We were at the beginning of a summer camping trip to visit the Grand Canyon. Our son Derek, age 9, was excited. We had flown to Las Vegas, rented a car, and were preparing to leave our overnight hotel room to drive to Grand Canyon National Park.
I informed him that we would first be visiting the Hoover Dam, the famous structure that generates electrical power and created Lake Mead. This was distressing news to Derek. He was eager to get to the Grand Canyon and didn’t want to be delayed by some side trip his dad had dreamed up. He’d waited long enough. He objected, he complained, he sulked, he argued, he refused to cooperate. When we told him that he needed to get his stuff together, he cursed, using the strongest language he knew at the time: “ I DON’T WANTTO GO TO THE SUCKY HOOVER DAM!”
Of course, one can’t get to the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas, without going over the dam, so after finally checking out of the hotel, and a short drive later, we were on the winding mountain road approaching it. By the time we stopped at the huge concrete wall spanning the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, Derek had evidently changed his mind.
We joined a tour group that took us down an elevator from one of the road-level art-deco turrets to a long curving hallway where we learned about the dam’s structure and history. Derek was awestruck at being deep inside this immense man-made object. He felt the vibrations from the massive electric generators as we looked from an observation deck. He would have explored further, but the tour ended, and I reminded him we needed to get back on the road to reach the Grand Canyon before nighttime.
I’m not sure if any lessons were learned that day, but it was a day that I can’t think back on without smiling.
I was thrilled to see jit at about his age… I remember those massive turbines better than the Grand Canyon!
Hoover Dam, built as a WPA project in the early 1930s, is an impressive structure, supplying water to LA and renewable hydropower to the region. It took only 3 years to complete. In hindsight, maybe we shouldn’t have built it, because the water allowed Los Angeles to become a mega-city in the desert and the environmental impacts that it creates, but it is beautiful to look at and a monumental accomplishment for the time.