All the amenities

7/19/06

We used to vacation at Lake Mead when I was a kid, so I’ve been through the Hoover Dam tour a few times already. It used to be pretty low-key: you’d just park your car and walk around, and lean over the edge as far as you dared. Now there are security checkpoints on both sides, which I might’ve expected; but also a four-story parking garage; at least three gift shops; a restaurant and snackbar; a new viewing platform which is only accessible if you’re willing to pony up for the multimedia tour and to walk through a series of metal detectors, which I wasn’t; and you can’t lean over the edge anymore because they’ve built big concrete barriers to prevent you from doing that. They also appear to be building another completely separate bridge across the canyon above the dam, which I predict will cause a lot of traffic accidents because it’s going to have a really great view. Unless they build big concrete barriers to prevent you from seeing the dam from the bridge, which come to think of it is just the sort of asinine thing they would do, isn’t it?

Photo of All the amenities