Hoover Dam

We made it to Lake Mead, in pitch black darkness, high winds, and a temperature that wouldn't even let me get out of the car. Pitching camp was the last thing anyone of us would do so we continued on around the lake until we hit Hacienda Casino and a Valentine's Day special of a twenty nine dollar room. Oh yeah. The hotel casino was just outside the Hoover Dam, so even included a dam movie. Did you know the dam was originally the Boulder Dam? If not...you do now. We had fun checking out the casino, getting popcorn in the upstairs movie theatre, riding the elevator, and winning a couple bucks on slots. Literally a couple of bucks, just two and I only spun once. Figured I'd cash out while I was ahead. Such the gambler, I am.

We went to the dam the next morning, making this our third, fourth or fifth time to cross the dam, but our first to actually go out of our way to see it, instead of out of necessity. We planned on a dam tour, but that was a dam lot of money that I didn't feel was dam worthy. Joey dropped the kids and I off in Arizona and we made our way to Nevada where he picked us back up.

The water level has been low for as long as I can remember, but it's extremely low at this point.

The kids were cooperative with having their pictures taken, the wind was not.

My favorite sight has to be these dam steel supports. I forget about them every time, and every time I see them I think they're about to fall over. They're just not quite right, kinda like me.

I was excited to see a new road being built.

It's being built way above the dam and the river, and will really clear up a lot of congestion on the dam. I'm just glad Joey's not one of the ones doing the building! But at least they actually use harnesses and tie off now.