hoover dam

April 27th-We left Zion around noon, gained an hour, parked our rig at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas and set out for Hoover Dam (named for Hebert Hoover, 31st Pres.) around 3:00 p.m..  We took the tour down to the generators.  Our tour guide was very hard to understand but we gleaned a lot from the exhibits.  They had some good hands on activities to help explain the use of magnets and the hydroelectric power.  It is an engineering phenomenon and we learned a lot.  It is ingenious how they set it up to be self-sustaining financially.  They sell the power to southern ca, (56%), Nevada (25%)  and Arizona (19%).  The water helps irrigate more than a million acres of rich crop land in Mexico and provides domestic water needs for over 20 million people in these three states.  It was interesting to learn the human side of things.  Six companies worked together to make this happen and they finished two years ahead of schedule and well under budget.  It’s no wonder they were able to accomplish this when they paid the 3500 workers meagar wages (50 cents a day) and only gave them 2 days off a year (Christmas and July 4).  If a person called in sick, they were let go.  During the depression, people would do anything to work. The formidable task with rude equipment these workers accomplished is unbelievable.  Lake Meade is the largest man-made reservoir in America.  The dam used 5 billion tons of cement.  The electrical towers lean in towards the canyon so the iron from the rocks won’t short the electricity.

The new bridge that was completed in 2010 is quite something too and it was thrilling to walk across and look down 900 feet. Arizona and Nevada meet in the middle of the bridge and they worked together to finance the bridge.  Each state picked an exemplary leader to represent to them.  Patick Tillman from Arizona is the young man who turned down a 3 million dollar NFL contract to serve in the army after 9/11.  He was killed in 2003.  What an example