Hoover Dam
From Phoenix, we flew to Las Vegas. We had pre-booked a tour of the Hoover Dam to take upon our arrival, but caught our first glimpse of it during the flight. The arrow in the photo taken from the plane points to the intake towers, which are shown in a close-up view in the next photo. Pictures cannot convey the sheer immensity of the construction.
The face is so large that the wide-angle lens wasn't sufficient enough to photograph its entirety. Notice the intake towers behind the roadway (next to the 'tiny' RV!).
Our tour guide, Jerry, of Pink Jeep Tours - Las Vegas, was extremely knowledgable about not only the Hoover Dam, but almost anything you could want to know about Las Vegas and Nevada including geography, industry, etc. He made the tour so much less like a classroom field trip and more like an interactive exploration. We really had a good time.
After taking in the outer expanse, the tour continued inside of the Nevada-side power plant. The pictures depict the views from inside and outside the dam and the Arizona-side power plant. To help you understand the scale of the huge generators, the arrow is pointing to a man walking along the generator room floor. It is truly awe-inspiring when you realize this was built in the 1930's, without the aid of computers and modern technology, and continues to be an engineering model for dams today.
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Las Vegas strip
The following day, we strolled the Las Vegas strip. From New York, New York, to the Venetian, and back. What a hike! It was beautiful weather and we thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine. We've visited Vegas before, but explored the Venetian again. The shops are arranged within the hotel to imitate strolling through the Grand Canal and St. Mark's Square, complete with gondolas. It truly is a sensory wonder as the ceiling is painted to resemble sky and is lit to mimic day and night. You feel as though you've been transported to Italy.
We also caught the fountain show at the Bellagio. The 'fountains' are made up of water cannons choreographed to shoot along with various songs. The show we caught was designed for the song, 'One, Singular Sensation', from the musical Chorus Line and was stunning in its artisty. Not to mention while shooting water in the air hundreds of feet!
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The Orleans
We stayed at the Orleans, off the strip, while we were in Vegas. Our last night there, we decided to do our part to support Las Vegas' economy and gamble a bit. Roulette wasn't kind to us, so we went to play our buddy Ted's Keno numbers. Ted maintains they've been hit three times, so we figured we'd give 'em a shot. As we were walking away from submitting Ted's card, we decided to add one of our own. Fifteen minutes later, our numbers came up! Thankfully, we were on a plane the next morning for home and didn't have a chance to give it all back. Though it was fun 'spending' it in lots of different ways on the trip home!
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