It's  been four years now since my vacation in the United States of America. I stayed most of the time in Las Vegas for almost two months. The snapshot you see below was taken during our trip to California. It was around 300 miles drive from Las Vegas to  California. I enjoyed the scenery during that road trip.

I am not quite sure  if these mountains are in California or Las Vegas, Nevada. See embedded date. That was the day when we drove from Las Vegas to CA.

Have a blessed Ne Year to all! I just hope everyone had a good one. I mean a good start of the year 2012! Anyway, anyone heading to El Paso, Texas? I wish you have a lot of great times there. This is one of the places that I wish to visit in the United States of America. I was looking lats night in the world in my computer room where does El Paso or Texas as a whole is located. I found out that it is quite far from Las Vegas, Nevada. I still believed that I have the chance to visit Texas one of these days. If not this year maybe in the next years to come.

I tried to use google map to find out how long would it takes when driving from Las Vegas to El Paso? Depending on your route, it is around 730 miles when taking US-93 and I-10-E and that is over 12 hours driving. At least I have an idea now about this place.


El Paso stands on the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte), across the border from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The image to the right shows Downtown El Paso and Juárez, with the Juárez Mountains in the background.

I am not sure if I call these mountains or hills in Nevada. These images were taken while we were driving to see the famous Hoover Dam in Nevada. I never imagine that Las Vegas is a desert but I guess it is one of the most improved desert in the world.


This is located near Hoover Dam Bypass, the new bridge that was just opened sometime in October 2010. These images were taken during our visit last May 2008.

Th Hoover Dam Bypass, also called as The Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge is a concrete steel arch bridge connecting the states of Colorado and Nevada. It runs accross Colorado River and was opened last October 19, 2010.

During our visit in Hoover Dam last May 2008, this bridge was still under construction. This is again another architecture in the United States considering that it is the first concrete-steel composite arch bridge built in this country.

an image taken by my sister during their recent visit. The bridge is already in used now.

The bridge provides a crossing of the Colorado River for U.S. Route 93, linking the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona 1,600 feet (490 m) downstream from the Hoover Dam. It is located approximately 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The bridge is the 2nd highest in the United States, behind Royal Gorge Bridge, at 840 feet (260 m) above the Colorado River. Built as part of the Hoover Dam Bypass Project, which successfully finished within budget at a cost of $240 million, the bridge portion cost $114 million (2010 USD) more here

The tamed Colorado River where the Hoover Dam Bypass crosses. It was still under construction during our visit last May 2008.

Its construction begun in 2003 and construction contract for the arch bridge was awarded in October 2004.
It is truly amazing how such high-tech engineering are happening nowadays. I believed the traffic in Hoover Dam is now very better with this new bridge.

Some years ago, I saw some pictures of a friend visiting one of the famous architecture in the world called Hoover Dam. I told myself, one day I will visit this place. It came true. Last May 2008, I finally had the chance to visit this incredible work of engineering. I can't tell so much how it is made but here are some information I can share about Hoover Dam.

Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. When completed in 1936, it was both the world's largest hydroelectric power generating station and the world's largest concrete structure. It was surpassed in both these respects by the Grand Coulee Dam in 1945. It is currently the world's 38th-largest hydroelectric generating station.

STATISTICS OF HOOVER DAM
* Construction period: April 20, 1931 – March 1, 1936
* Construction cost: $49 million ($736 million adjusted for inflation from 1936 to 2008
* Deaths attributed to construction: 112; 96 of them at the construction site
* Dam height: 726.4 ft (221.4 m), second highest dam in the United States. (Only the Oroville Dam is taller)
* Dam length: 1,244 ft (379 m)
* Dam thickness: 660 ft (200 m) at its base; 45 ft (14 m) thick at its crest.
* Average flow release: 22,000 cfs
* Concrete: 4,360,000 cu yd (3,330,000 m3)
* Maximum electric power produced by the water turbines: 2.08 gigawatts
* Approximate power output: 4,000,000,000 kW·h (1.4×1010 MJ) per year (i.e. $200 million at $0.05 per kWh)
* Traffic across the dam: 13,000 to 16,000 people each day, according to the Federal Highway Administration
* Lake Mead (full pool)
o area: 157,900 acres (63,900 ha), backing up 110 mi (180 km) behind the dam.
o volume: 28,537,000 acre feet (35.200 km³) at an elevation of 1,221.4 ft (372.3 m).
* With 8 to 10 million visitors each year, including visitors to Hoover Dam but not all traffic across the dam, the Lake Mead National Recreation Area is the fifth busiest National Park Service area. wikipedia

We are not going to Ontario, Canada. I just happened to capture the road sign above during our road trip from Las Vegas to California. Actually our main destination that time was Disneyland CA and Hollywood in Los Angeles. That was a very memorable trip for me seeing and visiting for the first time California. One more thing for those who are trying to find wrinkle removers, you don't need to worry because it is just a click of your mouse. Since I am slowly back in the blogging world, I will try to give you more updates from time to time. Have a great week to all!

Good evening folks! I am sorry to tell you that I have not updated this blog for some days. I have been very busy. You can also visit my other blogs for more updates. Anyway, this photo was taken somewhere in California. I am not really sure where exactly it is. You can see the street sign here going to Ontario and Pomona. Anybody know where is this exactly? Thanks in advance. I hope I can give you more updates once my offline job is done. I am almost there. Hopefully next week I can already finish it. sorry not so good pictures for now.