I have a plan.  I’ve spent a few days in the Mojave and Colorado Deserts, and now I want to see Death Valley, the lowest, hottest, and driest place in North America.  But I won’t go directly there, I’ll travel like a smart desert wanderer, via the oases of Hoover Dam and Las Vegas, Nevada.

The road from the Mojave to Hoover Dam is wide and easy, and one of the most boring routes I’ve ever driven.  Yawn.  Maybe it was me… maybe I was tired… maybe… No, it was just a boring road.  One of the highlights, though, was seeing another green energy farm in the middle of the California desert.  This is what I saw from the highway.

That big reflecting tower was obviously a solar collector of some type, so I looked it up on Google maps, and sure enough, I was driving by the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Facility.  According to Wikipedia:  “It deploys 173,500 heliostats, each with two mirrors, focusing solar energy on boilers located on three centralized solar power towers. Unit 1 of the project was connected to the grid in September 2013 in an initial sync testing. The facility formally opened on February 13, 2014, and it is currently the world’s largest solar thermal power station…. with a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW). ”  On further reading, however, it seems that the facility isn’t meeting the expected and contracted output levels, so some changes may be required.  It makes interesting reading, and even if it’s not working fully as expected, what a remarkable endeavour!!

On Google maps it looks like this:

A closer look at the southernmost tower:

But speaking of power and human endeavours… onward to Hoover Dam!  I expected some stringent security to even get near the dam, and was a bit surprised that all it involved was a quick hello to a guard and I got waved through.  I guess I don’t look particularly dangerous or fit any known profile, but I didn’t see anyone getting more than a cursory glance, and plenty of people had accents there.  Anyway, after nearly rear-ending a Lamborghini that stopped suddenly in front of me, I found myself driving over the top of the dam almost before I realized that I was there.

Ignoring the paid parking garages, I did what most people were doing and got free parking on the other side, and walked back down to look at the dam more closely.

To get there I had to walk across this spillway, and look at the size of it!  Those little dots you see on the other side are people!

And then there it was.  I was on Hoover Dam.  Dam.  It was cool, it was big.  Once again, the little dots on top are people, for scale.

The Route 93 bridge crosses the Black Canyon over the Colorado River just downstream of the dam, and I now wish that I had taken the opportunity to walk across it and get a different perspective, but I admit that I just didn’t realize that was an option when I was there.  If anyone visits, it would be worth doing I think.

Here it is from another perspective, still looking pretty large.  It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression, with the intention of controlling floods, providing irrigation, and producing hydroelectric power.  The dam forms Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US by volume.  The prolonged drought in the Southwest is effecting the efficiency of the dam, however, and according to Wikipedia: “The amount of electricity generated by Hoover Dam has been decreasing along with the falling water level in Lake Mead due to the prolonged drought in the 2010s and high demand for the Colorado River’s water. Lake Mead fell to a new record low elevation of 1,071.61 feet (326.63 m) on July 1, 2016 before beginning to rebound slowly. Under its original design, the dam will no longer be able to generate power once the water level falls below 1,050 feet (320 m), which could occur as early as 2017. To lower the minimum power pool elevation from 1,050 to 950 feet (320 to 290 m), five wide-head turbines, designed to work efficiently with less flow, are being installed and will be fully online by 2017.”

As a feat of engineering, it’s quite beautiful, however, and the period it was built in is reflected in its many art deco features.

One hundred people were killed in the construction of the dam, and they’re remembered on this art deco plaque.

The intake towers are also deco in design, as are these towers on top of the arch.  At first I wondered why there seemed to be so many men hanging out by the beautiful brass doors of this one…

Until I saw the sign on the tower…

Then it made sense!  Well… since I’m here… 😉

I nearly backed up into, or over, a McLaren as I left my parking spot, and I have a new theory that back up cameras on trucks are not for kids, but for McLarens.  So I took my low-visibility FJ and got out of there before I could no longer afford insurance, and headed for Las Vegas.  I’ve trashed it for long enough for being artificial… so let’s see if I was right!