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Published: June 25th 2010
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The Grand Canyon is a fair old distance from Vegas so we had to get up at the disgusting time of 5:30am so we could catch our tour bus. Now I'm a pretty level-headed, unprejudiced person that sees the good in most people but our tour guide was the biggest dipsh*t idiot ever. He absolutely loved himself and told us far too much about his personal life and how awesome he thought he was rather than about the Grand Canyon itself. His name is Mark Antony and he should be avoided like the plague.
On the plus side we got a good breakfast and packed lunch. I think it may have been down to the fact that it was in a brown paper bag. I think it just tastes better out of one. Same goes for hard liquor and sniffing glue. In between spiels about himself, Mark Antony put on a video about the Hoover Dam. It was really interesting. It's just a shame that he remembered to tell us something else irrelevant and cut the video short.
When we finally reached the Hoover Dam we weren't allowed to stop on it due to anti-terrorism so had to drive
through, then stop and look back at it. A bit sad really that society is like that these days. In fact so much so that they are building a huge bridge near Hoover Dam in case it does get bombed.
After zonking out with my mouth open and dribbling everywhere, I woke to some more of Antony's stories. Some of them weren't even about himself. Apparently a house is built in Vegas every 59 minutes and the population is heading up to around 1.8 million. I'd take that with a grain of salt though because he did talk a load of codswallop. A story I did find interesting was that the Big Horn sheep in the local area sometimes become a pest because their numbers are too high. But instead of just going around culling a few, they allow people to enter a ballot. If their name is pulled out, they have one day that is assigned to them to try and hunt one of these sheep. If you don't manage to hunt one then tough luck. The cost to enter the ballot is $20,000 USD!
Further along in our travels we came onto the famous Route 66.
Sadly this is not a main route anymore since they built the trans-continental highway. Most towns along Route 66 are now ghost-towns due to the decrease in traffic. A few still remain, mainly because they have transformed themselves into tourist stops. One such town is Seligman, Arizona. Population 456. This town has survived thanks to the vision and persistence of a man called Angel Delgadillo. He and members of his family refused to close down their businesses that had been in the family for years. We knew all this before we had arrived into the town because we'd watched a documentary video on the bus. So when we actually pulled into the town and Angel came onto the bus to speak to us he was treated like a celebrity.
As we drove off, I started laughing hysterically at a sign I'd seen out the window. Nic inquired why? I pointed her in the direction of the local tattoo parlour sign. It was the worst sign-writing I had ever seen. The letters were all different sizes and squashed up. What person in their right mind would agree to get a tattoo from such a place? Surely that should put everyone
off? Well everyone that has travelled outside of Seligman. Which, I guess, means all 456 of the locals probably have tattoos.
We eventually made it out to the Canyon. And it was worth all the palaver. Sure it isn't the biggest or the deepest, but shucks it sure is Grand. Seriously though, it has so many different colours and you feel pretty awesome standing at the top looking out into it. We strolled for about 2-3 hours along the South Rim, taking it all in, nearly two billion years of the Earth's geological history has been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock. That's pretty impressive seeing as the earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years.
We were fortunate enough to see a bunch of the critically endangered giant Californian Condors - the largest North American land birds. They have a huge 2.5 - 3 metre wingspan and only 180 of them remain in the wild. They feed on dead stuff. Shame they don't attack humans or they surely would have attacked Mark Antony. I have to admit that not tiping him when we got back
to Vegas was one of the most satisfying things I have ever done.
I think everyone should try and see the Grand Canyon at some stage in their life. Just whatever you do, don't go with SWEETours!
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Badgette
Bettina Tison Bennett
on behalf of Arizonans...
I apologize for the tour guide. That whole area is an awesome place to visit. It's a shame that you didn't get a chance to hike Bright Angel Trail --- it'd take your breath away (literally on the way back up). As for that second highway near the dam, they've been working on that for years. Traffic on the dam is horrendous and can take hours to cross. I don't think they built a new road for terrorism, I believe it was more for transport (but I could be wrong). If you've seen the dam a bunch of times, you'd rather bypass it and take the quicker way in or out of Vegas. That said I'm amazed at how much it takes to build a road in that area --- the history of the dam being built is interesting but also tragic. So many lives were lost, so in a way we should honor them by using that path, or something like that. Again, it's a shame you didn't get to walk around the dam. I didn't realize they closed it to tourism. There's a cool elevator tour that is so worth it. Maybe the next time you guys visit, you'll be able to. Glad you got to see some of it though! And maybe on your next trip you'll be able to see more.