Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a great trip
That started from this tropic port of LA, abroad this tiny Lexus
The mate was a mighty sailing man, the skipper brave and sure
Four passengers set sail that day, for a three-day tour,
a three-day tour
The ship set ground on the shore of this desert isle oasis
with the twins Shaul & Yonathan, the skipper Tzur, and the navigator
Lots of phones, lights, motor car, and plenty of luxury...
and must not forget MAGIC
unlike Robinson Crusoe,
It's as far away from primitive as can be - so they thought...
The desert mirage...
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System consists of three solar thermal power plants on a 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) tract of public land near the Mojave Desert and the California—Nevada border in the Southwestern United States near Interstate 15 and north of Ivanpah, California. The site is visible from adjacent Mojave National Preserve, Mesquite Wilderness, and Stateline Wilderness.
The facility consists of fields of heliostat mirrors focusing sunlight on receivers located on centralized solar power towers. The receivers generate steam to drive specially adapted steam turbines. For the first plant, the largest ever fully solar-powered steam turbine-generator set was ordered, using a 123 MW Siemens SST-900 single-casing reheat turbine. Besides steam-turbine generators Siemens supplied instrumentation and control systems.[20] Final approval was gained in October 2010. On October 27, 2010, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and other dignitaries gathered in the Mojave Desert to officially break ground on the project. The project generated controversy because of the decision to build it on ecologically intact desert habitat.
The project has received a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. The total cost of the project is about $2.18 billion. The facility has contracts to sell about two-thirds of the power generated at Ivanpah to PG&E, and the rest to SCE.
Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System with two towers under load
MAGIC... (which is the truth?)
Our humble bungalow
Our surroundings...
We were awaken by loud thuds and truck backup beeping sound
(at least those of us who can hear those high pitches)
and on we go.... Hoover Dam
Lucky for us... we were early enough to miss the crazy traffic going to see the Dam
But, we did not miss the views...
Parked in Arizona
Walked to Nevada, where it was an hour earlier...
Walked back in time 😊
Younger by an hour... we walked to find the nearest coffee...
and see the Dam
The mafia in full force
The men who built this...
Soon after the dam was authorized, increasing numbers of unemployed people converged on southern Nevada. Las Vegas, then a small city of some 5,000, saw between 10,000 and 20,000 unemployed descend on it. A government camp was established for surveyors and other personnel near the dam site; this soon became surrounded by a squatters' camp. Known as McKeeversville, the camp was home to men hoping for work on the project, together with their families. Another camp, on the flats along the Colorado River, was officially called Williamsville, but was known to its inhabitants as "Ragtown". When construction began, Six Companies hired large numbers of workers, with more than 3,000 on the payroll by 1932 and with employment peaking at 5,251 in July 1934. "Mongolian" (Chinese) labor was prevented by the construction contract, while the number of blacks employed by Six Companies never exceeded thirty, mostly lowest-pay-scale laborers in a segregated crew, who were issued separate water buckets.
Like most massive, early 20th century construction projects in treacherous terrain, men died at Hoover Dam. Lots of men. They fell from sheer rock faces, drowned in water, succumbed to dynamite explosions and equipment accidents. It took five years, from 1930 to 1935, to create the 726 ft. tall structure that created a recreational lake and continues to provide electricity to millions.
According to official accounts, no worker was ever lost to a concrete pour -- it was only done 2 inches at a time, with lots of workers watching each other for trouble. While no one is buried at the dam , a memorial was constructed to remember the 96 men tallied as industrial fatalities.
The Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge
is an arch bridge in the United States that spans the Colorado River between the states of Arizona and Nevada. The bridge is located within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area approximately 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, and carries U.S. Route 93 over the Colorado River. Opened in 2010, it was the key component of the Hoover Dam Bypass project, which rerouted US 93 from its previous routing along the top of Hoover Dam and removed several hairpin turns and blind curves from the route. It is jointly named for Mike O'Callaghan, Governor of Nevada from 1971–1979, and Pat Tillman, an American football player who left his career with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the United States Army and was later killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire.
On to view some of Lake Mead
Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States, measured by water capacity. It is on the Colorado River about 24 mi (39 km) from the Las Vegas Strip southeast of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, in the states of Nevada and Arizona. Formed by the Hoover Dam, Lake Mead is 112 miles (180 km) long when the lake is full, has 759 miles (1,221 km) of shoreline, is 532 feet (162 m) at greatest depth, with a surface elevation of 1,221.4 feet (372.3 m) above sea level, and has 247 square miles (640 km2) of surface, and when filled to available capacity, 26.12 million acre feet (32.22 km3) of water. The lake has not reached full capacity, however, since 1983 due to a combination of drought and increased water demand. Owing to current low water level.
The reservoir serves water to the states of Arizona, Nevada and California, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland.
we saw, we came, we conquered, now to the MAGIC...
Criss Angel is the most watched magician in history of the Internet with over 200 million views on you tube alone. Criss' one clip – "Walk on Water" - has garnered over 45 million views; more than David Blaine, David Copperfield, Siegfried & Roy, and Penn & Teller's most viewed clips combined.
And the search for...
brought us to many of Vegas attractions...
and where all the previous day's loot was returned:
on the way back... we see the light at the end of a long road:
we survived... now back home for some party and friends...
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