Hoover Dam & Las Vegas

 

Route from Zion Park to Hoover Dam. Distance  194 miles. ( 310 km )

 The  3hour 40 min  hour drive is mostly through barren deserts. But the good road and air conditioning  makes the trip a pleasure.

 Leaving the state of Utah and passing for a short while through Arizona, the winding road goes through   mountain passes on it way to enter Nevada State.  You hardly see anything green on the entire stretch.

 Nevada is more known for its Casinos than any thing else. Las Vegas is the internationally acknowledged capital of gambling business. Any one who comes here will spend at least an evening here. The city is also famous for shopping and dining.  We have planned our itinerary skipping Vegas. The airport is in the city, because the city has grown up to its periphery. Our plane back to New York is  at 10 pm and so after the Hoover Dam trip we'll come back, to return the car hired at Phoenix 4 days ago  and catch the flight home. May be we'll have dinner at a good place in Vegas.

 Mathew is straddling  two states - Arizona & Nevada. 

He collects the State Welcome Signs photos of all the visited US states and as we enter

 Nevada he'll have 32.
The heat of the desert at noon is unbearable to say the least.

 View of Lake Mead of Hoover Dam as we arrive from Henderson city after a late lunch.

 Before a new Bye pass was built on account of security concerns, US Route 89, crossed Colorado river  over the Hoover Dam. Point B on the map is the dam. The new bye pass is shown  in yellow.

  A huge bridge was built to bye pass the dam. From the side walk of this bridge you get a good perpective of the dam.

 

 Photo from the bridge. The resorvoir, dam and the power generators. Old road is on the left.
 Hoover Dam on the Colorado River is shared between Arizona and Nevada. It is  some 30 miles from Las Vegas. Constructed in the 1930s, it was intended to prevent flooding,  to provide irrigation in the desert  and hydroelectric power to  states like California and Arizona. 726 feet high and 1,244 feet long, Hoover Dam is one of the largest man-made structures in the world  and one of the world's largest producers of hydroelectric power.

 

Photo from the bridge.

Shade of the new bye pass bridge falls on a  section of the old road.  

The Federal Highway Administration, with the Arizona and the Nevada Department of Transportation , officially opened the new segment of US 93, known as the Hoover Dam Bypass, 

there by ending traffic over the dam. 

Vehicles began to run on, October 19, 2010. 

 The view from the other side-  across the dam straddles the new bridge 900 feet above Colorado river.

 Reservoir.

  The building of the dam created Lake Mead, which extends for 550 miles of shoreline and 247sq. miles of area,  one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. It has several recreational facilities. In providing recreational facilities Americans are second to none.

 Power generation water intake towers. Huge generators that could produce up to 3 million horsepower and provide electricity for three states.

Tribute to the workers who created the dam.

              Lake Mead look out point

End of our tour.  Back at Las Vegas the gamblers city. We planned to skip the city to give as much time as possible for nature tour. Just  have a couple of hours to reach the airport.

The  distinctive gold windows of these hotels get their colour from actual gold dust used in the tinting ... 

Opulence of this city has to be experienced, not described.