HOOVER DAM

Steve took us to see Hoover Dam. We stopped in Boulder City and went to the Hoover Dam museum located in the historic hotel there. It was only $1 to get in for seniors and it's a great museum. I'd recommend it to anyone going that way.

This is the new highway that is being built across the river. It was supposed to be completed in 2007 and as you can see it still has a long way to go. And it is really really really high.

Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between Arizona and Nevada. When completed in 1936, it was both the world's largest hydroelectric power generating station and the world's largest concrete structure.

This dam is named after Herbert Hoover, who played an instrumental role in its construction. Construction began in 1931, and was completed in 1936, a little more than two years ahead of schedule.

Lake Mead is the reservoir created by the dam, and is named after Elwood Mead, who oversaw the construction of the dam.

Notice how low the lake level is.

Hoover Dam is 726 feet tall and 1,244 feet long. At its base, Hoover Dam is 660 feet thick which is 60 feet longer than two football fields laid end-to-end. Combined with its top thickness of 45 feet, there is enough concrete in Hoover Dam to build a two-lane highway from Seattle Washington to Miami Florida. Or imagine a four-foot wide sidewalk around Earth at its equator.