Monday February 23 2009

Today Debbie fixed us a little breakfast and she drove Bonnie and I out to Hoover Dam. We went over Sunrise Mountain and along the shore of (Lake Mead). It's been years since I've seen all that country. The lake is so low that some small islands that I often swam next to when I was a kid were entirely out of the water and looking like small buttes or mesas. I always wondered how tall they were when they were nearly covered with water, and after all these years now I know.

We stopped at the Lake Mead Visitor Center, and went on up to Boulder City where I used to live with my girls. It has grown some, and the old parts of town seem kind of old and run down. Debbie found the two houses we used to live in. They sure look tiny. We ate lunch at a pizza hut there and then went on down to the dam. One of the main purposes of going was to see the new bridge they are building across Black Canyon just downstream of the dam. The highway into Arizona will go across the bridge. They have begun constructing the arch now. When I was last there they had some of the towers up, but an 80 mph windstorm blew two of them down and set the whole project back several years. It will be quite awesome when it's finished. It costs to get in everywhere any more. So there were entry fees to go into the exhibits. Debbie treated us to that. My National Parks Pass got us into the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Debbie was very patient stopping wherever we wanted along the way and doing whatever we wanted to see. We spent all day going out there and back and arrived home just in time to tidy up and go to dinner with all the family at a Mexican restaurant. There were supposed to be twelve of us, but Justin, Stephanie and Bryan didn't show up. The meal was enjoyable. Got to see great grandson Sammy again. He is such a good baby. He grew a lot since I saw him yesterday. And got cuter too. We just got home and I'm about ready to hit the hay. Tomorrow we're going out to visit Betty at Mesquite and don't know what all else we'll find to do. We're having dinner at Beverly's house tomorrow night. I talked to Joe, and the TV is still giving him problems, but everything else seems o.k.

Here are a couple of links that will get you started if you want to know more about the dam and the bridge. Then it looks like there's PLENTY to look at from there. Look for the link for the bridge history with bunches of photos with captions they have from the beginning of construction though the present.

hoover dam bridge project,
hoover dam bridge collapse