THE WIDER VIEW

THE WIDER VIEW: Taking shape, the new bridge at the Hoover Dam

Creeping closer inch by inch, 900 feet above the mighty Colorado River, the two sides of a $160 million bridge at the Hoover Dam slowly take shape. The bridge will carry a new section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and winding around and across the dam itself.

When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona. In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be supported on the two massive concrete arches which jut out of the rock face.

The arches are made up of 53 individual sections each 24 feet long which have been cast on-site and are being lifted into place using an improvised high-wire crane strung between temporary steel pylons.

The arches will eventually measure more than 1,000 feet across. At the moment, the structure looks like a traditional suspension bridge. But once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed. Extra vertical columns will then be installed on the arches to carry the road.

The bridge has become known as the Hoover Dam bypass, although it is officially called the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevada and an American Football player from Arizona who joined the US Army and was killed in Afghanistan.
 
Work on the bridge started in 2005 and should finish next year. An estimated 17,000 cars and trucks will cross it every day.



The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York to San Francisco. The stretch of water it created, Lake Mead, is 110 miles long and took six years to fill. The original road was opened at the same time as the famous dam in 1936. More photos below.

An extra note: The top of the white band of rock in Lake Mead is the old waterline prior to the drought and development in the Las Vegas area. It is over 100 feet above the current water level.
 

The above unique and amazing bridge reveals to me how powerful are our minds. Thank God for giving us these wonderful gifts that lead us to conquer every challenge that comes along our daily life. Similarly, the above bridge began with a thought or dream of its inventor, who eventually translates it into a reality.

No doubt every creation has its own challenges so has this one. However, no matter how tough is the task, the tough will never give up, but it pushes the inventor to find solution to overcome it. As such, it affirms the saying that we are what we think.

Whatever we believe and convinced that this creation is workable, we will attract the positive energy to build it up, bit by bit till it is completed. All we have to do is be persistently working on it regardless of what the next obstacle will be. We are sure that it will ultimately be completed so long as we never give up. 

So friend, do you know that God gives everyone a mind, which is equally powerful so long as that person believes in that way. However, it is equally true if that person believes otherwise, it will destroy him. In short, it very much depends on its beholders whether to use it to empower or destroy. The choice is on your hand. This has been well proven in the Scripture and mankind's history. 

Before we end, we urge you to make the former as your choice and you are also encourage to exercise it with a task; affirm and reaffirm on this line of belief daily. Our mind is just like our muscle, through daily appropriate exercise it will be strengthened. As such, you need to feed it with the healthy stuff and stay on guard not to be tainted by those negative news that happen around you. This is to avoid you being swung along with the other thoughts which are equally powerful.

Thanks so much for reading this article and if you are truly be lifted up by it like the way it did to us.  Then, please pass it to someone whom you think needs this boost. Thank you in advance for your kind action. Bear in mind that we need to stay with the same minded people so as to support us along the journey we choose so that we do not depart from it.