Tuesday, July 21, 2009

hoover dam




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during our stay in paradise this weekend we took a few hours to tour the hoover dam. worth it!

it was really hot outside (understatement), but it was interesting to learn all the little facts.

for some reason it made me so sad that they had to divert the colorado river from it's original path while building the dam. that river had traveled down path and created that river bed for how long? and we just come in with a bunch of steel and decide to move it? I know it helped in a lot of ways, but I just felt bad for the colorado.

in true form, I wanted to know more facts about the lifestyle of the workers. what did they eat? what were living conditions like? were they happy? did they feel like they were living up to their full potential....you know, the basics. I also was slightly obsessed with finding out how many people died while building the dam. why weren't they telling us this fact? I wanted to know if there were people stuck inside that concrete! finally we had to ask one of the tour guides and the number wasn't very impressive. I can't even remember....30 or 40.

they were about finished building the bridge that will take traffic over the dam. amazing! it was a bunch of concrete hanging over the air. how? HOW? made me think of "the fountainhead" by ayn rand.

thanks to the dam for an interesting and information afternoon.

7 comments:

trinabelle said...

I was hoping you would post some dam pictures of your dam tour with the dam sun beating down on the dam concrete toasting you two into gooey marshmellows stuck to the dam wall.... THERE LOVELY =)

Grant said...

Trust me, you really have no idea how HOT it was.

For the record, 96 workers died at the construction site (not including those who may have been injured there and died later, off-site).
I don't know why I can remember stuff like that but not stuff that really matters.

noelle said...

this is why i heart you: "i wanted to know more facts about the lifestyle of the workers..." you echo my very thoughts. like all the time.

Adam M Moore said...

Awesome shots. Rachel, are you shooting these on 35mm or medium format? The aspect ratio seems to say 35mm...??? These are so much better than my 35mm shots, so I'm just wondering...

rachel thurston said...

thanks everyone!

adam, I shot all of these (except for the one of the 2 of us together which was taken with a canon pointnshoot) with my canon 5d...35mm digital. wish I was shooting the ole' hasselblad. miss that thing.

Adam M Moore said...

Dang. I gotta hand it to you. I totally mistook these for film! Whatever your workflow, you really take the digital out of digital images...and I think that's a really, really good thing. Jeez, now I'm about 500 times more impressed. :)

Anna Jay said...

only 30 or 40 people died?...psh....