Tales from the Grand Canyon
July 26th, 2008 by AliciaI feel like I’m so far behind. We just got back from our week at the shore. The week at the Grand Canyon seems so long ago!
We flew into Las Vegas on July 2nd. We spent the night at the Stratosphere (only $38 including taxes and a ride to the top!). I gambled away some money while Mike watched Nora sleep in our room. What a nice husband! And I only lost enough money to make up for the deal they gave us on the room.
The top of the Stratosphere – Ouch, that’s hot!
After our night in Vegas, we travelled out to Tusayan, AZ to meet two of Mike’s brothers and their families. We had four days doing short hikes along the Southern rim of the Grand Canyon. Our first day at the canyon was the Fourth of July. Here’s Mike and Nora in their red, white, and blue (Mike had to borrow the shirt from his brother, because he forgot it was a holiday).
Nora had a lot of fun getting to know her cousins. And they were excited to see her. Even her older cousins were glad to help out with pushing a stroller and trying to console her when she had had enough. Here’s a picture of the cousins helping. It’s only part of our group. Six adults and seven children. You can imagine some of the looks we got when we asked for a table for thirteen!
I took a ton of pictures, but most of them were of the canyon from its many different viewpoints. Here’s one that shows the dummies that climbed over the guard rail. That drove me crazy!
And another with me and Mike.
If I could only get over this fence.
Here we are on the one hike that we did into the canyon. Mike and his brothers woke up early one day and hiked about 2 miles down. Then some of us met them at the top and made them go back down again, just so we could say we hiked into the canyon. We went about a third of a mile before we were ready to turn around!
This is a shot that Mike took when they were in the canyon.
After the Grand Canyon, we drove to the Meteor Crater outside of Flagstaff, AZ. Here we are standing over the crater that was formed about 50,000 years ago. The best part of the visit was when our sister-in-law (I won’t say which one) pointed out how fortunate it was that the meteor hit ground out in the middle of nowhere. Phew!
We ended our trip with a visit to the Hoover Dam and another night in Vegas. That night was spent at the Mandalay Bay. What a beautiful hotel! We went to their pool area that has several pools, a lazy river, a wave pool, and real sand! I don’t have any pictures from that, but we enjoyed it. We went to New York, New York for dinner and then to the MGM Grand to see the lions. I got to end the night with a drink with my sisters’-in-law down in the casino. Can you imagine that it took a whole week before we got to spend time alone together? I guess that’s what a family vacation is all about.