View from Mike O’Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge

The Mike O’Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge is a mouthful of a name for the bridge connecting the state of Nevada and Arizona. It crosses the Colorado river to bypass the Hoover Dam. You can see that it is possible to drive across the dam but this is not sustainable for large volumes of traffic. Not to mention that there are dangerous turns after crossing the dam. Because of this the Mike O’Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge was built which conveniently bypasses the dam by soaring high above the canyon floor. This was only completed in 2010, illustrating the difficulty constructing something like this in this location. Mike O’Callaghan was a former governor of Nevada, while Pat Tillman was a football player who quit to enlist for Afghanistan, was accidentally killed in friendly fire. Visitors can still go to the dam from here but you would need to exit the highway. A nice thing here is that pedestrians are allowed to walk along the bridge.

Of course, people can only walk away from the highway but you can follow the highway and get a grand view of Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam was constructed in the middle of the Great Depression. It provided power and water to the surrounding area. It is considered a wonder of American engineering and it is now the most visited dam in the country. While I’m not normally into man made stuff, things are different if things this large. Even I knew about the Hoover Dam when I was a kid. I may not have known where it was but I would have definitely read about it. Looking at the dam, I can’t help but be impressed at the size of the thing. I can’t even begin to imagine how to construct something which would be able to hold back that much water.

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