12th day: Trip to the Hoover dam

On that day we made a rather short trip around Vegas and vistied a State park closeby. It was really hot outside, but we still had fun outside looking at the bizarre rock formations in red rock.

Later on in the afternoon we visited the Hoover dam, an amazing construction, specially at the time it was built.
It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives.

The curving arch of the dam transmits the water's force into the abutments, in this case the rock walls of the canyon. The wedge-shaped dam is 660 ft (200 m) thick at the bottom, narrowing to 45 ft (14 m) at the top, leaving room for a highway connecting Nevada and Arizona.

Some interesting data (wiki):

Dam and spillways
Type of dam	Concrete gravity-arch
Height	726.4 ft (221.4 m)
Length	1,244 ft (379 m)
Crest width	45 ft (14 m)
Base width	660 ft (200 m)
Volume	3,250,000 cu yd (2,480,000 m3)
Crest elevation	1,232 ft (376 m)
Impounds	Colorado River
Type of spillway	2 x controlled drum-gate
Spillway capacity	400,000 cu ft/s (11,000 m3/s)
Reservoir
Creates	Lake Mead
Capacity	28,537,000 acre·ft (35.200 km3)
Active capacity	15,853,000 acre·ft (19.554 km3)
Inactive capacity	10,024,000 acre·ft (12.364 km3)
Catchment area	167,800 sq mi (435,000 km2)
Surface area	247 sq mi (640 km2)[1]
Normal elevation	1,219 ft (372 m)
Max. water depth	590 ft (180 m)
Reservoir length	112 mi (180 km)

More pics
https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/USA2005#