LAS VEGAS and HOOVER DAM

Las Vegas,  what can I say, it is called sin city for a reason, and all the reasons are on full view.
Our reason to go to Vegas was to see the Cirque du Soliel at the Bellagio.   The   Bellagio is a incredible building with acres of casino floor space plus numerous shops and restaurants as well as two full size theaters that we guess would sit around 5000 people per show.  The front lobby is as long as a football field.
  The show "O"  was fabulous, with performance  in air, on the floor and in the water.  We highly recommend it to everyone. 

The flower garden in the top picture is in the conservatory by the main entrance and the picture above is  liquid chocolate circulating around the room. The temperature here was 107 at 4pm and was 99F when we got out of the show at midnight.   On the coast it is the wind that blows consistently every day and here it is the heat, a cold day in January it might get down to 60F   We are told that it gets to 140*F in August.  We got out of Vegas as soon as we could towards Hoover Dam.

 Hoover Dam a true engineering marvel.   It is 726 feet high and 1244 feet across,  660 feet wide at the base and 45 feet at the top.  It is build in an arch design and the top can move 1 1/2 inches to contain the weight of the water when it is full.    The dam contains 17 generating units and provides electric power to communities in 7 different states.   The water behind the dam is Lake Mead and it provides water to more that 20 million people in the southwest .

The new bridge open in fall of 2010 to provide a faster route across the Colorado River .

 We took a tour of the dam and power plant and this pic was taken from a vent about 400 feet inside the dam.   There are a number of passages and tunnels through the dam made for maintenance purposes, 

 Info on the bridge.  The picture below was taken from the middle of the bridge. there is a walkway build for  public access to walk on it. 

This is 880 feet about the river.