Sorry we didn't get to post about the tour sooner, I didn't really know what to say, so I had to wait till Dad had a free moment to talk about the Xcel Power Plant tour.
Mom's Uncle John who lives just outside of Denver, Colorado got us a tour of the Xcel where his son, Matthew Barth has worked as an Electrician for about 4 years. So, in other words, Matthew is mom's cousin and Uncle John is us kids' Great Uncle, a bit confusing. Anyway, when we got to Xcel we were given hard hats, safety goggles and earplugs. We headed into the Control room where the status of the natural gas turbans are monitored, there are large drawings of the turbans and Matt explained how they worked. Next, we proceeded to the Natural Gas field where the gas comes into the plant. After putting in earplugs we walked into a small building where there was the first turban was located. We took out the earplugs and walked into the Power Plant Distribution Room, with many, many circuits. So ya'll have seen Sub Stations before, right? Well we stood about 50 feet away from one, (closer than many people ever get to go) took a picture and could hear the electrical current humming overhead! Pretty amazing, huh? After getting uncomfortable close to all that electrical current, we hiked up a tower about 75 feet tall to see the cooling towers. The cooling towers are huge with huge giant fans.
After the tour we went to Matt's house and met his wife, Jamie and their two boys, Cody, 8, and Brandon, 5. We hung out with them, talking about our trip and seeing their house for about 45 minutes. Afterwards we went back to Valeda's house to take her out for her early birthday dinner at Wishbone Restaurant and had a yummy meal.
Here are the pictures from the tour!
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| Outside the Control Room |
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| Only 50 feet from a sub station! |
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| Peeking in to see the huge fans |
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| From left: Uncle John, Brandon (sitting), Cody (standing) and Jamie |
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