Vegas--Day 2

On Monday we took a day-long excursion over to the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. I was really excited about this for a few reasons--1) I had never been to the state of Arizona and 2) we have a national parks theme at school this year and being the team leader I chose the Grand Canyon National Park because I was going to visit it on this vacation. Needless to say we got a TON of pictures that I can use to decorate my classroom this year.

We loaded the tour bus early in the morning because it is a long drive to the Grand Canyon, but thankfully our tour guide did a good job of giving us the history of Vegas and other areas we traveled through. I can honestly say that I learned a lot. We made a brief photo stop at the Hoover Dam, which was quite cool. While the pictures of the dam are amazing, nothing compares to seeing this man-made wonder of the world in person. Our tour guide also reminded us that the Hoover Dam was one on the targets on 9/11 and upon seeing the dam Justin and I both realized how lucky our nation is that the plane that was supposed to destroy the dam never left the ground. While that day is a very horrific one in our nation's history, it could have been much worse. If the Hoover Dam had been destroyed much of the land west of it would be gone today.

After our brief stop at the dam, we were then off to the Grand Canyon. The tour guide played a video of the Hoover Dam and the movie "National Treasure" on the trip, so time went by fairly quickly. Once at the Grand Canyon we were allowed a full three hours to hike the park, shop, etc. We spent the time simply going to various points along the South Rim and taking in the spectacular view of the enormous natural wonder. All I can say is that it was simply breath-taking. And as I mentioned two post earlier, it was at this point that I sprained my ankle getting back on the bus to head back to Vegas. Luckily, only Justin and two other very nice women saw me.

On the way back to Vegas, our tour guide showed us two movies--"National Lampoons Vegas Vacation" and "Oceans Eleven" as well as a video on the Grand Canyon. I am so thankful that we had these to watch because we got stuck in traffic near the Hoover Dam (we simply crept along for 5 miles), but it wasn't too bad since we had some entertainment. It also rained on our way back and when we arrived in Vegas it was storming, which only happens 2-4 times a year there. Overall, we had a fantastic day and we would highly recommend taking a trip to these two landmarks to anyone planning on going to Vegas. We would also highly recommend the tour company we went on--it was very reasonable in price and our tour guide was fantastic.