Las Vegas - The Nerdy Way

Cole and I just got back from a long weekend together. No kids. Thank the good Lord above. Seriously. There is no way my children will ever be allowed to venture to Las Vegas. Ever. Period. Unless, of course, they promise to tour the area like we did...giant nerds. As soon as we landed and picked up our rental car, we drove our tired selves to the Hoover Dam!

It was incredible. So massive. So mind boggling. So hot! I had horrible vertigo on top of the damn, overwhelming anxiety inside the dam, and it was well worth the cash we shelled out to go through all of the tours. :)

Staying FAR from the edge

The river by the power plant.

Just a bit warm

Hats everywhere that had been blown off people's heads

Hat graveyard

Notice the tense shoulders...I was actually sore the following day like I had worked-out or something.

30 Steel tunnel in original diversion tunnel

How the dam works

Looking somewhat happy while fighting the urge to vomit everywhere in the tunnel

Inside the power plant at the bottom of the dam. The generators are SEVEN stories tall.

Yep, people actually work here.

The cranes at the top of the building are used for repair work

It was built with tourism in mind so the floors have ornate patterns

Italian marble tunnels...shoulders still very tense

Vent at from of the dam

View from the vent

Tunnel to the vent...not very big

Disaster escape staircase. You can't tell at all from the picture, but it looks like the stairs go straight up.

Looking down from the top of the dam

Arizona side of the dam

Lake Mead

Nevada side of the dam

Cole recovering from melting his fingerprints off on the door handle of the car.

The following day we went to the Atomic Testing Museum. On purpose. That's how nerds roll in Vegas. It was a trek. We walk EVERYWHERE on our vacations. Always have, always will. The testing museum turned out to be over three miles from our hotel. Now, walking three miles ain't no thang, but when it's 110 degrees outside and you have to turn around and walk ANOTHER three miles back...it's not very fun. Of course, I also wore highly inappropriate shoes and wound up with a blister roughly the size of a squirrel on my right foot which made the walk that much better.

Next up...The Atomic Testing Museum

This shows how the kids in the testing area witnessed so many atomic tests. Weird.

Had to take this picture for my nephew who think hearing the word "ass" is the funniest thing on the planet.

After we made it back to The Strip from the museum, we decided it was time to gamble and enjoy some of those delightfully free drinks. That's when the trip really started getting good for me. :-) To be continued...