The Husband and I have the great pleasure of living only about a half hour from a great American treasure and architectural excellence – the Hoover Dam.  The Husband has had the opportunity to tour the dam in the past during vacations to Las Vegas, but I’ve wanted to tour the dam since we moved here.  The day we arrived to Nevada in April, we drove across the dam (the new bridge had yet to be completed) and I’ve had a desire to go back ever since.  When we knew our friends Carolyn and Martin would be coming out for New Years, we saved our visit in order to go with them.  After an enjoyable morning at the house, we piled into the car around 10:30 and headed south through Boulder City to the dam.  The weather was perfect for the visit (well a tad chilly and windy) and gave some great scenery along the way.

In memory of our trip to Australia earlier in the year, I had to take a picture of the “Ram Crossing” sign, bringing back memories of all of the animal signs we saw during that trip.

For those of you who don’t know, the Hoover Dam was designed both to alter the flow of the Colorado River but also to provide electricity to Nevada, Arizona, and Southern California so there are a lot of power lines.

Parking at the dam is quite easy and only $7 per car (paid in advance with cash when entering the garage).  As we meandered down the stairs of the garage, we came across this sign which gave me a giggle.  I believe the prohibition on the left is of alcohol which I assume needs to be clarified since alcohol is allowed outside on the Strip (not so at national parks!).

Additional restrictions included the size of bags as well as sketchy behavior

In order to enter the tour areas (you can see the dam without tickets from the roadway and sidewalks), we took an escalator down and got in line for security.  This may look like a long line but it flowed relatively well.

Once inside, we bought tickets for the Hoover Dam tour (compared to the Power Plant Tour which is a third of the price).  The Hoover Dam Tour is $30 per person, only available for purchase the day of (there’s a limited number of tickets), and is run every half hour (about 20 people per tour).  In addition to the visitor center and powerplant (which the basic tour takes you into), this tour includes walking through the dam passageways and inspection points which you’ll see below.  We were excited for the opportunity for this tour and glad that they hadn’t sold out.  When we bought the tickets, the next tour for four people was scheduled for 12:45 so we were able to enjoy the other parts of the tour first.  First up – a picture that we assume was photoshopped over Hoover Dam backgrounds.

We were then escorted into an auditorium and we saw a video about the design and construction of the dam.  Quite informative!

Next, since our tour was an hour away, we were directed up to the visitors center to explore the museum and beautiful views of the dam.

The exhibit showed us maps…

…informative bits of information…

…beautiful art…

….fun scientific video games which educate and entertain the broad range of ages at the dam… (me included!)

… and educational displays of course.

We then headed to the observation deck above the visitors center.

If you look at the cliffs in the background, you’ll see a distinct change in color from grey to brown.  That line is the highest the water has ever been (quite some time ago).  About halfway down from that is the “normal” water line (we’re in a drought of course).  Our tour guide later advised that it’ll take 4 or 5 years of good snow in the mountains to get our water level back up to appropriate levels unfortunately

Apparently we weren’t paying close enough to the time so we were snapped at slightly as we got to the elevator for the tour right at 12:45 (apparently you need to get there earlier!).  We took a large elevator (30+ people) down hundreds of feet to the power plant areas.

In between the two stops, we waited to ride the elevator again in a tunnel

Up to the second section of the power plant where the turbines and such are.

One of the very cool things in the dam is the great decorative architecture.  There were touches of early 1930s art throughout and it has all been so very well maintained.  This antiques lover was having a ball with all of the touches.

At this point, the 21 of us in the Hoover Dam tour broke away from the Power Plant tour group and went off with our tour guide Leslie (who was awesome!).  She took us through the original waiting areas for tours back in the day and we headed to an inspection point.  We were lined up in the tunnel and then our mini groups each got a bit of time at the inspection vent for some photo opportunities.

Some great views from that point…

In order to get to and from the opening, we had to cross this vent which had a VERY large drop down.  The Husband snapped a photo but I ran across as fast as I could!

Posed for a photo with my friend as we waited for the next part of the tour

We learned about how the dam was built to withstand earthquakes (as long as the canyon itself isn’t too screwed up from an earthquake!).  This box had a seismographer in it that they used to measure quite frequently to keep an eye on seismic activity.

Down another corridor, we headed to the “stairway to heaven”…

Looking up the stairway…

…and then looking down! An incredibly long stairway for inspections of the dam.

From there, we headed up the original entrance to the tours and found ourselves in a beautiful entranceway with architecture we compared to the Empire State building.  So beautiful!

That was the end of the tour, and although it wasn’t too many additional sites compared to the Power Plant Tour, we LOVED it! It was more than worth the additional cost.  We learned so much, loved the opportunity to be in such special areas of the dam, and our tour guide was wonderful.  We HIGHLY recommend this tour for anyone heading to the dam for the first time.

After the tour, the Husband grabbed some more great pictures from the free viewing areas along the sidewalk.

Each end of the dam is in a different state (Nevada and Arizona) and there is a blue clock at each end to tell you the time.  Due to Arizona not following Daylight Savings, we’re currently in two different time zones.

Before we headed out, we spent some time at the Monument of Dedication on the Nevada side.  Here there is a flag pole and two very tall winged creatures called the Winged Figures of the Republic.

We were told that rubbing the feet is good luck

As we headed out, we saw a classic RV trailer.  A perfect end to this classic site!

After the dam, we headed over to Boulder City for some beer and lunch