Vegas Review - Day 3

\

Well today was the big day that I was going to get to go to Hoover Dam. Since I'm a student in the Electric Utility Technician/Clean Energy Program, I am very interested in Electric Technology, especially renewable energy. Since I have toured other smaller dams, this would be something that I would understand how it worked and I could really appreciate the magnitude of the size of this dam and the power it could produce. I was very excited. We planned to leave about 2 pm and get an early start so we could get a tour in before it closed. Mr. A. showed up and we had a quick happy hour before we headed out on our road trip. It was a beautiful warm day out. We started seeing the mountains better. It was really great to be back in the Sierras, even though I had only been in the northern part before. Seeing Lake Meade/Colorado River was really cool and very beautiful. Hard to believe Lake is all man made for that dam. Anyways, as we get closer I start seeing all the electric towers they had to build in the craziest of places. Must have been hard to get some of them put up! We finally get to the dam and I'm in awe again. Wow, the man hours it had to take to build this! We got in and sat through a short video before we headed out for the tour. Had some funny and informative tour guides and very interesting to learn that this dam is still curing after all these years. They built in coolant pipes into it to help speed the drying process. This was a huge highlight of the trip and it was fun to go back to school and show the other students and instructor the pics. They are also building another bridge for cars to go across in the future so that no one can drive across the actual dam. Which makes sense with all the terrorist threats, etc. It will be a long process though, as they have already had one crane fall in this process. I even stepped foot into Arizona! I can check another state off my list of states visited! There was a statue that was built to honor those that died during the building of this dam and if you rubbed it, it was supposed to give you good luck. So of course we did! We were going gambling/roulette next! Can't take any chances! We stopped for dinner at a mexican joint that had really good food. I failed to mention in the day before that we went to an italian restaurant that was the bomb! Great food, i have to get the name of it again to go back there someday! We stopped in Henderson at the Klondyke casino. This was a joint where the locals liked to play. They had $.50 minimum roulette tables and as Mr. A. said...you can gamble for hours on $20. Boy, he was right again! We got a table with some really fun guys and the night was on! I had lots of fun, but I was nervous at first as this was my first attempt at playing a table game ever in a casino. After awhile, I was loving it! Free drinks, having fun with the locals and a chance for me and Mr. A to cut loose for awhile. Good times were had by all. We eventually ended up downtown Vegas to go down to the Freemont Street experience. The light show was way cool and being buzzed and seeing a light show was a great ending to the day. We also went to the Golden Nugget and I got to see the worlds largest gold nugget! Damn I wish that was my find! I even got to see Binions while I was down there, and that was cool to see since I'm a huge fan of the World Series of Poker. Again you could tell there was some poker pros in that place and I was way out of my league to even think about playing there. Maybe someday after years of practice. It was a long day, but a good one. Waiting for Saturday night when Joe and Deb fly into town for their wedding. Could not hardly wait til they got there. I have not seen Joe in a year and a half!