimensions of this construction are isimply amazing. The dam is 726.4 ft (221,4 m) high which makes it the second highest dam in the U.S. Length: 1244 ft (379,2 m). Around 4.36 million cubic yards (3,33 cubic meter) of concrete was poured and built - enough to counstruct a five meter wide and 20 cm high concrete path from San Francisco to New York! It took only five years (1931-1926) to build this dam.
We stopped there for a coke. Since the temperatures had reached 104.0 °F again this was a wise decision. Afterwards I took some pictures. Unfortunately the dam lacks a good viewpoint from the ground.

    The Hoover Dam is an amazing engineering feat - they have enough cement to build a sidewalk around the equator.

Where is Hoover Dam?

    In Black Canyon on the Colorado River, about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada.

How tall is Hoover Dam?

    It is 726.4 feet from foundation rock to the roadway on the crest of the dam. The towers and ornaments on the parapet rise 40 feet above the crest.

How much does Hoover Dam weigh?

    More than 6,600,000 tons.

What type of dam is Hoover?

    A concrete arch-gravity type, in which the water load is carried by both gravity action and horizontal arch action.

What is the maximum water pressure at the base of the dam?

    45,000 pounds per square foot.

How much concrete is in the dam?

    Three and one-quarter million cubic yards. There are 4,360,000 cubic yards of concrete in the dam, powerplant and appurtenant works. This much concrete would build a monument 100 feet square and 2-1/2 miles high; would rise higher than the Empire State Building (which is 1,250 feet) if placed on an ordinary city block; or would pave a standard highway 16 feet wide, from San Francisco to New York City.

    The first concrete for the dam was placed on June 6, 1933, and the last concrete was placed in the dam on May 29, 1935. Approximately 160,000 cubic yards of concrete were placed in the dam per month. Peak placements were 10,462 cubic yards in one day (including some concrete placed in the intake towers and powerplant), and slightly over 275,000 cubic yards in one month.

How much cement was required?

    More than 5,000,000 barrels. The daily demand during construction of the dam was from 7,500 to 10,800 barrels. Reclamation had used only 5,862,000 barrels in its 27 years of construction activity preceding June 30, 1932.
 

I wanted to go on the Hoover Dam tour, but Tyler and Dawn were anxious to get to the Grand Canyon, so I was outvoted.  Not a big deal, but I was disappointed we couldn't even get into the visitor center unless we signed up for the tour.  The security is understandably much more heightened since I was here in '98, and we had to pull over and allow the truck to be searched prior to heading over the dam.  Tyler and I removed the cargo net and tarp off the bed of the truck, and opened all our tote boxes to show the security officer our gear.  I showed him the most dangerous things we had were the propane cannisters for our cooking stove...he smiled and waved us through! 

 We parked in a lot near the dam on the Nevada side and walked over. We took some pictures near the visitor center, then walked across the dam into Arizona.  The dam crosses both the state line and a time zone, but because Arizona does not subscribe to daylight savings time, it was the same time on both sides.

We walked by the spillway on the other side, and I was amazed by the lack of water here.  Eight years ago, there was water running over the spillway, now it was so dry and empty, there was grass growing in an area that used to be 20 feet underwater! Now every time I watch the weather channel, I root for rain in Arizona!   The rock walls around the dam were bleached white, indicating the previous water levels.

We stopped in the gift shop there for some iced tea and souvenirs, then headed back to the truck.  We then drove across the dam, and spent most of the rest of the day driving across the state headed towards the Grand Canyon.