Link to Hoover Dam Facebook Pictures

Today we woke up early and went to the Grand Canyon Park to get our park passports stamped, and also to send some postcards.  We didn’t fill up our solar shower because we figured we were going to be staying in a hotel.  We got about a half hour into the drive to Las Vegas, when I decided to check my phone.  I had an email from my mom saying that the hotels in Vegas were $120/night during the weekend, but were only $30/night on the weekdays.  She booked us from Monday night through Wednesday night at a hotel on the Strip, for $111 total.  That’s a steal!

In the meantime, we decided to keep heading towards the Hoover Dam and then to Vegas.  We stopped on the way to the Hoover Dam, at a Safeway, to get supplies to make some sandwiches.  While I was waiting for my potato salad to be scooped, I talked to the guy waiting in line behind me and told him about our cross-country road trip.  He recommended Sedona – then we talked about how gorgeous it is out there.  The guy behind the counter told me about his own trip from California to Florida, with 3 of his friends in a small sedan.  When you get out there and start doing something like this, it’s amazing to see how many people have gotten up and done something similar.  It makes you feel less crazy for leaving your normal day-to-day life, to pursue something like this.

We made it to the Hoover Dam, and there are two types of tours: the powerplant tour (30 minutes) and the Dam tour (1 hour).  The powerplant tour is only $11/person, whereas the Dam tour is $30/person.  That was an easy decision to make.  We got some cool pictures in the powerplant and got to see how all of the electricity is generated from the Hoover Dam.  The way they constructed this thing blew my mind.  They created four huge tunnels around the area where the dam was to be created, in order to divert the water.  These tunnels were HUGE – something like 50 feet in diameter EACH.  After the water from the Colorado River was diverted around the area that the dam was to be built, they built two smaller dams above and below the worksite – in order to keep the site clean and dry.  This process took something like two years, and THEN they could begin on the dam.

They didn’t have any vehicles / trains large enough to transport some of the materials that they needed, so they just created the manufacturing plants right there.  They had steel cables running across the canyon in order to transfer heavy materials, workers, and machines to the site.  They poured 16 tons of concrete every 90 seconds – for something like two years.  This amount of concrete would have taken 125 years to cool naturally, so they needed a way to make it cool faster, so it wouldn’t affect the integrity of it.  They ran 600 miles of 1” diameter pipe through the concrete, as they laid it.  They had a huge refrigeration station cooling these pipes constantly.  This refrigeration station could have created 1,000 tons of ice a DAY, but instead was used to cool this vast amount of concrete.  I really enjoyed reading about the construction processes, if you couldn’t tell.

Herbert Hoover wasn’t President when this Dam was built (that’s what I had assumed beforehand, at least).  He was the secretary of the Bureau of Reclamation, which really got the ball rolling on the dam.  Before the dam, the Colorado River would cause droughts and flood, causing widespread damage and uncertainty.  After the dam, the flow of water could be controlled – allowing humans to “tame” this area and make it stable and consistent for crops.

We also learned how the water works to create the electricity, which I thought was pretty interesting.  The water flows down the tubes and into the turbines, where it rotates a “water-wheel” looking horizontal gear, which turns a crankshaft.  The top of the crankshaft is connected to a rotor, which is magnetized.  As it spins, there is a stationary thick set of coils which pick up the electricity and transfer it on down the line.  If someone is an electrical engineer (*cough* dad *cough*) and wants to chime in and help me revise my terrible explanation above, please feel free to do so.  They had a life-size model which you could walk in and really visualize all of this taking place.  It’s amazing what humans can do when we work together!

All of this happened in the midst of the Great Depression.  There were first-hand accounts of the conditions and opportunities that were presented with the creation of the dam.  It also had a breakdown of the different jobs, and what each person made hourly.  I think the best wage was like $1.04/hr.  Most people made around $0.50 – $0.72 / hr, which apparently was a decent wage back in that day.

Molly got to make electricity.  Having TOO much fun!

After the museum, we walked atop the bridge that connects Nevada and Arizona, and took some pictures.  We didn’t spend much time up there, because it was WINDY and SUNNY.  Then we headed on to Vegas.  We had to stop at an REI so I could exchange an item, and while we were there we asked if they knew of any local forest service roads where we could pitch a tent for the night.  An awesome REI employee named Fran pulled out a map and showed us exactly where to camp.  Then we mentioned having a solar shower, and he offered to fill that up for us.  AND he told us about some climbing opportunities in the area where we are camping.  He couldn’t have been more helpful!  We gave him one of our business cards, and I hope he has the chance to read this and follow along with our adventures!

We made it to the campsite late at night, and I took my Civic down some trails that I probably shouldn’t have.  I thought we had found a good pull-off, until I realized that it was all loose gravel and my car was spinning tires trying to get out.  It was getting dark, too, so the pressure was on.  I just wanted my car out of there – we would find a better, more flat spot.  I had to back the Honda up between two trees and get a “running start” to get out of there.  Luckily, I made it and we didn’t have any trouble after that.  We headed closer to the main road and found an easier place to camp!  The funny thing is Fran had warned us about this spot, and the spots after it as well.  I figured we could make it, though!