After breakfast we get packed up and ready in our Chevy Tahoe SUV and head off North West to the City Of Lights - Las Vegas Nevada.
This is quite a long drive which cuts diagonally across the state of Arizona and into Nevada.
Along the way we climb over a mountain range which has the biggest number of Joshua Trees I have ever seen.
The Joshua Tree is actually called Yucca Brevifiolia and was given its name by a group of Mormons crossing the Mohave Desert in the mid 1800's. Apparently it reminded them of a story from the bible where Biblical character Joshua raises his hands in the air in prayer.
The tree can survive the extreme conditions of the desert and can live hundreds of years - and apparently some have been known to live over 1,000 years.
However they grow in very few places - always deserts and almost exclusively in California, Arizona and New Mexico.
They make an unusual sight when seen en-masse on the side of the mountains.
Fiona is less interested in Joshua Trees and more interested in watching movies on her new iPad whilst Kay takes the chance for 40 winks....
Again the road that we are on between Phoenix and Las Vegas cuts through the Mohave Desert and the scenery is constantly changing.
As you can see from the picture below - the roads can be straight for dozens of miles across the desert without a bend or twist.
The car in front looks like he is about to disappear off the edge of the cliff into the canyon below.....
This is us approaching the Hoover Dam and all the landscape you can see in the distance was carved out over millions of years by the Colorado River.
We are approaching what is technically the narrow end of the Grand Canyon.
This is the new bridge that will be operational later in 2010 and will take all the Las Vegas traffic off the Hoover Dam and therefore avoid the bottleneck but more importantly for the US - severely reduce the chance of a terrorist attack on the dam which would be catastrophic for the states of California and Nevada.
Put simply - no Hoover Dam - no City Of Lights.
The plan is to close the dam to all traffic and access for tourists will be strictly managed.
The Hoover Dam was built during The Great Depression and took 5 years to build between 1931 and 1936 and employed thousands of men in its construction.
Considering that the heat in summer in and around the canyon where the dam is situated averages over 100°F and regularly tops 115°F - it is a wonder that the dam was actually completed 2 years ahead of schedule. The conditions must have been awful.
The nearby town of Boulder City was established out of the shanty town of houses that were hastily constructed for the men and their families who built the dam.
The dam was in fact originally called The Boulder Dam.
The canyon acts like a wind tunnel and although it is a warm desert breeze - it must have been intolerable to work in during the pre-air conditioned days.
Here is a short video of the Hoover Dam
1 comment:
The Hoover Dam is ENORMOUS!
Post a Comment