English: Ah yes, the ol' Hoover Dam. We passed it on the way from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas on our round-trip through the southwestern USA last year. They made quite a tourist attraction out of it, with a huge parking garage (of course), a museum, and – for the European tourists – the chance to walk over it. Yes, walk! I know it sounds crazy, but it is possible. And we did it, too! Even though it was in Mid-November, the sun was beating down quite intensely, and we were very relieved once we got into the air-conditioned gift shop on the way out.

This panorama is taken from one of the parking platforms on the approach from the Arizona / Mountain Time side. On the very left you can see some of the structures for the new bypass – large trucks are already banned from crossing the dam, with future plans to route all traffic over the new bridge. You already have to pass through all kinds of security checkpoints before you can go near the dam – I guess that's for homeland security purposes. Anyway, the water level in Lake Mead seems to have dropped quite considerably, judging from the white residue on the rocks on the right. I don't know over what time period that happened, but the Dam isn't that old. Looks like they'll run out of water (and electricity) in Vegas sometime in the future...

Stupid future.