Grand Canyon

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Trip Start Aug 10, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Dec 27, 2007 Next
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  Grand Canyon, Arizona, United States
Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Jules and I caught a cab at 7:30am to the airport rent-a-car site and got back to the Jockey Club at 8:30.

We woke Dad, loaded our bags onto the bell boys trolley and headed downstairs to check out of the Jockey Club.

When we came round to the valet section, the van was packed and waiting for us.  We had asked for a mid size car (due to all our luggage) and the rental lady had been very excited to give us a brand new Toyota people carrier, and it was very good.

We jumped in and headed down the Las Vegas Strip towards highway 40 and the Hoover Dam.

We reached a lookout point just before the Hoover, which overlooked the Mead river.  Dad had seen the Mead river from his airplane window and so was able to give us some valuable information about the river ..... "it's friggin massive". 

Luckily for us, there were some poster boards which explained in a bit more detail how the Mead river was dammed etc.  We noted a steamboat on the river (a real one, not like our Opry Hotel steamboat).

So we left the lookout, went through a police check point and were soon staring at the Hoover Dam.

It is a big boy.  You begin to drive over it on the Nevada side and then halfway across is a "welcome to Arizona" sign, and a note to put your watch forward an hour (as crossed a time zone).

We parked the car and had a stroll across the bridge.  We saw the steamboat we had seen earlier, making its way towards the river.

The dam is amazing in it's sheer size alone.  Gazing down the dam wall we discussed how James Bond para-sailed off the dam wall. 

We jumped back in the car and stayed on highway 40 for 2 hours before we arrived at exit 161.  Now the significance of exit 161 is that you either stay on highway 40, or you can exit here and "Cruise the Loop" - otherwise known as the "Historic Route 66 Loop"!

So we exited and drove along Route 66 into Williams to "get our kicks"..... and we did.

We pulled up at the "Cruiser's Café 66" for lunch/dinner.  Café 66 was filled, inside and out, with memorabilia from bygone days when Route 66 was a fully functioning highway.

Café 66 itself was built on the premises of a gas station and was filled with old gas pumps and old car parts from the past.  There were posters, iron signs, photographs and postcards from a time when Route 66 was a major road.

We had a great meal and Dad even sampled the locally brewed beer (although he said it tasted crap).  We spent some time in the café store buying shot glasses, signs and beer mugs.

We "cruised the loop" slowly, admiring the history on offer, and then we were back on highway 40 and heading for Tusayan.

We reached our hotel in Tusayan, The Grand Hotel, at 8pm.  We checked in gingerly and went to our rooms.  We opened the door and breathed a sigh of relief, "well done Michelle" we said as we all agreed the rooms were great.

The only flaw was the usual "rooms at the end of the corridor" curse.  Every hotel room, on our trip with Dad, was at the very end of the corridor - "always a coconut"! we exclaimed to Dad, and sure enough we set him off again!

We left Dad to ponder the strange world of coconuts, and why he seemed to have so many, and we went to the lobby to book our helicopter ride into the Grand Canyon.

As usual, the quoted price was only to lure us, and the actual price was a lot different. We booked the "Bell luxury" helicopter for 9am the following morning and went back upstairs to tell Dad.

Well, "moneybags" just gave the customary shrug of the shoulders and his usual "it's only money" line and all was set for the morning.

We set goodnight to Dad and headed downstairs to sit in front of the log fire and use their wi-fi internet access, before jumping unto bed.

In the morning we packed the van and headed for the air field, 3 minutes out of town.  By this stage I was getting a but nervous (the whole scared of heights thing beginning to kick in) but we watched the "safety" dvd, which was mainly about buying stuff from the gift shop!

Then it was time to go!  First we were weighed (your weight determines which seat you are in) and then we walked out onto the helipad and we had a photo (which Dad later bought).

Jules sat up front next to a window, I sat behind the pilot next to a window and Dad sat next to me.  Jules had the video cam as she was in a prime spot and I took charge of the camera.

We pulled our headphones on and waited to take off.  I was crapping myself but kept a smile on my face for the benefit of those around me.  Then we lifted off the ground ..... we moved slowly upwards and then we inched forward for a while.  The helicopter swayed from side to side, a bit like a boat.  The pilot was talking incessantly about what a big helicopter we were in, how much it cost etc. and all I could think of, was that it seemed pretty small to me!

He pointed the nose down, and then we accelerated forwards and upwards, what a buzz!  Strangely, the higher we went, the less scary it was.  We flew over the airfield, then our hotel, Tusayan, the railroad and then we began flying over mikes and miles of trees.

The trees were the Kaibab National Forest and there were 1000's of them, pilot guy then told us we were now leaving Kaibab and going into the Grand Canyon National Park.  We had music playing through the headphones and pilot guy would speak over the music, letting us know what we were looking at.

He made a speech about getting ready to see one of the world's most spectacular sights blah blah blah and suddenly before us we could see the forest coming to an end ....... and there it was The Grand Canyon!

The title Grand does not do it justice as it's size is something to behold.  It is enormous, gigantic, massive etc.

We slowly flew over the rim and then he dipped the chopper and we went into the canyon.  All the time he was telling us what we were looking at, but I didn't hear much as I was just staring.

On my side of the chopper the rising sun was shining directly into the camera,so crap photos!  However, Jules was getting good footage from her side of the chopper.

The pilot then started taking photos of everyone in the cabin (i have uploaded those) and I took a self portrait of Dad and I.  Dad was surprising me as I thought he would have been afraid (like me) but he seemed to be enjoying the ride.

When the chopper turned, the sun was on the opposite side of the chopper, so my photos were much better now and all too soon I realised he was heading out the Canyon and back towards the airfield.

We asked why there was a kind of smog all over the canyon and he said that the forest rangers had been burning forest brush to act as a fire break.  So unfortunately, many of our photos had a smoggy look to them.

We landed, Dad bought a photo of our flight and we were headed back into Tusayan with big smiles on our faces.

Dad said he was dying for "just eggs and bacon" so we went to find him a Wimpy.  No Wimpies, but there was a Wendy's, which proved more than useless as they only had burgers, but luckily we found the Tusayan Café, which did serve breakfast.

We had a mammoth breakfast, or a normal US breakfast!  Dad and Jules had 2 eggs sunny side up and a whole pig's worth of bacon, while I had a 67 egg omelet filled with mushrooms and ham.  Between the three of us they had cut up a pocket of potatoes and fried them for us.  It was the high cholesterol cooking that every doctor in the world warns you about, which made it even more wickedly good!

Then we went to get our entrance ticket for the Canyon.  We had been told by the travel agent in the hotel, that if we had a disabled person in the car we could get a special "disability pass" which would allow us access to roads in the Grand Canyon, that other people had to walk, or catch a shuttle bus.  She added the "disability pass" was also for people that were immobile.  So we decided that Dad would have gout and that he would limp or crawl to prove this to the park ranger.

I jumped out to buy the ticket and reminded Dad that when I signaled to him, he was to get out the car and crawl a few steps, before collapsing on the road in a disabled heap!

I got inside and the computer was down, so Dad was saved his performance and we drove to the South Rim Entrance.

The park ranger that greeted us looked like she was a model.  She was dolled up in the latest make-up, looking everything but a park ranger!  We paid the $20 dollars and explained we had a passenger who could not walk great distances and were duly supplied with a disability pass.

Mather point was our first stop, 2170m above sea level.  The view was unbelievable and we tried to get a good photo with us in the foreground, but both people who took photos for us, took lousy shots.  We couldn't ask Dad as he would not come down to where we were standing near the rim edge.

From Mather Point we had views of Bright Angel Canyon, Tonto Platform, Phantom Creek and Isis Temple.

We walked along the sort path and near Canyon View we got Dad to take a photo of us, which was good.  I scrambled around taking photos while Dad and Jules decided everything looked pretty much the same.

We jumped in the van and headed for the Grand Canyon Village.  In the village we took the "restricted access" road (because of our disability pass) and headed towards the furtherest point, Hermit's Rest.  We stopped along the way to admire The Abyss, the Colorado River and Yuma Point.

We all jumped out at Hermit's Rest and had a soda before going back.  As much as we joked about the disability pass, Dad was struggling to do all the walking, as he said he would, and so he began to stay in the car and enjoy the view from a distance, while Jules and I went close to the rim.

We left the South part if the park and headed towards the East Entrance.  Along the way we saw some of the best views all day of the canyon.  Moran Point, Lipan Point and Navajo Point were breathtaking.

The last stop we made was at Desert View, 2267m above sea level.  Dad stayed in the car and we spent a while admiring the view.  There was a watch tower that had been rebuilt to replicate the original that was stunning and then there was the view.  We could even see the Painted Desert in the distance, it was brilliant.

Then it was time to leave the Grand Canyon and get going back to Las Vegas.

The first part of our journey was simple and then disaster ....... Jules was doing some low flying when a police car, going in the opposite direction to us, put on its lights and turned onto our highway by driving over the bush separating the two highways.  Jules slammed on breaks and once I had taken Dad off the dashboard and put him back in his seat, she said she was sure the police had caught her on radar and was now coming to give us a ticket!

We waited anxiously for the police car and as he pulled up alongside we were relieved to see him continuing past with not a jot of interest in us.  We were very relieved, but this was short lived when we came round a corner and saw all the traffic standing still.

We found out later an 18 wheeler had jack-knifed and tossed its load all over both lanes, hence we sat for 90 minutes waiting to go.  We got very board but I remembered I had "Who wants to be a millionaire?" on my PDA, so we played for about 30 minutes.

In the middle of the game that we would have become millionaires, the cars in front if us suddenly began moving, so we stopped the game and headed for the Hoover Dam.

When we began to see Las Vegas it was amazing.  A bit like the start of CSI Vegas.  So many bright lights.

We navigated ourselves onto the Strip and into the Circus Circus Casino car park.  We checked in and were again given our usual "coconut" room at the end of the corridor.

We set off for a steak, i.e. dinner.  However every restaurant in the casino was closed.  "10 pm and you're closed but this is Vegas" we said over and over!

Eventually we found the casino café was open and we settled down to a crappy meal we thought.  On no, it was actually very very good.  Last supper, so we went big.  I had chicken wings that made my lips numb after eating the first one (and I had five more), Jules had a green salad and Dad had the King Shrimp Cocktail.  They delivered 6 tasty massive cold prawns in a glass so long he had to get a ladder to get the prawns out.  They were laid out beautifully on ice and seaweed.

Jules had good lasagna, I had some good chicken, but Dad had the best - sweet and sour pork (with fortune cookies).  It was a very good final supper and we headed to the coconut suite totally satisfied.

Then the fun began as we helped Dad to pack.  We took all the gifts and placed them in packets, naming each packet so Dad would know who to give them to.  Then we took Dad's second suitcase and packed in as much of our stuff as possible.  The hammocks, our summer clothes, Christmas presents for the family etc. were all carefully wrapped and packed.

We said goodnight and then I drove round Las Vegas taking photos of all the casinos that I hadn't managed to get up to that point.  I also went to the start of the Strip to get the "welcome to Las Vegas" sign.  I was finished at 2:30am!

I had taken the entire luggage trolley the night before and pulled it into our room, so at 5:30am, we placed our bags on the trolley and checked out.

The airport was it's usual very busy self, the fact that it was 6am making no difference!

We got checked in, went through security and then headed for our boarding gates.  We were going to Washington and Dad to Johannesburg.  So our USA adventure with Dad was over.  It was very hard saying goodbye, so we made it quick and hurried off to our respective gates.  Knowing I would see Dad in 6 weeks back in SA was little comfort and I did cry like a big woosie. 

Anyway, I managed to focus on something else when Jules insisted on buying sandwiches and they said they were going to close the flight, and still Jules did not come!  They announced twice for passengers to get to the gate or get left behind and still no Jules!  I ran to the coffee stand and Jules said she had heard nothing!  So we ran back, leaving the sandwiches etc. behind and made our flight!

Post your own travel photos for friends and family Pictures

Amazing colours	Amazing colours times two	Dad and I at the Hermit rest entrance	Dad at the Canyon
Dad is all brave and tough near the edge	Dad takes a breather	Dad's photo of Jules and I	Desert View - Cardenas Butte
Desert View - The Lookout Tower	Desert View - The painted Desert in the distance	Desert View Lookout	Desert View of the Colorado River
Father son moment on the canyon edge	Grand Canyon - Far East on the way to Flagstaff	Grand Canyon - Far East side	Heli - Dad is all smiles in the helicopter
Heli - Jules is enjoying the flight	Heli - Notice the forest on the rim	Heli - Our chopper in the sky	Heli - Our chopper points forward .....
Heli - Our first sight of the Canyon	Heli - The airfield	Heli - The amazing colours of the rocks	Heli - The Bell chopper we flew in
Heli - The Colorado river far below	Heli - The edges of the North Rim	Heli - The Grand Canyon	Heli - The pilot takes a photo
Heli - The Sante Fe railroad	Heli - The sun shines on the Canyon	Heli - Tusayan from the air	Heli - we approach the rim
Hoover Dam - a steamboat on Mead Lake	Hoover Dam - completed in 1935	Hoover Dam - Crossing into Arizona	Hoover Dam - Dad & Jules read about Mead Lake
Hoover Dam - Jules and Dad in our people carrier	Hoover Dam - Jules and Dad wait "patiently"	Hoover Dam - Lake Mead flows against the wall	Hoover Dam - looking onto Mead lake from the Dam
Hoover Dam - Mead Lake which is on the H Dam	Hoover Dam - The Dam wall	Hoover Dam - The Nevada side	Jules keeps an eye on me
Just liked this scene	Mather point	Our hotel	Red canyon
Route 66 - Inside the Route 66 Cafe	Route 66 - Jules, Dad and I outside the R 66 Cafe	Route 66 - The famous road sign	Route 66 - The Route 66 Cafe
Shoshone Point	The Abyss	The Colorado River way below	The Grand Canyon, amazing
The river again	Tonto Platform	Us at the Park Entrance	Us on the South Rim
Yaki Point View	Yavapai Point Lookout

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