During our stay in Las Vegas we decided to do the tourist thing again and visit the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead on the Colorado River. Hoover Dam is about 30 minutes east of Las Vegas as is Boulder City. Boulder City grew because it was the area that all of the workers who built the dam lived in during the time of construction.
We took a tour of the hydroelectric power plant at the dam. This brought Tom back to his power-planting days in the not (at all) distant memory. The plant is a heck of a lot quieter than the oil fired turbine plant that he was in.
We were able to walk across the dam and back from the Nevada side to the Arizona side. To see the dam up close and personal was a truly awsome sight and made you think of the major undertaking that the men of our country performed. It is an absolutely amazing feat of engineering.
The waters of Lake Mead flow into the intake towers and then cascade down to the water turbines of the power plant which turn the generators and then exit to the other side of the dam to the Colorado River. There are two banks of hydroelectric generators, one bank per side of the river. 
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