To my surprise, a lot of what goes through one’s mind while driving on a highway is based on expectations. How much traffic will there be? Will the weather be good? When is the next road stop? These expectations let the driver prepare for the trip and pace him or her through the road trip.

On my trip from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas I was shocked when I saw a sign for the Hoover Dam. What I expected to be a non-eventful drive to Vegas turned into a mammoth route across the giant purple gorilla laughing in the corner of the room. My fear of heights, traffic, and a long congested drive suddenly emerged. Expectations of a smooth drive quickly vanished; whether I liked it or not, I had to confront the great Hoover to reach my destination.

The sign was completely unexpected, but so was what I eventually saw.

I expected a drive over an elevated road with water on one side, and a valley on the other. With my limited knowledge, I imagined a bridge-like structure with water only on one end.

Instead, I saw a marvel in engineering. If the Grand Canyon shows the scale of transformation that God can create, the Hoover Dam is a symbol of what human ingenuity can accomplish.

Fear quickly passed as I pulled my car to the side to view the dam. The twisting dam road looked more like the curving walls outside of a medieval castle than the dull straight structures of bridges. The road itself dropped sharply to equally spring back up to high elevation. Tourists walked the area in awe, and I stood against the calm water looking at the mass of land and water that humans managed to tame.

The constant hiss of the damn was clearly audible, but gears and mechanizations of the dam were out of view. Concrete and steel beams were all that obscured this artificial presentation of nature.

My strongest memory is a view of the dam wall fading into the curves of the river. I imagined what was beyond the river curve, and wondered what I’d find on the nearby land or swimming in the just-too-far waves. I wanted to take a canoe and find out.

After I passed the damn I drove up to the top of a nearby mountain to view the landscape. Water, land, the sun, and an army of clouds rested in peace above me. Despite three or four other cars full of tourists snapping their photos, I felt alone and in peace with the backdrop.