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Formula Jr
02-22-2003, 02:04 AM
Crossing Over Part V.
A Brave Old America.

It was an extra treat when I noticed on the map that my route was to take me over the top of Boulder Dam - or Hoover Dam, if you're a Republican.

All my cross country trips include at least one visit to a major civil engineering project; particularly big dams. Any trip through Montana must include a visit to the Fort Peck Dam; the largest earthen dam of its kind in North America. Then there's the Hell's Canyon Dam in North Eastern Oregon, Diablo and Ross Dams in the North Cascades, Glen Canyon in Arizona and Grand Coulee in the Washington scab lands. Part of the facination, is that most of these massive projects were built during the Depression Era and define the American interpretation of the Art Deco period. They were, in their time, national embodyments of optimism for an entire generation. Part of it, is to see the brillant engineering that these structures represent before the modern age of computer aided design. They built these things using slide rules! And there's a certain thrill to being in the bowls of a dam and feel the heat and throbbing power of massive spinning pelter wheels, shafts and dynamos the size of small houses. The scale of even simple things, like nuts as big as an automobile tire, make you feel like you've entered a land of giants.

Part of the fun in getting to Boulder Dam is just finding it. Heading East, you wind your way throught the town of Boulder on what appears to be a side street. Just when you think you're totally lost, there's a little road sign that says, "The Dam is this way."

I thread my way down to Lake Mead (http://www.donzi.net/photos/osaffell316.jpg), and I'm shocked by a sign that says, "Last Turn around before Check Point." Check Point!!!!! Instantly, I was overwhelmed by rage. My blood pressure just went right off the scales. And I'll explain why. A car is too small to be of interest to a sentry, but a large "Paneled" Van with tinted windows is just the perfect tool if one was to cause great destruction. And I know this, and I know that they know this, but this is my route and I now have to chance the possiblility that they will tear my vehicle right down to the sheet metal looking for explosives. So I pull over and try to compose myself. The rage I was feeling was totally irrational. I just could not get a grip on it. So I sat there and cussed and pounded the dashboard till I calmed down alittle. This is what its come to: Post 911.
I just can't accept this as a permanent future.
So I resolve myself to the possiblity of a long delay and drive up to the check point. Here there is a decision to be made. RVs and trucks are directed to the right, and I can see campers being disgorged of their contents. So I head for the Passenger Car Lane and whip out the wallet with a big smile and a "Hi, hows it going?," to the pistol pack'en guard. Henry gets in on the act and jumps up on my lap in anticipation of getting a doggy treat. The guard gets a big grin also when he sees Henry and waves me through without even checking my ID. I drive up into the new parking garage and sit there for 10 minutes in a complete muddle of mixed emotions.

They should have searched my van.

Thinking about this stuff simply isn't the reason I'm here, so I just turn off my brain and wander down to the cafe/gift shop. $7 for a Boulder Burger? Pass. But the gift shop took me for $32 bucks worth of acrylic encased scorpions and commerative coins for the nephews.

The entrance to the tour also has high security; X-rays, sniffers and one other high tech imaging system like a miniature CAT scanner that I'd never seen before. Along the way are some pretty funny signs. "Tour is not recommented for people with heart conditions or suffer from claustrophobia." I understood the real meaning of these warnings as the tour began. You don't actually walk this tour so much as being flushed thru it. First we are packed (http://www.donzi.net/photos/osaffell318.jpg) in a huge elevator, and I mean "Packed" like a tin of fish. And its during this ride I get my first hit of comic releif. English is clearly a second language to the tour guide who is a tiny, super sweet, asian-american woman. Some stereotypes can be innoceintly funny. In this case, I burst out laughing when she started speaking in a beautiful sing-song of broken english. "You now decending ten whole starrys to da base of wa dam. True dis dam goes whatter at da wh-rrott oft ten tousand goullins a seeken. Das au watt oh whatter!"

From the elevator we are flushed again through a dark tunnel (http://www.donzi.net/photos/osaffell317.jpg) to the power house. "Hee you seez a bigga Dynamoozzs (http://www.donzi.net/photos/osaffell320.jpg), da a spinning at ceezz hungrid Aw P N........"

Once again the crowd is shoveled back into the tunnels and the elevator for a ride up to the observation deck. (http://www.donzi.net/photos/osaffell322.jpg) "....on to da white and levv we hava big weeweef valfs. (http://www.donzi.net/photos/osaffell319.jpg) Day no use dezz ah valfs uny mah..."

I'm giggling my gutts out, this is better than any Saturday Night Live sketch I've ever seen.

I make sure to tell her "Chit Chay" at the end of the tour and she gets a big grin and says, "you moozz a welcome."

This truely can only happen in America. We embrace diversity to the point of comic absurdity, and her sweet, "I don't have care in the world" delivery of the tour was a perfect tonic for my morbid, over-analytic state of mind..

I wandered around the site on my own (http://www.donzi.net/photos/osaffell321.jpg) for another 30 minutes. And struck up a conversation with another, rather attractive, female tour guide who was off duty at the time. I asked her when did they stop doing the old tours. With great sorrow and a hint of anger, that I could instantly feel in her voice, she said 9/11, and she said that up until a few weeks ago, nothing bigger than a passenger car was allowed on the site.

You see the old tours, took you down the original, polished brass Art Deco elevators that run directly down the side of the dam's face to the power houses. This tour was the one that was originally designed into the very structure of the Dam. All that now, for the foreseeable future, is relegated to a gentler, more civilized past. There's no way to retrofit the old tour for screening machines.

I drive up and out of the Canyon (http://www.donzi.net/photos/osaffell323.jpg) on the eastern slope. The second tour guide's words weigh heavily in my mind. I know now, that I, like the whole of my country has crossed over into a different era. Let us hope that this era is temporary and that a few years from now, wide eyed children and adults will once again get to ride in those glorious, polished brass Deco elevators to the heart of a grand national treasure. All these great structures are permanet living testiments to how we face times of fear and doubt. We step out of the fear, remove the doubt, and go on to accomplish great things.

Join us again for Part VI of Crossing Over: Strange engine sounds, NAFTA savvy Navajo and way, way too much driving.

Digger
02-22-2003, 09:23 AM
Owen that was fantastic! Thanks!

Terry0341
02-22-2003, 10:50 AM
That was great, pictures are a nice touch, Thank you.