We made our way the 300 or so miles from Phoenix north to the Grand Canyon, before heading another 300 or so miles west to Las Vegas. I took a whole bunch of pictures of our drive to show how the landscape changed over those vast expanses, and I won't post them all here, but if you want to see you can check them out here.
Here's some highlights from our road trip:
Paul's about to enjoy a Navajo taco at the Cameron Trading Post at the edge of the Navajo reservation:
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
Here we are at an overlook at the Grand Canyon - you can kind of get an idea of the size of the drop off the edge on this one:
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
Funny story about this spot...as we were walking around the little platform, a couple came down the steps to share in the breathtaking view. The woman walked down first, and then her boyfriend followed, got to the platform and announced in a thick Rhode Island accent "This is retahded" and ran back up the steps. His girlfriend then said "He's afraid 'a heights." Ahh, nothing like a reminder of the East Coast. At least after that I didn't feel so bad about being nervous about looking over the edge!
Another of my favorites is this picture of Paul at a gas station just outside the Grand Canyon en route to Las Vegas. As we pulled into the station, a herd of cattle were crossing it. If that wasn't enough to make you feel like you were in real rural America, they had this fantastic elk statue with an American flag, just as the moon was coming up. So I absolutely had to get a shot of Paul holding a sarsaparilla soda in front of the statue. Ahh, America. This is about as opposite from England as you can get!
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
We stayed at the New York New York hotel in Las Vegas, which I thought was pretty cool. We were up on the 36th floor in a corner room with a view of the strip. Here's the view from one of the windows:
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
Las Vegas is a place that tries to take your money any way it possibly can. How else could they afford to build these ridiculous buildings? So, with this in mind, we booked the $60/night rooms and held on tight to our wallets. There's not as much free stuff to do as I thought there would be, and the food was very expensive at the buffets, but we saw the free stuff and ate at Subway so it wasn't too bad.
One free thing is the water fountain show at the Bellagio. It goes every 15 minutes and there's music to accompany the streams of water.
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
Our hotel had a roller coaster on the 4th floor, and while it wasn't free, our room package came with a 2-for-1 deal on the roller coaster. So, of course we had to try it! It'd been a few years since I'd been on a roller coaster, and I used to absolutely love them, but I was little nervous and wound up screaming so much my voice was raspy for a couple days later. But it was worth it! Here we are in front of the hotel (no, we didn't buy the souvenir photo from the ride).
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
A lot of the hotels are actually pretty expensive to stay at, but you can walk through their casinos for free. We had one full day in the city, and we spent it walking up and down the strip. We didn't even see all of the casinos in that amount of time! The MGM Grand has a particularly impressive casino because they have REAL LIONS in it! I really don't know how they can do it without some major SPCA pressure, but on the other hand, it is a true reflection on the ethics of Las Vegas. So here's my lion picture.
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
The Flamingo hotel also has its own FREE animal display, but theirs is actually kind of pleasant. Here's Paul with the flamingos
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
It's also free to walk through the indoor canals at the Venetian, see the pirate ship at Treasure Island, and peek into the wedding chapels. But not much else is free.
A highlight of our exploration was finding a bit of Indiana in Las Vegas (kind of). Here's Paul posing in front of Kokomo's (also the name of his home town in Indiana). The food was beyond our budget, but the picture was free!
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
Rather than going to a $30 buffet, we did the $15 1/2lb crab leg and steak dinner at the hotel for our big splurge, and that's probably the last time we'll go to Vegas. We can get ripped off enough at home.
After we left, we stopped at the Hoover Dam on the way back to Phoenix. It was $30 for the tour, so we decided to park, skip the tour and enjoy the free view before heading on our way.
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
Here you can see the new bridge they're building to bypass having to drive over the actual dam.
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
Our next stop on the 300+ mile journey back to Phoenix was Chloride, Arizona. It is like a miniature version of Tombstone, with an old ghost town in the middle. Strangely enough, the man who worked at the general store/tourist information place used to live in Massachusetts! Here's Paul striking a cowboy pose in the old ghost town (note the experimentation with the camera 'colorize' feature)
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
We decided not to stop at the local saloon before heading onward
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
And unexpectedly, as we drove back toward Phoenix, we wound up going through a Joshua Tree Forest. I had no idea these things grew in such dense areas; normally they're more like scrubby bushes, but these were nearly 10 feet tall or more.
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| From Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon |
And that about sums up our trip. It will probably be a while before we go on another trip, so I'm glad we made the most of it!
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