Las Vegas - Day Five

CANYON DAY!

We’d booked the Cirque show months ago, but decided to leave booking the Grand Canyon tour until we arrived – there was bound to be plenty of choice and might even be worth getting recommendations locally.

And we were right – the concierge said that we could either drive, fly, or drive and fly, and gave us a few options for each. Ultimately we opted for Pink Jeep Tours and at 6.30 in the morning, a big pink jeep pulled up outside our hotel. We opte for this because it was a smaller tour and it was reasonably priced. They had a tour capacity of 10 but 10 minutes later we picked up the only other three people on our tour today.

After an hour or so on the freeway, we hit a queue of traffic that was being held by the police – we were quite near the front so can only have missed what had happened by a few minutes or so. There we sat for around half an hour, with our trip to the Canyon in jeopardy, wondering if we’d have to head straight to the Hoover Dam. Thankfully it wasn’t long before the police started to let traffic through and we were on our way, but not before we got a glimpse of the accident that had caused the stoppage – a burnt out lorry and two wrecked cars. News came through later that the driver of one of the cars had been driving the wrong way up the freeway, had collided with the lorry which had caused the second car to collide too. We wondered how someone could drive the wrong way when, between the carriageways, there’s a ditch, often a barrier, and frequent signs declaring “WRONG WAY”. Sadly the driver at fault died at the scene but everyone else got away with minor injuries.

Our day was to split into three stops:

1. Eagle Point

2. Guano Point

3. Hoover Dam

Eagle Point is so named because, across the Canyon, there is a long ridge that doesn’t look to dissimilar to an eagle, spreading its wings, ready for flight. It’s also the home of the Sky Walk – a semi-cicular glass walkway that shows nothing below you but the side wall of the Canyon and on to the Canyon floor. The nearest ledge was 1,500 feet below us, the Canyon was another 2,500 feet below that. The best part of a three-quarters of a mile. If you fell over the edge you’d have a long time to think about how much that sucks.

It was about another half an hour to Guano Point – so called because for a short time in the 1960s, it was home to a mining operation. On the far side of the Canyon was a cave from which they mined guano (bat poo). It closed down after a training flight for the USAF clipped and severed the cable from one side of the Canyon to the other. A costly legal battle with the military followed, was lost and resulted in the mine’s closure.

At Eagle Point, there was fencing and barriers and even people making sure that you couldn’t just Wile E. Coyote off the edge (gravity only works if you look down). At Guano Point, there was some sporadic signs that half-heartedly declared the sudden drop, but that was it. You were free to wander around the site but you were effectively on your own.

It’s hard to really take in the Grand Canyon – it’s just so vast! The Colorado River winding it’s way through, 4,000 feet below you. The different geological periods marked at various stages up the Canyon wall. Just the sheer size of everything. It’s almost overwhelming.

Heading back towards the city, we stopped at the Hoover Dam. Again, it’s just enormous. There’s a museum that explains how it came about and how it was built. It’s fascinating to learn that it’s not actually attached to the valley walls – it’s just being held in place by the immense water pressure. In theory, if there was no water, you could lift the dam out of place. The tour also dispelled the myth that there are bodies buried in the dam – if that were the case, it could weaken any part of the overall structure and when you’re holding back so much water, weakeness is something to be actively avoided! But there were deaths, however how they were reported and where they were reported wasn’t always consistent – sometimes the cause of death would be illness, rather than industrial (if they caught pneumonia in the hospital) to avoid paying compensation, or they’d be carried over the state line whereby Colorado would pay compensation to the families.

There is one body buried at the dam though – a stray dog that was adopted by the workers and hitched a ride every day from the nearby worker’s town. He was run over by a truck that didn’t realise he was catching a nap in the shade of the wheels. Permission was requested ad granted and a grave was dug at the site of the dam (but, again, not IN the dam).

We were really lucky with the Pink Jeep Tour – Leah, our tour guide, was super friendly and really knowledgeable, and not just on the Canyon and the Dam. She was quite happy to point out the desert flora and fauna, and how some weren’t even native but had adapted and how some native would struggle in almost any other environment. I have to admit that I fell asleep at various points of the trip, but it felt like she hadn’t stopped imparting Nevada and US trivia all the way. We really enjoyed the day and can’t speak highly enough of her. Unfortunately she won’t be there for long as she’s hoping to write and publish children’s books. Amazing.

Getting back to the hotel was more of a challenge than getting out of the city. Half the Strip had been closed, from the Bellagio to NYNY, so that the Las Vegas Golden Knights could have their Stanley Cup winning parade. Thousands lined the street – we were told that it could rival New Years’ Eve and we could well believe it!

While we waited for the roads to re-open and the crowds to disperse (away to get more beer, presumably), we went back to America for dinner. Rosie went for the rib-eye offer again and I would have too but I thought I’d try something else. There was a steak on the menu that was covered in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. So I thought, “when in Rome” and ordered that. It wasn’t bad, but I couldn’t help looking wistfully at Rosie’s steak.

After dinner we headed back up the Strip to The Mirage, hoping the technical issues had been fixed and the show would go ahead. And it did! It’s a great show of flame-throwers over water and smoke and lights!

Realising just how tired we were, we headed back to the hotel, stopping at the Bellagio to take in another fountain show (Katy Perry, Firework), and crashed. Our final night at the hotel before packing up and checking out in the morning.