Grand Canyon

Getting up at 5am after going to bed at 1am was never going to be easy. Missing breakfast - as horrible as it was - just made things that little bit worse. We were picked up at 6am and shuttled to the underground carpark of the Planet Hollywood casino complex, where we were offered a complementary "breakfast" consisting of a museli bar and a bottle of water.

We finally left around 7:45am. First stop was Hoover Dam. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to stop on the "impressive" side, we only got glimpses of it on the way through. Security was tight - the bus was inspected for bombs and chemicals before we could cross. They're building a bridge across the canyon atm a few hundred metres downstream. You'll get good views I suspect but you won't be allowed on the dam itself soon. From our stop we saw the water side, which doesn't really give you any indication of how high it is.

Next stop was Kingman, just a toilet break. Nothing exciting there.

For lunch we stopped at the Canyon Railroad cafe for a sit-down buffet. Not bad for a "free" lunch.

A final stop before the canyon itself was for souvineers, to beat the crunch on the way back. I bought a book on the Grand Canyon. Karina bought her magnet for the fridge door.

Finally - the canyon. We were dropped off at one point on the south rim and had an hour to explore. Or, you could choose to do the rim walk to the 2nd drop-off point a few miles away and meet the bus there in 2 hrs 10 min. We were the only ones to opt for that.

There's not much you can really say about the Grand Canyon. I can say the weather was perfect and the visibility excellent. The rest defies description. It was breath-taking (not in a Seinfeld way).

We took a little too much time at the start and ended up having to walk briskly for the last 20 mins or so. We made it with about 15 mins to spare, just enough time to do a little souvineer shopping.

Back on the bus at 4pm for the trip back. ETA Las Vegas was around 9pm.

Entertainment on the bus consisted of a few documentaries - Hoover Dam and the Canyon Mules and a few really bad movies. The first - a Kirk Cameron bible-basher called Fireproof. Look it up on IMDB - uggh! The 2nd, on the way back was something about an American star quarterback starring "The Rock". The final was half-decent - "The Terminal" starring Tom Hanks. Only problem - we never got to finish it! Now we have to download... err... rent it!

After another quick stop at Kingman and finally we saw the lights of Vegas. Wow - a spectacle in itself. There's no astronomical observatory in Vegas for a reason!!!

We found some really bad chinese and grabbed some more souvineers before wasting over an hour waiting for the stupid hotel shuttle. At 11:30pm we went down for a heated outdoor spa before the pool closed at 12pm. Not that anyone kicked us out - we left around 12:10am.

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