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Published: February 24th 2008
Nadine on tour bus to Grand Canyon
"And the wheels on the bus go round-and-round.....for hours and hours WOW...wasn't yesterday an exciting experience???? Come on now I know you all are glued to your seats waiting to see what is coming up for Valentines Day.....Well here we go kiddies hang on to your hats because its on to the Grand Canyon....one of the 7 wonders of the world!!!
Well today I woke up a bit earlier at around 4:30am so I could play a few slots and rush back to the room with coffee before the bus comes to pick us up at 6:50am. Nadine sure hates these early morning adventures but I am used to it by now and back in Victoria the day usually starts off at 4am...but at least there I get to go to bed at 9pm...not like here. And when I got back to the room Nadine was already getting ready....must be excited eh?? We got to the shuttle bus in time and he drove us to the Greyhound Bus terminal where we had to transfer to the Big Luxury bus that was going to keep us all day. After I paid the reservation for the tour and added the skywalk part of the tour poor old Visa was just a-smokin' at
commoners in front of us on bus
and behind us we had 20 empty seats....silly passengers liked to sit side by side while we could stretch out and jump from side to side...LOL the $298.00 price tag....but at least they gave us a complimentary breakfast to take along with us....coffee, mini donuts & a Danish (some little piggies were jamming their pockets & purses with the free food but us Canadians are too damn polite...damn could have used a few more donuts...oh well)
We left the depot at around 7:30 and had a very chatty tour bus driver who fed us so much information that I hope I can remember 1/2 of it....if not Nadines always here to refresh my memory...lol. The first stop is Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam. It was an amazing feat of engineering and actually borders 3 states Nevada, Arizona & Califorina? or is it Colorado? Nadine Help!!! We had a brief 15 minutes stay here to look at the amazing view....and hey Nadine look over here they have a machine that will squash a penny with a logo of the hoover dam....Cool!!!! Spent too much time squashing pennies and the driver gave us a dirty look when we boarded the bus...oh well we won't see him again after today anyway....:P
As an added footnote they are building a massive new 4 lane highway above the
Empty Seats
haha eat your hearts out people all these seats have been claimed by the Gustafson/Duckett tour old one and is expected to be finished this year so the route that we took will no longer be travelled....also the new highway will have massive guard-rails so you won't be able to get as good a view of the dam and lake mead as we did.....sooo happy we took the tour now!
The next stop on the way was at Dolan Springs where you can buy a lot for $895.00... but has a few snags 1. you have to buy a septic tank 2. you have to buy a water tank 3. you have to live there & put a trailer on the land so we figured that for about $20,000.00 you could have a very nice place to live but OH YEA ITS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT...HUNDREDS OF MILES FROM THE NEAREST CITY....ONLY DUST & CACTI TO LOOK AT AND IS 130 FRIGGIN DEGREES IN THE SUMMER!!!! Nadine is planning on moving there and I will make sure that I write her often...hahaha. But we did stop at a very neat store where the owner was wearing a gun and they had a stuffed huge rattlesnake. I showed Nadine some rattlesnake stuff and she
fell in love with it and bought an ear-ring and a keychain that had rattlesnake rattles on them.....Too Cool!!!
Next we drove through one of the world's largest and oldest Joshua Tree Forests (the Joshua Tree is a Cactus that the Mormons named because it looks like they have their arms raised to the heavens. and named it after Joshua...dumb mormons can't tell the difference between a tree & a cactus?). I couldn't help but notice SNOW on side of the road....what the hell? I had to come to the desert to see what snow looks like???
We arrived at the Hualapai Indian Reservation around noonish and we had to get off the Greyhound bus and get on to an indian (yep they still call them indians there) bus that took us to Eagle Point. As soon as we arrived there (about 15 min. later) we were treated to an Indian Bar-B-Que lunch and were told we could eat as much as we wanted...but we were too excited so just wolfed it down and went to check out the canyon. WOW..it was incredible we were expecting guard rails at least but...No! Its straight down 4000 feet to the
bottom, so needless to say we were really cautious...ya no poop eh! And since we paid the big price for this little excursion we went to check out the skywalk thingee. May I say that we were really impressed and scared as well but at least one indian guy told us not to look down at first so we eased into the view through the glass floor. Oh by the way they make you take off anything metal before you go out onto the glass and you have to wear little booties...cause if you chip or scratch the glass it may shatter and its bye bye! But they do say that if it could be done you can put 3 747 jets on it and it won't break...so what's all the fuse about taking a cellphone or camera with us...ummm weird! Oh just wait I know why because there is 3 photographers out there who want to take your picture and sell it to you later.....haha we are too smart for you guys...oh damn we just have to have one to preserve this very special Valentine's Day...ok you win!!!!!
We went over to the highest point were some ingenious
old rail line
old rail line left from the building of the Hoover Dam american thought he could make a fortune by lowering workers over the side of the cliff with a bucket and take bat poop out of the caves and sell it to cosmetic companies or was it to tourists?....Nadine help!!! Unfortunately his little business adventure fell through...ya no shit Einstein I could have told him that. The view was spectacular up there and on the way back we just had to fill our pockets with real Grand Canyon rocks......ummm maybe that poop idea isn't too far off I think I will sell these rocks and make a fortune...Stay tuned!
Ok to make a long story short...oooops too late....sorry!!!! We picked up a few souvenirs and had a good chat with the locals and one guy in particular was very interesting and was showing up everywhere we went....thought for a moment he was stalking us because I was wearing my cowboy ear-ring...haha...but no he was just friendly and did pull out a brochure and sign it for Nadine. He said his name was Wifred Whatsmename...or something like that.
We re-boarded the bus and were headed back to Vegas by 4pm. The trip back was less informative...think the driver ran out
scenic rail car
rail car that runs the length of the old rail way line that was used by workers on the Hoover Dam of stuff to tell us so he put on a video of some stupid comedian who used 40 year old jokes to try and put us all to sleep...and guess what it worked I had a real good nap and was ready to rip Vegas apart as soon as we got back. Its only 5:30 now so we decided to get dropped off at the Excalibur Hotel and start from there instead of going back to our hotel. Ran to the closest slot machine (think I was starting to get the shakes because not only do the Hualapai Indians not believe in "the god of the slot" on the reserve but they don't believe in tobacco or alcohol either....and I thought the white boys taught them better than that) and played a few games and smoked up a storm and now its on to the booze baby. We found a quaint little bar that sold huge drinks in a fashionable Excalibur glass so bought one for Nadine....Happy Valentines Sweetie....that's the only present she got...oh wait there are too many gifts on this trip to count....well ok not too many that you can or want to look at after...so this will
have to do....haha.
The next thing on our agenda is to check out some of the stuff that we haven't seen yet so it was over to Hooters Casino for some mighty fine beer drinkin', oogling the waitresses and playin' the slots. Since we are now hooked on the penny slots we sat down and spent a very looonngg time playing them and after our arms got sore and they had sucked out our last penny we were off again. This time we wandered by the Belaggio and finally got to see the water fountain show and stopped off at some restaurant and picked up our supper...This was a good one for a change...haha. Found a place that served a chili meal for $4.99. You got a chili cheeseburger, a chili cheesedog, chili cheesefries and a large drink....cool...pack it up and were off to the hotel. Back at the room I grabbed the huge glass from The Rockhouse pub and nightclub that we got last night and returned for their $10.00 refill special...and of course had to add a double shot of rum just to top it off. Got back to the room in record time and started the
feast......Oh my god I think I heard my heart explode...nope its OK!
Turned out the lights around midnight.
TODAY WAS AN EXCELLENT VALENTINES DAY......HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE VISIT TO THE GRAND CANYON WITH US!!!
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