With a sweeping vista of Pyramid Lake from its wraparound balcony, Vista del Lago Visitors Center is DWR's largest information center.

You'll be first greeted by friendly tour guides who'd be happy to give you a personal tour of its rooms or don a headset and listen each area's specialized educational experience. (To arrange for group tours, call the center's number below.)

After taking a drink from the "Where Your Water Comes From" fountains, your water journey starts with a dazzling visual display of hundreds of water bottles corresponding to the amounts it takes to produce many of things we use daily such as foods we eat, products we use, and the household chores that make up our lives like taking a shower or washing clothes. You can weight yourself in water and learn how much water is used by industries, agriculture, and typical households.

Move on to the giant map room where you'll watch a video presentation projected on a huge topographical map of California, informing you how the state's geography affects where abundant supplies are located in contrast to its populations and how water is transported to areas where supplies are needed.

Entering though a giant mock pipeline, you'll enter the State Water Project's room where a three-dimensional model depicts the different elevations that water must be moved to reach various statewide destinations and shows you all the Project's various facilities including its lakes and reservoirs and the power and pumping plants. Another display illustrates the "big" tools that were used to construct the nation's largest state-built water and power development system. Then picture yourself at the bottom of the 444-mile long California Aqueduct.

The next room contains a timeline of California's history of water events plus you can take "flight" over the entire length of the State Water Project via video.

The subject of water is not complete without understanding the significance of California's Delta, a unique brackish water estuary through which water flows before it reaches the SWP's first pumping plant and the beginning of its travel down the San Joaquin Valley and onto Southern California. Located near the San Francisco Bay, The region supplies water to 25 million Californians and thousands of irrigated farmland. A complex maze of waterways and islands, many protected only by earthen levees with some lying 20 feet below the surface water level, the Delta's fragile environment is troubled by water exports, pollution, invasive species, crumbling levees, and declining fish and wildlife population. These endanger the reliability of water supplies on which California's economy depends.

Visitors can also learn about the 29 water agencies, the State Water Project contractors, who pay the costs of constructing, operating, and maintaining the Project and its facilities.

The Vista del Lago Visitors Center, open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day, is located on Interstate Highway 5 between the cities of Castaic and Gorman. There is a Vista del Lago off-ramp, north and south. For more information, call (661) 294-0219.