"Well, what should we do today?"
"Screw it, let's go to the Hoover Dam."
The ride there was gorgeous in and of itself. Lots of mountain terrain (though, actually, they looked a lot more refined from far away, up close they just looked like piles of dirt with weeds growing out of them).
After a while on I-515/93S, the mountains gave way to the deep blue waters of Lake Mead, America's largest man-made lake.
Hey, it's more mountains. Wow.
There's that bridge that goes over the Dam. Consider this a preview, I guess.
Here's where all the tourists gather as they wait for their tour buses to pick 'em up.
This is us looking straight down into the Dam. Please note that I totally did the whole "grab Pam and act like I'm going to throw her over the edge to freak her out" thing. She was not happy.
God Bless America.
What am I doing with my life?
Hyrdroelectric power!
Pretty far away from Philadelphia.
The other side of the dam, where the water is stored before it is converted to electricity. This water level is 500 feet higher than the other side of the dam.
Hoover Dam, the Tomorrowland of 1935.
Flowers are growing out of the side of the dam. I would go down to pick them for my girlfriend for her birthday, but that's not for two weeks.
A model of the dam, in case you missed the real thing.
That's actually a lot farther down than it looks. Can you see the workers down there? No, you can't, because they look so darn small. It's safe to say that you wouldn't survive the fall.
The obligatory picture. Resplendent!
More water at the bottom of the dam. Yawn.
God Bless America II.
Small-town America lives on in Boulder City, Nevada. Widely considered the happiest town in America, it looks like a ghost town in this picture. And it kind of was. Lots of antique shops and corner pubs. And a UFO store. Good times.
Here's where we called home. The Boulder Dam Brewing Company. "Hoppy Hour" was from 4-6. We drank many a freshly-brewed beer and ate some great brewpub food.
Here's that cutie that I'm kinda dating. I forget her name. The blonde. She's at the bar. You can see the big vats of Boulder City natural brew. I have to say, the one beer I was drinking, called "Dam Brewtal IPA" was - no exaggeration - the best beer I've ever had the pleasure to drink in my life. They don't sell cases of it. Had they, and I would be poor right now.
P.S. Yes, pretty much everywhere in Boulder City, it was required to make puns on the words "dam" and "damn." There was the Dam Brewtal beer. There was the Best Dam Salon. And so on, ad nauseum.
Clever.
Driving home, it was hard to get a good picture of the sunset behind the mountains. Here's the best I could do with my standard digital camera.
The Hoover Dam visitor's center was infinitely interesting. Really, there were four reasons why the Hoover Dam was awesome: 1) Learning about how it was built; 2) Learning about how it works (as in, the way the water flow through and the way that flow generates electricity); 3) How the Dam both serves as a symbol of the wonder and beauty of America itself, and how it also literally helped America survive the Great Depression (both by giving citizen's job opportunities and by being a shining example of the American willpower); 4) Quite simply, there's a sense of awe in seeing this behemoth for yourself.
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