Sometimes I know exactly where I am going. In that case it’s easy, pick a route and go.
More often I have an idea where I’d like to end up, and generally speaking a direction to go.
.
Once in a while I just follow the front wheel and see where it takes me.
Can you hear it? Willie Nelson is singing "On the Road Again", Connie and I stopped at Parker Dam Arizona. It's a not so famous Colorado River Dam that produces electricity, pumps water for irrigation and drinking and provides flood and flow control to the river.
It really doesn't look like much, but it's a fairly impressive structure. It has darn near as much concrete in it as it's more famous cousin, Hoover Dam. It's a long ways down to bedrock and that's where the concrete pour started.
Those arches on the top control the spillway gates. Really large linked chain pull the gates up or lower them (obviously all closed now).
This is the inlet control structure for the powerhouse. The entire flow of the Colorado River is being diverted to a four turbine powerhouse. This structure provides plenty of water flow and keeps any trash from entering the turbines.
This what it looks like after it runs out of the powerhouse.
This is an example of one of the turbines that the river spins. I do not know the exact dimensions, but it weighs 60,000 lbs (27,215 kg).
One half of the electricity produced at Parker Dam is used to pump water to the greater LA basin. The rest is sold to utilities in Arizona and California.
This gantry provides the lifting and closing functions for the powerhouse gates. All four are fully open in this picture, but if any of the electrical producing equipment needs service the water to each turbine can be shut off here. For a bit of scale, notice that Connie is parked just in front of the sloped edge. It is a huge piece of gear that travels on railroad wheels and tracks.
This is a view of the Gantry and three of the gates from the inlet side. Parker Dam and it's attendant equipment make for a really huge structure.
Thanks for being along for the ride. The road goes on forever.
All words and photographs in this post are mine. For better or worse
You want some real motorcycle travel? Check out Velimir. That’s some kind of motorcycle writing.
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