DAY 4
(Continued from our Las Vegas trip)
We checked out at around 10am, packed and loaded up all our stuff into our huge rented Chevy Trailblazer, and blazed a trail to Hoover Dam.
Boulder City is about 30 miles from Las Vegas. It isn't far, really, but the heat and the vastness of Nevada's landscape makes you think otherwise. Also, many of the roads were under construction at that time, which made our travel to Hoover Dam quite a stressful one.
We parked at the Multi-level parking building (cost: $5.00)which provided an access to the lower level where the tour was conducted. Here's what we saw:
Hoover Dam is supervised directly by the Bureau of Reclamation. Papa and Mama paid $10 each to join the Hoover Dam Discovery Tour.
After watching a film called "How the West Was Won" (just basically what the Bureau of Reclamation has done to shape the rivers, deserts, and mountains to make the most out of America's God-given resources), we rode an elevator going down to the Power Plant Generators that lasted for exactly one minute. Afterwards, we walked along this tunnel drilled through the solid rock mountain. Very very fascinating!
Here's what greeted us down below.
The generators are right below us.
You are seeing the 650-foot long Nevada wing of the power plant and its eight huge generators. Wow!
Afterwards, we went up to the deck to see:
This!
And this!
And, also to take some pictures like:
This!
And this!
And a close-up of me saying bye bye to this awesome but literally really really really hot place!
Before finally leaving, we took a photo of this inscription dedicated to the countless workers who sacrificed their lives to finish this man-made wonder.
By 3:00, we wrapped up our sightseeing because we had to get to the airport for for 6:00pm flight back home.
Welcome to HPK Nevada, hehe. An almost perfect welcome back for us!
If we had more time, Papa would have wanted to drive to Downtown Las Vegas just to see what it looked like. Unfortunately, traffic was soooo heavy that we decided to just go to the rental car center to return our car and just hang-out at the airport. Besides, did I forget to mention that there were slot machines inside the airport? Yes, there were indeed slot machines in the airport! Only in Las Vegas, haha!
Me at the airport. So glad to be flying home already!
Finally, we boarded our flight back to Louisville. Just as we thought it was going to be a relaxed ride all the way home, again, the FA asked over the PA system if there was a doctor on board. Yes, another emergency! What were the odds of that happening to us on both our plane rides home??? Only in Las Vegas, haha!