Roadtrip Summer 2012 - Hoover Dam

I suddenly realised that although any of you following my twitter, instagram or absobloominglutely will have seen the odd, on-the-go photo from our summer vacation roadtrip a couple of weeks ago, I haven't posted anything on here yet. (Look at that, another contender for world's longest sentence).

So here's the first installment. I thought I'd break them up a bit, because I've been looking through Goth Child's photos....she's taken hundreds as per usual ;)

In our attempt to gradually visit each one of the 50 states, we did Nevada and California this time.

(This brings me up to 13 states and Goth Child & Melchett to 6 states. Don't ask about Mr D. We don't count his score anymore because he 'cheats' by being sent all around the country (and world) with his work. At the last time we bothered to count up his score he was way over half way).

Here's our visit to the glorious Art Deco-rific Hoover Dam (and the very recent addition, Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, opened in 2010, which you could possibly mistake as more impressive, until you remember that it was built with technology and tools from this century, compared to the Dam was built in the early 1930's by these fearless guys). 

It was just topping the 100F this day. Luckily we've been here nearly 3 years now so we could deal with that, goodness knows how quickly we'd have melted if this had been in our first summer in the USA.

Pretty spectacular. I suspect Mr D and I appreciated it a bit more than the kids because we know a bit more about it's history, what a monumental and far-sighted endevour it was by the creators and politicians of the time (would it actually get voted through these days? I'm not convinced); how it changed the lives of so many in the West; how it helps allow us live in Phoenix (along with the dam probably dearer to out hearts, the Glen Canyon (Day of the Moon) dam) and how many lives were lost building it. The bravery of those men descending down the sides of this canyon on ropes....I don't have the words....

This is the pic down the curve of the actual dam that still makes me the most dizzy looking at it:

Wow. 

And then any of you who know our family will know what anoraks we are about engineering and architecture and how stuff works, so here's all 4 of us inside the Dam Power Plant (haha, sorry we were big kids all day using the word 'dam' in front everything we could - dam restrooms, dam cafe, dam parking lot). It's us basically saying 'wow' a lot, and Goth Child (in hat) top left, taking pictures of everything that moved and that didn't:

And here are some of the beautiful art deco monuments to the men who commissioned, built and were lost during the building of the Dam and power plant.