Fun And Educational Day

We had a fun and educational day today!

This morning Ryan cooked up a hearty breakfast of sausage, bacon and eggs. Then Ryan, Caron and Bode had to head back to Summerlin for Bode's Flag football game. The rest of us drove into Boulder City and we walked around the main part of Boulder City. We then came home and had some lunch.

Then Jim, Mike, Dwight, Jake and I drove out to the Hoover Dam. We stopped at the crossover bridge and hiked out to the middle of it. It is a great overlook view of the dam and is a engineering marvel of its own.

Then we drove down to the Visitor Center and took the short tour of the dam. They had a good video that explained how the dam came to be and the huge undertaking to build it. It really is a engineering marvel. After the video they took us down several hundred feet to see one of the diversion pipes that was used to,divert the Colorado river so they could start the actual construction of the damn. These pipes were so large that they had to,be constructed onsite, because there was no way to transport them from another construction site.

Then we went to The Nevada side generator room and saw the huge hydroelectric generators.

One amazing fact was that it was going to take 100 years for the cement to cure. So to,speed that curing process they constructed a massive piped air cooling system that dissappated the heat from the curing concrete and sped up the curing of the cement.

In the visitor center they had monitors that showed the number of workers from each of the lower 48 states that worked on the dam and the materials for the dam that came from each state. Montana had 150 workers at the site and Montana provided lumber for the contruction of the dam. Hawaii and Alaska were not yet states when the dam was being built.

We got back to the house just in time to watch the 4th Quarter of the Ravens vs Texans game. Then we watched some of the first quarter of the Packers vs the 49ers game. We then got changed and went to dinner at Milo's Italian restaurant in Boulder City. Jim and Caron had arranged for us to eat in a private room. Caron's brother and folks also joined us for dinner. It was a very nice dinner with tasty food.

Then Jim said a few words and Mike brought out his quitar and played a song that he, Martha and Ryan had worked on. It was a song set to the music of John Cougar's song Jack and Diane. It was very creative and had Elaine in tears. It also had me tears because Jennifer would have absolutely loved it. Then we had some cake and took pictures of Jim and Elaine withe the grand kids, the kids, the kids and their spouses and then the whole Benner Clan. Then we had cake and sang Happy Birthday to Elaine.

Then we came back to,the house and played some games.

So it was a fun day and I just wish Jennifer could have been here in person. I know she was with us spiritually, but if she was here in person she would have really enjoyed the day.