Hoover Dam

Jill's Journal: Surely everyone has seen pictures of Hoover Dam, such as the one above borrowed from a government site. But to truly appreciate it, you have to see it. It is said the marvel that is Hoover Dam is the greatest engineering feat of mankind since the great pyramids of Egypt.

Spanning the border of Nevada and Arizona, it was originally called Boulder Dam. The name was officially changed in 1947 in honor of the 31st president, Herbert Hoover, who was a strong supporter of the project.

Today, in addition to helping meet the water needs of over 20 million people, Hoover Dam generates enough low-cost hydroelectricity to serve 1.3 million people. California is allocated 56% of the power, Nevada 25%, and Arizona 19%.

The water behind the dam is Lake Mead, the largest manmade body of water in the Western Hemisphere. It has an astounding 550 miles of shoreline with a surface area of 156,800 acres. I snapped this picture from the Arizona side.

Here’s a closer picture of one of the four intake towers from the Nevada side.

This is one of those same massive intake tunnels from 574 feet below the surface. Standing in the room/platform above it, one can feel the floor vibrating from the millions upon millions of gallons of rushing water below.

The girls learned a little about the path the water takes from our guide, Fred.

And then it was into the power plant itself. There are two, one on the Nevada side and one on the Arizona side.

Here’s the power plants from above. They’re the “arms” that stick out below the dam. A tour inside the dam itself can be taken, but two of our three kids were too young for the safety cut-off.

Without a fancy camera lens, this was the best I could do from our vantage points of the dam. It’s such a massive structure; indeed, the road between Nevada and Arizona goes right over it…or used to until it was diverted to a bridge spanning the canyon after 9/11. I remember being able to stop on the side of the road and peek over the dam. Now one can still drive over the dam but must pass through a security checkpoint first.

Some fun statistics: Hoover Dam is 726 feet high, 1,244 feet long, 45 feet thick at the top, 660 feet thick at the bottom, and contains 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete. In fact, there’s so much concrete in Hoover Dam that it should take 125 years to cool such a project as concrete gives off heat as it cures. To get around this challenge, designers built the structure in five foot tall blocks and built an innovative refrigeration plant right into the dam.

Construction began in 1931. Hoover Dam was finished and dedicated in 1935, with the power plants finished the following year. Around 16,000 people worked on the project with 96 people dying on site. The crew worked 24 hours a day, 363 days a year. Amazingly, they finished the dam under budget and more than two years ahead of schedule. I can’t imagine that happening in this day and age!

After passing through the power plants, the Colorado River continues on its merry way.

Last Stop in California

Jill's Journal: We’ve been in California a really long time. With the exception of three months in Oregon and five or six weeks in Nevada, we’ve been in “Cali” since arriving on the West Coast almost 19 months ago. We feel like we’ve covered this great, varied, and gargantuan state pretty well – from north to south, from east to west, from ocean to deserts to mountains – and although you can never see absolutely everything, we’ve had a pretty fulfilling (and wonderful) time here.

We have one final order of business before exiting the Golden State and that, of course, is spending time with my parents near Tehachapi. Life is never dull with three little girls around, as my Dad could attest when he found his cowboy boots (above) gaily decorated with bows. Rumor is the girls may have had some help from a visiting Aunt Kristi. Now Grandpa sure adores his granddaughters, but no word yet on whether he’s willing to actually wear his boots in such a fancy state.

Two-Year Roadiversary!

Jill's Journal: Today marks our two-year roadiversary. Two years. On the road. We wouldn’t have traded it for anything. What an experience. We’re a normal family; we have some magical days and some not-so-magical days, but it seems the magical ones when traveling heavily outweigh the not-so-magical ones. If we'd thought before that there is no education quite like the one someone gets from traveling, now we’re convinced beyond belief. The things our girls have learned from seeing it with their own eyes trumps anything they could learn from textbooks. And even at our ripe old ages, Rob and I have also been enriched far beyond what we could have imagined two years ago.

Two years. It feels like we’re only just getting started. We have so much more to see and do. Traveling is addicting. The more one travels, the more one wants to travel. I recently made a list of the things I’d like to accomplish in life, what some call a bucket list, and I’ll be darned if the majority of them aren’t travel-related in some way, shape, or form.

Two years. Our first year and our second year were so very different. In our early months of that first year, we were hell-bent on packing as much into each and every day as we possibly could. We were convinced we had to see everything, absolutely everything, and cover as much ground as possible. This second year, we’ve slowed down and savored things more. Plus, we’ve had the added bonus of being around family this second year, giving our girls the gift of knowing both sides of our extended family better. We’ve savored that too as we know it won’t be much longer we’ll be in this neck of the woods. We’ve enjoyed these special people while we can because we won’t always have that luxury.

Two years. We’ve only covered three states this year, but they were big ones. In another month or six weeks, we’ll finally be “finished” with California, Oregon, and Nevada. If we’d known a year ago that we’d be “pausing” soon due to our New Jersey plans on the horizon, we would have rushed to cover more ground instead of getting to know these states so well. My first thought with New Jersey looming was, “Crap; why’d we spend so much time in California?” But, in hindsight, I’m glad we didn’t know and didn’t rush. These three states are huge with so much to offer. All are unique and varied and wonderful and we have explored them so thoroughly. How many people get to know not only their own state so well but multiple states that well? We are truly blessed.

Two years. Yes, we’ll be taking somewhat of a hiatus from full-time travel soon while we enjoy all the East Coast has to offer from our new base of New Jersey, but we don’t intend to stop traveling. Stop? Are you kidding? It’ll be a little different, sure, but we won’t be stopping. We have so much more to see! Two years. We’re just getting started!