Las Vegas, NV to the Hoover Dam to Henderson, NV

61.52 Miles | 1:25 Riding Time

It’s Sunday, May 19, 2024, and it’s Day 39 of my cross country motorcycle trip.

I went to visit Hoover Dam today and take the tour, so it was only a short ride today. The dam tour was really fascinating. The scale of everything there is so huge, it’s hard to comprehend—from the amount of concrete to the volume of water to the amount of power being generated to the size and weight of the generators.

Also amazing to learn that the dam isn’t anchored to the walls or bedrock. The pressure of the water and the weight of the dam itself is what keeps it wedged into the canyon. This is by design, because the dam is in an earthquake zone, and they wanted it to be able to move within its surroundings.

We got to go to one of the vents in the face of the dam, which provided an opportunity to take some unique pictures. The bridge photo shows just how high the new bridge is—950+ feed above the Colorado river.

If you’re in Las Vegas, you should go and take both the Power Plant and the Dam tours. As a pun aficionado, I appreciated all the dam puns our tour guide leveraged. Of course, our dam tour group got into the dam elevator to go down to the dam power plant and into the dam tunnels. You get the idea.

Back in Henderson NV, I got ready for tomorrow’s ride to Death Valley. I picked up some summer riding gloves with lots of mesh. Had dinner at a Greek Bistro, and got to bed early, because I wanted to leave at 5:30 AM.

The Route