After a
brief visit in L.A. it was eventually time to leave the beautiful coastline of
California and drive to the middle of a desert, to the blazing hot city of Las
Vegas. Our first Vegas evening was mostly charging batteries for the next day’s
trip so we just had a dinner and a walk in the stunning Las Vegas Strip. An
exception were our drivers who made the most of their release from duties, and
were also rewarded with a bottle of special Finnish one star drink by the rest of us.
On
Thursday, we had an early wake up call. It was time to go to Grand Canyon, one
of the greatest landmarks in the whole States. We had decided to carry out the
day’s eight hours of driving with four Ford Mustangs, classic sports cars which
turned out to be among the most common vehicles on the highway, but still
something very special for us Finns. We had also chosen to stop by
Hoover Dam which located along the way. After one hour drive from Vegas we arrived at the dam which did amaze us by its size, even though we already knew
that everything is much bigger here in the US.
In the
afternoon we finally arrived at Grand Canyon Visitor Center. After just a
couple of minutes’ walk we realized that the drive in the monotonous highway
was definitely worth it, a jaw-dropping view of the canyon opened just ahead of
us. Carved over millions of years by Colorado River, the Grand Canyon has pretty
unbelievable scales. It is 446 kilometers long and 1,857 meters deep, so
Finland’s highest fell Halti could easily fit in the canyon by height. Unbelievable! After
compulsory group photos and selfies in the first vista point we started
proceeding slowly along the canyon edge.
Some of our most daring hikers wanted to have a step on every possible overhang
we came across, while some others (writer included) more than happily agreed
just to take photos from farther off and are still getting stomach cramps just
by looking at those pictures. After two hours or so we took a free bus to our
parking lot and decided to start heading back to Vegas in order to still have
time to go out in the evening. Unlike everyone had imagined, the nature was
green at the top of the Grand Canyon (not cracking desert) and even the temperature
was at tolerable level. Still, hiking hours at the canyon would require being
in a really good shape, and unfortunately much more time than we had today.
After long
day on the freeway we returned the cars to the airport whole 20 seconds before
the time limit. As the day had been quite tiring, most of us went straight to
sleep. Some did go to casinos to try our luck with varying degrees of success. Finally, on
our last whole day we switched to full-on vacation mode and went together to
experience Las Vegas day-time pool parties. The pool venue Encore at Hard Rock
café –casino was a really nice experience with both areas to relax and to party
in. After pool party we went back to our apartment and packed our stuff to be
ready for departure the next day. But before that there was still the nightlife
of Las Vegas to be experienced as a group for the one last time…
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