Hoover Dam

We woke up early this morning to try to beat the crowd and the heat to Hoover Dam. We stopped for breakfast at an IHOP along the way. While I was enjoying a nice cup of hot chocolate (while it may be HOT outside...people here love to spend money on air conditioning and Audria and I are freezing every time we're inside a building!)...
Caleb and Mike tried to stack the coffee creamers in the most dangerous way possible.

We drove to the dam with the top down and enjoyed the "cool" of the day. Keep in mind that "cool" here means it's only in the 90's rather than 113 degrees! Since we got to the dam early, we didn't have to deal with the back ups in traffic that is typical with the road that goes over the Hoover Dam.

If you have been to the Hoover Dam before, you know that pictures can't do it justice! It is HUGE! It's impossible to get a picture of the entire thing when you're standing close to the dam.

Caleb, Audria, Staci, & Mike standing on Hoover Dam. Notice the "under construction" bridge in the background? This will be a new highway that will bypass the dam. It should help alleviate some of the traffic backups by diverting thru traffic around the dam leaving the road to the dam open for tourists. It was supposed to be finished in 2008 and they're skeptical that it will even be finished in 2010! Did you know that the Hoover Dam was finished 2 years AHEAD of schedule?!?

After viewing the dam from the outside, we took a tour of the power plant to see the inner workings of the dam. It is amazing how much water rushes thru the generators every second.

As we stepped back outside into the 110 degree heat and saw the line of cars that stretched back up the highway as far as your eyes could see, we were very glad that we made the Hoover Dam our first stop of the day.