An easy 30-minute drive south from Las Vegas brings you to the Hoover Dam. Set in a stunning location along the Colorado River, it's an engineering marvel with a serious “wow” factor.

I still haven't managed to get a decent photo of the dam itself (it’s just too damned big), but hey, I did capture this completely different image near the Dam. It’s one of two identical “Winged Figures of the Republic,” sculpted by Oskar J.W. Hansen to honor those who designed and built the Dam. Each figure is 30 feet tall; the flagpole is 142 feet high.