I couldn't be bothered to read all about the dam on Wikipedia, but some of you may find it interesting. What I do find interesting is that the tour guide kept saying this dam is the second largest in the U.S. and the Hoover Dam is only the fourth largest. That is contrary to what Wikipedia says. Hmmmm. But, this tour was also free, which Hoover Dam is not. (you know, I love me some free.)
I wanted to show you this picture because see how the air is not clear, not cloudy or foggy, but not clear either? That is smoke from 17 wildfires in the area. Yikes!
You can read all of the interesting facts on Wikipedia, but I wanted to tell you an amusing story about my frame of mind.
The tour takes an hour, and you walked about 1 1/2 miles, so I had 20 minutes to go back to the car, smoke a cigarette, and put on comfortable shoes. The lady at the desk did not bother to tell me, that the beginning of the tour is 1/2 mile away, and "It takes 15 minutes to get there, so you better hurry." This was after I had smoked, changed shoes, used up 10 minutes. I still had to pee. So, thank you very much, kind lady, for not telling me that when you gave me the ticket! So, I begin this tour already somewhat annoyed. So, I rushed myself 1/2 a mile to the beginning of the tour, just so I can wait in line, meantime, there is a golf cart ferrying people over to the starting line. Hey, kind lady, what about me? Do I look like I need the exercise, or what?
So, I'm waiting in line, and there is the obligatory man, that knows everything, talks too much, and laughs too loud. And, because of 9/11, there are all kinds of security measures. NO PURSES! NO LARGE WALLETS! NO BACKPACKS! You get the idea. So, we have to go through a medal detector, and the security guy running the thing must have thought he had THE MOST important job in the world. It was ridiculous how militaristic he was. (My annoyance is almost visible, at this point.) And loud mouth guy over here is still regaling us with his vast knowledge of the area.
Then, comes the tour guide. He started his speech about California, and how we should "just block out this brown part of the state", while pointing to the LA area. Loud mouth says "ya, the part that is going back to Mexico?" I almost left the tour right then and there. Annoyance had turned to anger. But, I had walked a half mile and gone through General Patton's medal detector, and kind of wanted to see the inner workings of the dam, so I stayed.
And, I'm glad that I did. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and proud of the dam. The loud mouth guy was pretty quiet, and easy to stay away from. So, it ended up being a good experience. Maybe the 1 1/2 mile walk was just what I needed.
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