While Kenny Is With Me (or works): Hoover Dam on the Way to Flagstaff, AZ

9.30.2023

Flagstaff KOA

Mileage: 4671

Leaving Vegas

Our week in Vegas has come to a close. We enjoyed meeting friends, getting hair cuts, having the truck serviced, seeing a couple shows, and a bit of a slower pace for a few days.

After a late night seeing Adele we got up early to head to Hoover Dam as we heard tickets go fast. Tours go in groups of 30. After going through an inspection station in which we had to open the back of the truck and someone came onboard the RV we were in. Oversized parking was not close to the entrance so we had quite the hike down the canyon to the actual dam and visitor's center. This, of course, meant we had to walk back up the canyon at the end of the tour.

We arrived at the doors shortly after 8:00 for the 9:00 opening and made the first tour of the day!

Look carefully at this picture, you'll probably need a microscope, but there is a vent that is kind of in line with the pointy rock about 1/4 of the way across the dam. A few pictures down we are standing in the vent.

Rock of the canyon on the Nevada side. Four huge tunnels were dug to divert the river through the rock during construction. This is one of the tunnels.

This is the map of how the river was diverted so the dam could be built. We were in the tunnel that is second from the top.

These are the turbines that generate electricity. When we were there there were only two actually making power of the nine that exist. One was being refurbished.

There are two much smaller generators one in Arizona and this one in Nevada. This generator is used to power the dam itself along with the visitors center.

There are many tunnels that run through the dam for inspection and maintenance.

Here is the picture of us standing in the vent that I mentioned above.

Each crack that appears in the concrete is labeled with the date it is discovered. Many occurred during the early stages of the curing process. It is difficult to read, but this crack was discovered in 1934, the first one noted. A special cooling system had to be developed to hasten the curing of the concrete. The dam still isn't fully cured. It is predicted that it should take about 100 years to fully cure.

This stairway runs from 50 feet above the bottom of the dam all the way to the top. It is 717 steps nearly straight up. We were super glad the elevators were working!!