...Recalculating...: Best Dam Day

I think by now everyone knows Halley does all the writing for the blog. Most every night she types a post, picks a few pictures (out of the hundreds we took that day) and graciously lets me look over what she's about to post. Some days when I wake up she'll already have posted before I can steal a peak. She's quick about these things. I'll leave the room to put the laundry in and when I come back she's finished. I'll research and book a hotel for the next night...and she's done another post. I'll go to brush my teeth and before I can rinse she's asking if the 15 paragraphs she just finished sound good.

It's not that I don't want to help out with the posts. It's just I am one of the slowest writers I've ever met. You'd like an example? It's taken me an hour to write up to this point. Some of it is that I'm easily distracted. It's true I stopped writing to 1) check my email 2) check Facebook 3) help Halley play a game 4) determine the average length of a blog post as to determine when I can stop writing.

But what takes up even more time? For every sentence you are reading I've deleted two. It takes me awhile to find the right words. In life this doesn't bother me much. I make up for it by forcing friends to play mini games of charades or giving the occasional grunt. Melinda holds the life time score though Halley is gaining on her. I can't really do that with writing so I've let Halley do the writing thus far. Until today.

I've been waiting for today for a long time. I've wasted 15 minutes staring at the screen and deleting sentences trying to describe why this is one of my favorites on our trip. So I'm just going to go right into it.

This morning we went to the Hoover Dam. I'm going to give you a Dam good run down of our Dam experience. If you don't like swears you can skip to the paragraph I talk about the London bridge in Arizona and skip the 49 swears that follow.

We arrived at the Dam and after paying the Dam parking attendant we parked in the Dam parking garage. We were about to take a Dam ramp to some Dam stairs to exit the Dam parking garage when a Dam...wait...no, just a lady, poked her head out of her car and asked where in NY we were from (our license plate gave us away). It turns out the lady lives about an hour away from where Halley grew up. Small world. Before the lady allowed our conversation to end we learned about her love for Vegas. And the free shows. And then she talked about those shows in detail. And things to do right around Vegas. And then 15 minutes in we learned about the time she brought her granddaughter to Vegas and they spent all their time in the hospital because the kid had a 3 inch cyst on her ovary. Pretty Dam exciting I'd say.

After Halley skillfully maneuvered an end to our lesson in Vegas we took a Dam escalator into the Dam entrance where we passed through a Dam security line and I purchased our Dam tickets. I Dam near laughed when the woman asked which Dam tour we wanted to go on. I signed my Dam receipt, grabbed our Dam tickets, got our Dam picture taken, and sat down to wait for a Dam movie to start.

*break from the Dam jokes for a serious comment*

The Dam movie ended with a tribute to Mr. Hoover. They threw out accolades like, "Humanitarian. Conservationist. Fisherman." Whaaaat? What is that? New goal for Sarah: Have a dedication for one of my brilliant contributions (to come later in life) read, "Humanitarian. Conservationist. Cribbage Player."

*back to Dam jokes*

Following the Dam movie we rode 500 feet down a Dam elevator and saw a large pipe. How big you ask? Dam big. 30 feet wide to be exact. We then visited some Dam power plant generators. Our Dam guide was nice enough to point out some Dam earthquake cracks our our way up to the Dam observation tower.

(Editor's Note: The tour guide was a Debbie Downer. Every place we went he pointed how how many people died there, how many earthquakes had occurred, or how many years we had until the whole thing fell apart and then politicians would have an issue on their hands. How many years is that? Two thousand. Yes, let's worry about that now, shall we? Also just wanted to add that there is enough concrete in the Hoover Dam to build a sidewalk around the Earth on the equator that is four feet wide and three inches thick. Tour guide told us that at least five times so thought I should pass that tidbit on to you.)

We took some Dam pictures from the Dam deck and made our way to the Dam crosswalk and walked right over to the Dam edge which plummets about 700 Dam feet. After taking in the Dam sights we bought some Dam souvenirs from a Dam nice lady who informed us that the "Bureau" doesn't allow Dam jokes because too many people called in with Dam complaints. Apparently they became too Dam offended. Dam weak I think.

After leaving the Dam parking lot we drove to a Dam viewing parking lot. A few weeks ago they completed a new bridge for I-93 so you don't have to wait in Dam traffic anymore. The new Dam bridge has a Dam good view but was packed with Dam tourists. We took some more Dam pictures, said our Dam goodbyes and crossed the Dam bridge into Arizona.

So yeah...From there, a few minutes down the road, I saw a sign for London Bridge at Lake Havasu. Of course we took the hour detour so we could check it out.

It's the real deal. The bridge was brought over piece by piece and rebuilt in good old Arizona. Man, if that bridge could talk and know what was up...MAJOR CULTURE SHOCK. The town was nice enough and made a little English village for it too look at.

So thanks for reading. We're gonna upload some pictures and get ready for the grand canyon tomorrow.