The Hoover Dam

We slept in a little bit the next morning which felt good after a long day of driving and site seeing on Route 66. After eating breakfast and packing up camp, our first adventure for the day was checking out the Hoover Dam.

For those of you who need a little refresher, we’ll start with a brief history of the Hoover Dam.  The Hoover Dam is located on the Colorado River and is half in Arizona, half in Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas.  The Colorado River was flooding in certain spots and running dry in others, so the dam was built to help more evenly distribute the rivers flow. The dam was started in 1931 and was completed in 1935. It is 726 feet tall and 1244 feet long.

There is a lot more to do at the Hoover Dam than I thought there would be. When you first get on the road that leads to the dam there are a number of parking areas with scenic views of the River and Lake Mead.

A little further up the road is a parking area to go on the pedestrian bridge that is across from the dam. There are a few sets of stairs up to the bridge, but nothing to terrible. The view from the bridge is really nice but be careful when you step out onto it. It is really windy and I Legit almost got blown right off the thing. It’s neat because half of the bridge is in AZ and half is in NV so the point where they meet is a popular photo op for people. The view of the dam is awesome too.

After this point it gets a little more complicated. You park in a giant parking garage, which is free but is also full most of the time. We drove to the very very very top level of the garage and go tone of the only empty spots there was. Then you enter into the building that has the museum and it is quite an ordeal to get in. It’s like going through airport security. You get a bin to put all your belongings in and you have to walk through a metal detector.

Once you make it through all of that, you can go buy your tickets. There are a few different options for tickets, like guided tours of the power plant and the dam. We decided to do the basic ticket, which includes the museum and the Dam.

The museum is really neat. There are lots of exhibits that explain how the Dam was built and how it works. It took about a half hour to get through all of that. There is an over look at the museum that gives nice views of both the pedestrian bridge and the dam.

After finishing up at the museum we headed out to the see the dam. There are a number of statues and monuments along the way that are neat to stop and look at.

The Hoover Dam is huge. You can understand it until you go see it yourself. Here is the view straight down, but it really doesn’t do the distance justice.

We walked all the way across and all the way back so that we could be in both states. There are towers with clocks that have AZ time and NV time on them, which I thought was pretty cool since they are in different time zones.

There are little alcoves to stop in for photo ops. You can get the bridge or the dam in the background depending which direction you face. The middle of the bridge is also a popular photo op because you can stand in two states at once, which is pretty neat. I cant believe I walked across that thing and didn’t have a panic attack. I hate heights.

The Hoover Dam is definitely worth checking out if you’re in the Vegas area. What’s nice about it is you can spend just a little bit of time there or you can spend a few hours there, depending on how much time and interest you have in it.

Have you ever been? Would you like to check it out sometime?