Vegas to Grand Canyon

Vegas to Grand Canyon

The long drives are now fairly routine. Vegas is growing like crazy. the drive to Hoover dam used to be a trek along a 2 lane highway. Now, it's 4 lanes through suburbia most of the way. The area approaching the dam is also a thriving housing region.

Security approaching the dam is heavy, I guess because it would be a useful terrorist device, if they could blow it up. All vehicles with a trailer are searched. I don't know how much explosives would be required to damage a dam that weighs 6.6 million tons and has more concrete than 18 empire state buildings.

There is a new ultra modern visitor center built into the surrounding hills with concrete coloured to match the hills. It works to keep the focus on the white concrete dam. Also, to improve traffic flow, and protect the dam from terrorists, the state is building a 4 lane highway that will cross over the river gorge, several hundred feet away from the dam. The bridge will be named after Pat Tillman, the football player turned soldier who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

One item that everyone in the region needs to worry about is the low water level in the reservoir. I would guess that the water level is 100 ft lower than my last trip (which was a while ago). When you consider the acreage of the lake, that's a lot of missing water.

The other lesson of note is how green Arizona is compared to the interior of California and Nevada. I'll need to do some research to find out where this water is coming from. By the time you get to Grand Canyon, the forests look almost as green as Algonquin Park. The other interesting point is that the temperature became much cooler. Where we were dealing with 110F in Vegas, Grand Canyon was in the low 90's and dropped to high 60's at night. After the desert, that felt cool/cold.

Driving went very well with long straight roads and a 75 mph speed limit.

We just got in to see sunset at the canyon. The view is as spectacular as everyone says it is. Sunset provides strong definition of the rock formations but it is after the sun dips well below the canyon, that the true colours show themselves. Ironically, most of the tourists are gone by then.

We are starting to suffer from travel fatigue - so many miles, changes in views, temperature etc actually wears one down. It's getting harder to get E and J out of bed in the morning. I'm feeling it a bit as well.

Today, we are taking a 1 hour helicopter flight into the canyon. It is supposed to be the best way to see a lot of the canyon. Then we'll like along the rim for a while. Tomorrow, we start the mad dash to the coast of California with a stop in Phoenix (cause the trip takes 2 days). It's hard to believe that one week is over, but it's also hard to believe how much territory we have covered in that same time.

The hotel has wifi connections in all rooms but no packets are getting through. My guess is that the entire town has limited bandwidth and all of the tourists are clogging the lines. I probably will not be able to post my photos until we get to Phoenix.