Hoover Dam

On Tuesday morning we packed up our things at the Boulder City Historic hotel and headed for Hoover Dam. We got there at 8, hoping to beat the crowds and heat. We were right about the first but couldn't escape the second. When we had been at the Grand Canyon the day before, something about the heat had felt quite manageable. The dryness even seemed to have healing properties. Not so at Hoover Dam. Maybe it was the prevalence of concrete over desert sand. Before we even walked over from parking lot 10 to the visitor center we were already too hot to stand out of the shade for more than a moment. Thankfully, the place to wait for tours was below the main level and we could wait in relative shade for the place to open at 9.

There are two dam options. (And yes, people make a lot of "dam" jokes. "Do you want me to take this dam picture or not?" "You guys have any dam questions?" and the like. I suppose it gets old after the first day working there but they did a good job of pretending to still enjoy it.) So one of the dam tour options is to.. well, I don't quite know what all of the options are. I guess they all get to see the generators and the 10 minute film about how terrific the dam is. But we took the fancier tour, the one not recommended for people with claustrophobia. I braved it because I'm not so much claustrophobic as afraid of being closed into a room I can't get out of. That's different than being in a tunnel. We got to go inside the wall of the dam, down an inspection tunnel that could see right out, over to the "Stairway to Heaven" which is a frighteningly tall and tight ladder to be used in the event the elevators don't work and so on. I enjoyed it.

What to make of the Hoover Dam... my first impressions were that if you have to change nature so that you can create a city in the middle of the ridiculously inhospitable desert like Las Vegas and supply its water and power needs, then you maybe should reconsider the project of building the city in the first place. But I also understand that hoover Dam primarily prevents flood waters from destroying much of Southern California, and apparently provides irrigation to farms that supply most lettuce crops in the U.S. Still, I wonder if there isn't a better way for people to decide where and how to leave rather than "harnessing the power of nature" as the dam so proudly says it does.

But the part that I found fascinating about the dam is the history of how the project helped people find work in the midst of the Depression. Even more interesting is that Boulder City was created solely to house the families that build the dam. I'm really affected by a particular photo I saw of a woman and her two children standing, covered in dirt, outside their tent that was one of the first that led to the City's creation. (I can't find that particular photo online, but I did find some others at this link.) Thinking of her bearing that intense heat and discomfort so her husband could work on a dangerous and backbreaking job. This just so they could eat. And now I sit blogging this a 45 minute drive and almost a century's time away while sitting in a James Bond style hotel room within the greatest excesses of money, sex and use of water and electricity, in glorious Las Vegas.

What a horrifyingly strange world this is.

I can't change any of this. So I'm going to go take a shower and get ready to go swimming with the cousins and grandparents now.

P.S. At least there is this... I'm so disturbed by the men who hand out little cards of naked women that are available for rent. For the next one that approaches me, I  have written a card to hand him in return...