We could not drive out to the Lake Mead overlook because the road was blocked off because of the government shutdown that was still in progress while we were at Las Vegas.
Hoover Dam was not affected by the shutdown because it financially supports itself, but Lake Mead Recreation Area which is federally managed was closed because of the shutdown.
We first drove down to the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Bridge which was just opened in 2010 because I thought we would be able to see Hoover Dam from there.
However, we could not see anything over the bridge walls because they were too tall. We drove across the bridge and into Arizona and then turned around and came back.
As we drove down to the dam, there was a place to park where we could go walk up to the pedestrian portion of the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Bridge. From there, we had an excellent view of Hoover Dam,
Lake Mead (behind Hoover Dam),
and the Colorado River way, way, way down below.
The bridge was constructed because of traffic problems caused by all the vehicles crossing across Hoover Dam on Hwy 93.
The bridge was named after Mike O'Callaghan, a former Nevada governor, and for Pat Tillman of Arizona, the former NFL player who left the NFL to enlist in the United States Army after 9/11 and was later killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.
As we drove down to Hoover Dam, we got an even better look at the bridge we drove across earlier. The bridge is almost as much of an engineering marvel as the dam.
As we approached the dam, we noticed the big electrical towers leaning in over the Colorado River side of the dam.
We drove across the dam to the Arizona side where the parking was free!
As we walked down to the dam, we could see the big intake towers on the lake side of the dam.
According to Wikipedia, Lake Mead is the largest reservoir by volume in the US. However, Lake Mead appears to be much lower than usual from the water line marks of the white rocks.
We walked by a huge overflow and bypass where the water could be redirected around the dam if the lake got too high. According to the parking lot attendant, this overflow has not been used since the 1980's because they don't get as much rain and snow in the mountains now.
It's hard to tell from these pictures but that bypass hole is HUGE!!
We walked across the dam where we could see the clear green Lake Mead below.
From the top of the dam, we had some even better views of the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Bridge.
And of course, we were able to get some really good views of Hoover Dam itself.
Besides Hoover Dam being an engineering marvel also, it is amazing to think it was constructed in less than 5 years during the Great Depression.
A statute honoring one of the many high scalers who worked on the dam is located outside the Hoover Dam Visitor Center.
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