Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam was built by Major Powell's nephew (he explored the Grand Canyon). His name was Arthur Powell Davis and the dam was built in 1936. It holds back the Colorado River and this forms Lake Mead which the largest artificial lake in the world. While the dam was being built, Arthur Powell Davis passed away and never saw it finished. The dam is 660 feet thick at it's base and the weight of it is heavier than the Great Pyramid in Egypt. The site is Black Canyon on the border of Arizona and Nevada.

The Grand Canyon

Five Things to Know:

1. The Grand Canyon was first discovered by Spaniards who were looking for a city of gold. This was eighty years before the Pilgrims- around 1540.

2. When the Spanish got to the Grand Canyon, they saw the bottom of the canyon with water in it. From above they thought it was six feet across but it was really fifty times that wide..

3. In 1869, an explorer named Major Powell who only had one arm went down the Colorado River with three boats and nine men.

4. During the voyage, three of the men wanted to get off because of the danger but when they got to the top of the canyon, Indians found them and put them to death.

5. The Grand Canyon is a mile deep, 18 miles wide and 277 miles long. It is located in the state of Arizona.

Yosemite

Before 1851 nobody knew about Yosemite except for the Indians who lived there. In 1851, gold miners came to Yosemite and killed all the animals and fish. So the Indians couldn't eat them. But the Indians burned all the houses of the gold miners. One time after they had attacked some of the houses, some gold miners led by General John Savage went to look for the Indians who did it. When they looked out into a clearing, they forgot all about the Indians. They saw a giant waterfall, four times as tall as Niagra Falls. When they saw it, the General thought it looked like a bridal veil so they named it Bridal Veil Falls. They thought they heard thunder but it was an even bigger waterfall. Over the day, they found our more waterfalls, forest and mountains. They found a huge mountain named Half Dome; it was so slick and steep that no one could get up it. One day, a man said that he had climbed the Half Dome and when nobody believed him, he said that he had nailed spikes into the face of the mountain and climbed up the spikes. Over the years, they put a ladder there so people could go up like the author of the book did. Yosemite is now a national park in California near the border to Nevada.

The Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the longest bridges in the world. It is a suspension bridge. It is in San Fransisco, California over the San Fransisco Harbor. A fort stands underneath the bridge. One day a general, Ulysses S. Grant, passed into the harbor and they wanted to shoot the canons but the ten year old son of a colonel had packed them with charcoal. By the time they loaded them with gunpowder, the general was far away. That boy, Sydney Taylor, became the bridge's first trafficmaster. The author of the book got to stand on the unfinished bridge.

Lake Erie Fishing trip

This year at Lake Erie we went fishing with all of our cousins and we caught 112 fish!!

Here are some pictures:

(the fish are Yellow Perch)