2 Dam Miles in 2 Hours

Completed in 1964, Glen Canyon Dam bridge is 1,560 ft (475.5 m) long and 700 feet (213 m) above the Colorado River. It is the 4th highest bridge in the U.S. Michael and I had the privilege of taking the impressive view back in November of 2002.

For years I'd heard about the infamous Hoover Dam. The Discovery channel has produced and aired plenty of documentary on the impressive feet of the project. For the time in which the dam was constructed, it most definitely is impressive.

December 27, 2009 [with my mother's influence] I talked my brother-in-law into taking a quick day trip to see the Hoover Dam and maybe Vegas since it's not that much further. He was reluctantly agreeable considering how he'd spent [more than] half the previous night dealing with 2 ralphing children [due to some nasty stomach bug] and his own johnny happy backside for the same reasons. All that to equal essentially no sleep. His psyche was in a rush to get back home before anymore of his kids got sick. I toyed with the logic difference of being sick on the way home or on the way to Hoover dam. Two different roads with most likely the same toilet hugging event[s] every couple miles. I pathetically argued that at least in the direction of Vegas, he'd get to see Hoover Dam....and Vegas.

It was a late morning start beginning with a quick stop at the radio station to get the necessary plastic access to money needed for the venture. There Austin released his last ralphing contribution onto the parking lot. That was followed by another trip to John for Jacob at Walmart. Unsurprisingly it contributed to his discouragement against a day trip. But we plunged on. No further stop was needed until we reached Seligman. Functioning bodies were appearing to slow down comfortably.

It has been since 2002 that I'd driven by Kingman so it wasn't all that familiar. In Alaska some towns serve as "junctions". Hence the names like Hanes Junction, Delta Junction....etc. Apparently, Kingman serves as Arizona's "junction" to US 68/93 that leads to the infamous Hoover Dam and Vegas. The road and ride was pleasantly smooth at a satisfying speed limit of 65 mph. I always drive up a couple notches so 70 mph was my admitted speed. Until we came to an abrupt shift down and traffic came to a halt. Never having ridden that strip I could only assume a slight traffic mishap ahead. But the curving road through the red/dark brown rocks gave little view to the curiously anxious eyes. The snailing speed was bearable until I realized the sun was starting to go down. Or so it appeared...but it was only 3 in the afternoon. Time was tickin' and so was my tolerance for the vehicular crawl. We started to verbally share our wonder of whether or not we'd get to see the dam in daylight.

Alas, there was the first pull off point at the first dam sign. There it was, down below, the hailed dam of all American dams. Size-mickly unimpressive compared to Glen Dam, Hoover lays only 1,244 ft. long . Impressive is the traffic that snails by at 5 mph down the winding road through the belly of the dam site. By the time we drove to the otherside the sun was down and the hoppedy tourists were still prouncing about in foreign excitement over the structure. So, this is what I had driven three hours for....a snailing 2 hour drive through a small tourist trapping dam.

On to Vegas! I wasn't about to go through all this time consuming trouble without checking out the Vegas Blvd in all it's glamourized sin city beauty.