Las Vegas, The Beatles, and Hoover Dam

The last officially planned stop on our USRT 2011 was Las Vegas! And although I've heard it said, "what happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas," I have to confess my main reason for going to Sin City was LOVE!   (Be sure to watch the trailer once you go to the link.)

The Beatles Love show was more fantastic than we had imagined! The staging, the costumes, and of course the music were wonderful! I cannot say enough about it. If you haven't seen it, you should, and if you already have, you know what I'm talking about. First-class entertainment!

Until last month, the closest I have gotten to Vegas in the last 38 years was a short stopover at the airport. Boy, has it ever changed! 

The strip is an amazing display of flashing neon and very interesting people watching.

The Bellagio's beautiful fountain show, every half hour (?), is awesome!

At first, we were a little overwhelmed, after all, we had just come from the peace and serenity of the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Park. Though once we got our bearings, we thoroughly enjoyed the chaos, and we want to go back, maybe see Love again, and explore the area with a little more time.

On our one full day in Vegas, we drove out to see the Hoover Dam, which we had heard was really worth seeing, and we have to agree. What an amazing feat of ingenuity! 

3.25 million cubic yards of concrete were poured to form the dam itself, and another 1.1 million cubic yards were used to construct the power plant -- enough concrete to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York! The dam is 45 feet thick at the top of the wedge and 660 feet thick at the bottom. It was built during the Great Depression, employed thousands of otherwise unemployed workers, and was completed two years ahead of schedule!

Although the dam's main purpose was to control the dangerous waters of the Colorado River, which caused death and destruction in its path when it flooded, harnessing the river's power to produce electricity is how the government has paid for the dam and its maintenance. It is the largest hydro-electric power plant in the world, and because of it, Hoover Dam has not cost the American taxpayers one penny! (Seems we could use some infrastructure projects like that now!)

Inside the power plant at Hoover Dam.

The face of Hoover Dam.

From the top of the dam, looking down at the power plant, and over to the new bypass bridge that takes through traffic, that used to go over the dam itself, over the Colorado River and the Arizona/Nevada border.

One of the power plant intake towers in Lake Mead.

The  Hoover Dam Bypass, also known as the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge.

View of Hoover Dam and power plant from the bypass bridge.