Day 12 and 13....

So we left Vegas the next day around noon and headed into the mountains. It was a beautiful drive. However at this point I'm feeling like I've seen enough desert! We were on our way to the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. After a couple of hours of driving we came to this,

We were so excited to see water, it had been so long!!! This is the Colorado River that comes from the mountains in Colorado. This is where all those places in the desert get their water supply from because there is no water. Way back in the 1920's they built a dam to hold back this mighty river. It was nuts the amount of work that must have went into making the dam, especially when you considered when it was done. They said that the cement in the bottom of the dam still has not completely cured. Isn't that crazy? So here is a picture of the Hoover Dam. I wasn't able to get the full size of it with the camera because it's so deep.

In case you can't tell from the picture you drive over it. It's part of the main road. However since 911 transport trucks are not allowed on it anymore. I will admit that it was a little scary going across this thing that the cement has not yet cured in in our big motor home.

If you look to the left side of the dam you see this. As you may be able to tell as well due to the different color on the rock the water level was a little low that time of year because the major melt from the mountains had not yet occurred. So left side of the dam then the dam and then this is the other side

Quite the difference and a lot lower then the previous picture huh? It was really neat to see. So we pulled over and ate lunch there. It was beautiful.

We then continued onward and upward through the desert and rock. Finally we got high enough that there were trees again...YEAH! We stayed in a small town that night (in a MacDonald's parking lot this time) about an hour away from the Grand Canyon.

The next morning it was off to the Grand Canyon. We stopped at an Imax theatre near the Grand Canyon to watch a movie about the Grand Canyon. It was very interesting. I remember doing the same thing when we went to Niagara Falls. It allows you to see things much more in depth then when you're just standing on the sides of these things. So if you ever go to the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls please watch the Imax movies :) Anyways without further ado here are the Grand Canyon pictures. I don't think there's any need of explanation and I certainly don't feel like the pictures do it justice. It was so beautiful and amazing!

The last picture is with extreme zoom and it's the Colorado River again way at the bottom of the canyon. You could barely see it when you're standing at the top. Now the famous question, did we go to the bottom? NO! There was no way I was hiking down to the bottom of this thing. I'm not that adventurous nor athletic. You could also rent a donkey, however I would never do that because of my allergies and because I'd feel bad for the poor thing. Lastly you can pay 200 dollars and take a helicopter over the canyon. Well let's just say that we've only got a few days left in our 16 day adventure and the funds are running a little low so there was no way we would have been able to afford that.

After the Grand Canyon we headed back down the mountains for a few hours until we made it to Phoenix, where we spent the night.