Hoover Dam

A post by Phil:

Since moving to the US I have had to adapt to certain things. Things like driving on the opposite side of the road, not using the metric system, factoring consumer tax into purchases at the register, eating fruit and custard with my dinner etc. You know, all those everyday things which serve to remind you you're in another part of the world in just case you start to feel a little too at home. Whilst I haven't struggled too much with any of these adjustments, there has been one lingering change I just haven't been able to adapt to:

Language. 

I don't mean accents and vocabulary, I mean language. As in bad language. You see, back home Phil is a conservative kinda guy. A 'haven't sworn in my life' conservative kinda guy. Australian Phil grew up in a home where fart and crap were swear words. I once had my mouth washed out with a bar of soap for saying shut up to my brother. True story. But apparently here in the US I'm a potty mouth (see I told you I'm doing ok with the american lingo). Here in the land of the brave and free, everyday Australian words like [this is the part where some Americans should cover their eyes] damn and hell are swear words. And try as I might to leave those words at the border and adopt substitutions like dang and heck, sometimes they just slip out. It's not that I mean to swear. I'm sure I've apologised to my BYU students enough times for the class to realise I don't mean to offend them. It's just that when you grow up hearing these words over the pulpit at church, its hard to accept that these everyday words are now swear words. So every once in a while when I'm around other Australians it's nice to be able to relax a little and not worry that I'll innocently offend my American friends.

That said, it should come as no surprise that I felt great delight that in our recent trip to Vegas with the Peruccas we visited Hoover Dam. Yup, excited as I was to see this engineering feat, a part of me was just excited that for a little while... I could say Dam in the US guilt free. Did I make the most of this opportunity? 

You bet I did. 

The day we went to Hoover Dam was Chantel's 14th birthday. As far as I know it was her first dam birthday party. I think she had the best dam birthday yet. We drove past the dam lake, parked in the dam parking lot and walked across the dam road. We took a ton of dam photos, crossed both sides of the dam border (Arizona and Nevada) and even walked across the big dam bridge. 

It really was spectacular and so it is with great pleasure that I can share with you the 

BEST DAM DAY I'VE EVER HAD! 

Now for some Dam photos. 

Lake Mead, the reservoir upstream of the dam. 

The white markings on the rock shows how much water levels have dropped in recent years.

Downstream view from the Dam:

The bridge in the background is the  Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge completed in 2010. 

Its construction was an engineering marvel.

Two old fogies. The good looking one is Kaylee

Looking downstream of the dam at the Colorado river. 

The Dam is 221m high, so the water level drops dramatically. 

Constructed in the 1930s, over 100 lives were lost in its construction

Pretty cool - one tower sits on the Nevada side with Nevada time, the other Arizona.

The view from the  Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, the Hoover Dam Bypass. 

It sits 840 feet (260m) above the Colorado river.

All kidding aside, it really was pretty spectacular to see this man made marvel sitting amidst a pretty impressive natural landscape. And while I knew that leaving there would mean I'd have to go back to watching my Australian language again, it just gave me one more reason to feel blessed I could live in this beautiful US of A. Bless this dam country!