Awake: 6:05am Temp 72 Mostly sunny Overnight @ Redding, CA
During Kathy’s dips in the campground pool last week, she listened to Gene
& Jo talk about their tour of the nearby Shasta Dam & Power plant….& now
my curiosity is up.
Although we are very busy, we’ll make an exception. Kathy calls the Shasta
Dam visitor’s center & we choose a 10:15am tour time. A 20 min drive from
our campground & we are soon looking at this marvel of engineering before
us, the Shasta lake, dam & power plant.
This project started in 1938….was operational in 1950. At the visitor’s
center, we had time to watch a movie on the “Bureau of Reclamation” in
their theater before walking half way across the dam’s breast to meet our
tour guide. This guy is good; he knows his facts, has a sense of humor &
is very personable. We take the elevator down inside the dam…174 ft or 43
stories. Temp @ the bottom floor was 65 degrees; 85 degrees outside on the
breast of the dam. For being over 55 yrs of age, this place looks well
cared for.
Now all 11 of us are in a long 100 ft + hallway & our tour guide asks us
to form teams: each team will take turns in clapping their hands in
unison, listen to the echo & determine if all hands were in sync. It was
right out of the science books: sound travels @ some 650 ft per sec
depending on temperature. We could easily detect some early & late
clappers.
We tour a little inside the power plant, and then out along the spillway.
This Shasta Dam not only produces enough electricity to power all of San
Francisco but also controls floodwaters & stores surplus winter runoff for
irrigation use in California’s central valley.
We thank our tour guide profusely & walk back to the visitor’s center
where we watch 2 more movies on the dam construction process. It was well
worth our time to experience this diamond hidden in the valley of the
hills.
8:15 dinner: Italian roast beef with potatoes & peppers, Caesar salad &
garlic toast.
Today’s high temp=90 Lights out: 11:16pm
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