Hoover Dam to Williams....

Left Las Vegas with sore feet- walked about 30 ks in two days, and in summary Fremont Street was a highlight, but the colour, lights, people and movement is a once(and once only we think) in a lifetime experience.

Left LV, and it was pretty easy, and then headed generally east towards the Hoover Dam....contrary to initial expectations it is not a big stack of vacuum cleaners 

Those dam Hoovers!!!

It wasn't all that far from LV, and it certainly is an amazing structure.  Built between 1931 and 1936, it is  221 m high and 397 m wide.     Lots of concrete.   It used to have the main highway running across the top, but a proposed by-pass was fast tracked when after 9/11 it was apparent that having un restricted vehicular access was a security issue. So an almost equally amazing bridge, the O'Callaghan Tilman bridge/ bypass was built, making vehicle access to the dam accessible via a security checkpoint.  This bridge has a walkway 297 m above the river level, and is 570 m long, offering great views of the Dam.

O'Callaghan Tilman bridge.

The Hoover Dam ( center)

The cars atop the dam, give an idea of scale

Then in preparation for our journey into the Grand Canyon, we decided to stay at a place called Williams, Arizona, famous for the following places and history.....

Main Street Williams az. 

The Eagles song if you change Williams for  Winslow, has Williams with some fame..but we will travel through Winslow tomorrow....

Well, I'm a standin' on a corner
In Winslow, Arizona
Such a fine sight to see
It's a girl my Lord
in a flat-bed Ford
Slowin' down to take a look at me

GRAND CANYON- IN ARIZONA

Now, Arizona is in a diffent time zone, but because they don't have daylight savings it's still the same time, so the sun was up at 5:30 am....and it was cold, down to at least zero but as basic as the accom  was we was warm, and no wet towels on the floor.

 

THE GRAND CANYON 

Due to the unreasonably early rising of the sun, we were out and running by 6:30 and hit the Park by about 8:00 am.

It is a very slick operation, huge car parks, water bottle filling points.(they don't sell bottled water) visitor centre and a bus terminal... All the main points are serviced by regular bus loops, and private vehicles not permitted past certain points.....  We are planning to walk the Hermits Rest trail head to Hermit Basin or Santa Maria point...so if you find this device with our bodies, you will know what happened.....more later...maybe.

For the coroner...and Nathalie has both the passports, so an insurance if you like.

The first view of this place is very special.... It is like Werribbe River Gorge, just a tad bigger.  Several tads, and a couple more.    

There are several options in respect of walks one can do.  There are the walks from the major visitor centres and those are mostly along the rim, not decending into the Canyon.  What was really annoying and almost ruined the experience was the number of helicopters and other aircraft zooming around.  We were considering taking a flight, however seeing the impact these flights have on the enjoyment of the experience for those poor people on the ground, we decided to remain terrestrial.    

We caught the in-house blue bus to the red bus and the red bus to the end of the line, which is Hermit's Rest.  From there we took the Hermit Basin walk only decending 380 m out of a possible 730 m.  Sounds pretty wussy but we managed the up and down in two and a half hours.... 

Some good advice..

Paved for our comfort.

Nathalie checking her emails....but no wi-fi at the bottom.

Yoga show off...with her clothes on.  Grand Canyon back drop.

This is a place that has to be visited to appreciate the scale and natural beauty of the 

place.  Bit like Frankston 

Obviously made it out alive...now on wifi at Maccas in Flagstaff Arizona, heading to Holbrook 'bout hour down the road....thence to Alburquerkie and turning left.  Maybe....