The Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon
Cactus all over the desert.
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam
Ram Crossing
Lake Mead in Nevada
So, our driving plan originally was going to be 12 hours of driving per day, so we could get to Mobile in 3 days. However, we have been sightseeing and it has put us behind schedule by 1 day.
Yesterday morning we woke up in Las Vegas and hit the road. We drove to the Hoover Dam which was about 40 minutes outside of Vegas. I kept telling Olivia I was really excited about seeing the Dam, and she was less than thrilled. We pulled in and tried to park in the tourist parking structure, but apparently federal law prohibits dogs from walking the bridge over the Hoover Dam, and/or even being in the parking structure. So Olivia and I took turns dropping each other off, and driving Sonny around while the other walked the Hoover Dam Bridge. Which saved us $7 for parking and neither of us had to walk anywhere! Olivia kept saying "I don't get all the hype about a Dam", but once she saw it she said it was beautiful and thought it was super cool. The Dam is really breathtaking and HUGE.
So we looked at the map, and headed towards the Grand Canyon. Apparently the Grand Canyon is 276 miles long, so we just wanted to see the Western part of the Grand Canyon. It was 2hours East of the Hoover Dam. We drove over towards the Canyon, and apparently the Western entrance to the Grand Canyon is owned by an Indian Reservation. So you literally have to take a 12 mile drive on this rough gravel road. It was so bad Olivia and I thought our tires were going to pop. On the way down this what seemed like forever road, we saw "ranch cows". We thought they were wild but apparently they belong to a ranch that was planted in the middle of the drive. These cows had miles and miles of free roam without any fences. So while we were driving all of a sudden all the cars were stopped in the middle of the road and when we got closer we saw it was because there were cows randomly on the shoulder. The first set of cows was a family with 2 small calves. We pulled off to get pictures and video. Olivia wanted to get out and pet them but I told her no way, the cows were mooing at our car when we got too close. For the rest of the trip to the Canyon we saw tons of the cows just off the road everywhere. Too cool. We finally made it to the entrance though, we were able to see the Canyons from a distance and they were gorgeous. You have to buy helicopter rides or bus packages to get into the park to go look at it. We knew we had to get back on the road, so we just drove down the road where you could see the Canyon in the distance. I have to say. the Grand Canyon is one of those things that really take your breath away. It is SO gorgeous. I know I will go there again, and hopefully camp.
So some random knowledge about our journey thus far... First of all my other sister Rachel gave me her Mazda earlier in the year, and it is PERFECT for long road trips. Olivia keeps telling me how she can't believe how tricked out the compact car is for comfort and convenience. We are able to plug in our GPS, a phone charger, it has an ipod dock station, and a 6 CD disk changer! We are set to go. None of our electronics lost battery today because we planned ahead.
The speed limits almost the whole day was 75 for us which was nice because we were truckin it! Once we got to New Mexico there was no more sun. Holy cow it is so dark in this state at night. We couldn't see hardly anything. If we looked out the window to the open fields we just saw black. Because it was so incredibly dark for miles after miles Olivia and I noticed the stars were SO bright! Probably the brightest we have ever seen. The whole sky looked like it was filled with glitter. So pretty.
Sonny actually found a spot on top of all of the junk we have piled to almost the ceiling in the back seat. It was comfortable for him because we threw a blanket over the stuff for security reasons so it gave us extra leg room for the whole day. It is little things like that that are victories when you are taking long distance road trips.
We decided to stop in Albuquerque, NM because it was getting late and it was just too dark out to keep going. We did about 13-14 hours of driving yesterday. We are just going to drive as far as we can today and see what ground we can cover.
(Click on pictures to enlarge)
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