Driving back to Las Vegas from the Grand Canyon, we drove over the bypass highway in view of Hoover Dam at dusk.  It is pretty at night, isn’t it?

Many years ago, I had been at a conference in Los Angeles and met my girlfriends in Vegas for a few days before flying home.  Back then you could wander the whole dam, which we did on a side trip.  The old road you used to be able to drive over the crest of the dam is only used by dam visitors after 9/11 security restrictions and increased traffic in the area.

Even last week as we were traveling through the area, there was a news story of a man in a “homemade armored truck” with a rifle that shut down one of the access roads for several hours!  https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/man-holed-up-in-armored-truck-on-hoover-dam-bypass-bridge-arrested/amp/

Formerly known as Boulder Dam, the structure is pretty imposing up close and Lake Mead, created by the backed up Colorado River, is gorgeous.  But you can see by the light sides along the lake how far down the water level is.  It’s only 40 percent filled because of drought and water usage.

There are still tours you can take of the dam, which is owned by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, and sits on the Nevada-Arizona border.  When you consider this massive structure was built during the Depression and created thousands of jobs for otherwise unemployed people, it was a pretty amazing undertaking to provide flood control, hydroelectric power and water to Southern California, Arizona and Nevada.