Friday, February 3, 2012

Dam Impressive!

After seeing the dam from a distance, we went to see the dam close up!
It's pretty amazing that they could build all this in the 1930's.
We took the "Power Plant Tour" that took us several hundred feet underground into the belly of the beast.
These tunnels all have the drill marks still visible- pretty neat!

These are the turbines, run by water that produce electricity. You can see that they a huge, conpared to that semi-sized truck parked by them.
 Workers were doing some maintainance on one of the turbines. Here it is, out of it's casing. Bruce could tell you all about the electrons and such that actually make the electricity. If you really wanted to know.
 In the museum, there were all sorts of little models and dioramas. I've always liked little models and dioramas.
 And just so you know that I paid attention to the tour guide, this display shows the reasons why they build the dam in the first place: Controlling the river from floods downstream, Producing electricity, Supplying water for farming, and Recreation.
 The plaza outside is pretty neat- all Art Deco and inlaid stone. There is a Zodiak and the state seals from the states that benefit from the dam:
 Up next to the dam is where the carp live. These babies must have been almost 3 feet long. My DIL would love to have these monsters suck on her toes!
Just so you know, Utah doesn't get any of it's power from Hoover Dam. All of the power here goes to Southern California, Arizona and Las Vegas. If you're ever in Vegas, you really need to visit Hoover Dam!

2 comments:

  1. Very cool photos...it is really interesting to think about how they did all this back then!

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  2. Been there and took the tour - it is pretty awesome!

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