Hello All!
We're currently in Las Vegas!
The last four days have been an absolute blast.
On the 25th, we arrived in Sedona, Arizona, driving through the beautiful Red Rock Canyons surrounded by Butes, mountains, and hillsides. Sedona is a small "artsie" town full of shops, restaurants, and "beautiful people", things to do, and earthly beauty beyond belief!
In the morning we explored the town some more, and ended up finding some really cool "Taos" Native American drums, that dad (Scott) had to have and subsequenly added to his collection. We broke them out with the guitar and "jammed" in the Sedona marketplace...and made three bucks (does that make us pros??? ;]
Around noon we departed Sedona, just making a few more stops at the scenic view points along the way. However at the last peak, we ran into quite a treat. An exotic car club pulled in with about twenty Lambroginis, a few Ferraris, and a Buggattti Veyron 16.4! If you've never heard of the latter, it's the most expensive, as well as the fastest, production car in the world, At a whopping 1.8 million dollars -- it can hit 250 mph.
From there, we went took a quick deviation to Meteor Crator, and then straight to the Grand Canyon. We got there pretty late, so we camped outside the park.
In the morning on the 27th we headed into Grand Canyon National Park. To put into words how incredible it is to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon(Especially at the "Grand View" point) looking across nearly ~16 miles, and down ~15,000 feet, is a very hard thing to do. "Majestic" is the only thing we figured came close.
We travelled along the entire South Rim, stopped a "bajillion" times for photos, and we also did a good bit of hiking around the edges, stood out on all the ledges we could find. We went to "Hopi Point" for the sunset over the canyon, which according to Yahoo's poll of the top twenty most beautiful vantage points, it is the #1 vista in the world. Sadly it was a bit cloudy, and we didn't see all we had hoped to, but it was incredible non the less. We had dinner at the Arizona Room in the Bright Angel lodge before heading back to the Mather Campground in the park.
Having done most everything to do on the South Rim except for the 8 hour mule rides into the canyon (long advanced reservations required), we headed to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon on the Hualapai Indian Reservation (pronounced "Wal-i-pie") for a 1-day 45-mile white water rapids rafting excursion on the Colorado River in the Canyon, that concluded with Shan's 1st helicopter ride -- from the river at the bottom of the canyon to the west rim. From there, we went to the Hualipai "Sky Walk" -- Wow!
Along our way, we passed through Siegelman, AZ, along Histoeic Route 66, which is an absolutely awesome town. Seligman currently claims to be the birthplace of "Historic Route 66", as it was the starting place of the petition to bring the highway back out from decomission. We spent a few hours in Siegelman, going throgh all the vintage shops and memoribilia, and met some really amazing local folks, including Frank & Lyn (USMC, Ret), who own and the local coffee shop there.
From there we drove a couple more hours, and arived at the Hualipai Indian Reservation Lodge for the night.
Sunday morning we got up and went into the Lodge to assemble to begin the day of White Water Rafting adventuring! They bused us into the canyon by 9 AM, and we were on the Colorado River. The ride was about 45 miles, and took around 5 hours. Going through 9 sets of rapids, including a class seven. Being inside the canyon, and much less on the river, was incredible. The upward view of the canyon walls and Vistas is different than anything else that we experienced. Part of the ride also included stepping off and hiking to a waterfall inside the canyon wall, which is another beautiful sight most probably don't see. The ride was a blast, and we met quite a few real interesting people on our raft.
After the ride, they airlifted us out of the canyon via helicopter, then bused us back to the lodge. However, before the lodge, they brought us to the newly constructed Grand Canyon Skywalk, which we found pretty cool, but not worth all the hype.
That night we drove a few hours towards the Hoover Dam, and camped at the Davis RV Camp in Arizona along the Colorado RiverNevada State Line. In the morning, we swam in the 65 degree Colorado River.
Today's been a lot of fun as well, slept in a bit and headed to the Hoover Dam, then we drove the Airstream across and walked around the engineering marvel, also getting to see the new bridge mid-construction across Colorado River in front of Lake Mead. In addition to walking it, we took an exhilarating helicopter ride above Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam, getting a great areal view, and plenty of pictures.
From there, we drove the 40 miles into Las Vegas! Where we're figuring out what to do for the evvening. Stay tuned!
New Pictures up on our Photobucket:
http://photobucket.com/airstreamadventurers
'Till next time,
Scott & Shan
PS: Leave us a comment to let us know you're there!
