The Graaaaaaaand Caaaaaanyon!

It’s 5:30am. The alarm on my phone is going off and I can’t find it amongst my stuff that is strewn across the floor at the foot of my bed. I don’t want to wake James, although it is inevitable. It seems like only moments ago that my head hit the pillow, and now I have to drag my carcase out of bed and head down to the East Tower drop-off point for 6:10am. The Grand Canyon Tour Company have my $80 and they will be ferrying me to one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.

James had decided not to join me as he had a pilot for a sit-com to write and the $80 fee was a little too high for his liking. So I set off on the shuttle to the departure point, to check in with all the other “Grand Canyoners” and receive our breakfast – a (nother) cereal bar and a small cup of coffee. My plan to get some sleep on the coach was scuppered by the driver giving us a brief history of the canyon, Las Vegas and route 66. Then he put on the film Herbie: Fully Loaded, with Lyndsay Lohan, at possibly full volume so that all the old-timers could hear it. Even my itunes couldn’t drown out the inane dross that was invading my eyes and ears so I tried as best I could to get some shut-eye to catch up on the missed sleep from the night before. After a couple of stop-offs for restrooms and some lunch at a mom ‘n’ pop place we finally pulled into Grand Canyon National Park.

Number 2......apparently!

In hindsight we should have looked at organising the trip from Flagstaff as the route from Las Vegas basically back-tracked our Greyhound route that we had done only days before from Flagstaff and took in 270 miles each way, rather than the 80 miles it could have been. But hey, these things happen and I’m glad that Philippa and Adam kept pushing me to go and see it. It sent shivers down my spine when I finally got to the edge of the viewing area and peered down into the mile-deep crevasse. We were at the South Rim where it was not only one mile deep but ten miles wide too, giving spectacular views all around. Unfortunately, the rains had followed me from Las Vegas and had been steadily tracking the coach through all our stop-offs and into the National Park. Luckily, the clouds ceased their downfall when we got to the rim, but sadly the sun could not penetrate through and kept the temperature at a meagre 66^oF. There were some breaks in the cloud which lit up the canyon and made for some beautiful shots before we were herded back onto the coach to get to our next drop-off point for a different view of the canyon. One more hour of pictures and contemplation later and we were to get back on the bus and start the long, long journey back to Vegas. Again, my plan to catch up on some sleep was denied by the driver and two more overly-loud movies – Route 66 and Cheaper By The Dozen 2. Unfortunately we were unable to stop off at the Hoover Dam due to new security measures that had been introduced since 9/11 which would increase the tour by another 2 hours or so, but we did get to see it from the bypass, all lit up and with security all over the place. A little sad, but I guess that is the way it is these days, I mean look at London and the build-up to the Olympics.

Now that's one BIG canyon!

The bus tour was due back in to Las Vegas at around 9pm and was then to drop off all guests at their hotels. But as my pick-up had been one of the last ones I assumed that I would be first to be dropped off too. I was very, very wrong. The problem was two-fold: One, that there were over 50 people on the coach and that meant a lot of different hotels to go to, and two, it was Saturday night in Las Vegas and the coach needed to get on and off The Strip several times, which meant a lot of waiting in stationary traffic. The Swedish girl (originally from Lebanon) who had been my coach companion was off at the first stop and as the driver read through the list of stops I noticed that the LVH was very low down on the list (and I think he said the Las Vegas Hilton, which is NOT the Las Vegas Hotel where I had been picked up from). So by the time I alighted the coach, at the nearby Marriott as it was near to the LVH and we weren’t even heading there next, it was gone 10pm. A swift walk to the nearby AM/PM to pick up three 24oz cans of Tecate (I had learnt from the Steel Reserve episode and knew that Tecate was around 5%) and I was back in the hotel room, where James had been waiting, fully dressed and ready to hit the town. After a quick shower and guzzling down the Tecate we headed out to pick up from the night before.

Brits on The Strip

As we knew the system for ordering beers we tried our luck in Treasure Island, but were knocked back slightly when the waitress said we could only order one drink as I was the only one playing the slot machine. James hurriedly whipped out a dollar to say that he was also playing and that he would like to order a beer also. The woman knew what we were up to, and it was probably pretty obvious that people slow-playing a 1c slot machine are only after the free drinks. She waited ages to come back too, maybe to keep us playing more, or maybe just to teach us a lesson. Still, lesson learned and we made sure that we were both either playing or looked like playing when we were approached in the future. The night took in the Bellagio, Flamingo’s and Bill’s casinos, the latter one was the place that decided to kick us out. For why, you might ask. Being rowdy? Winning too much money? Nope, they just didn’t “accept” UK Driving Licenses this far down on The Strip. As the security guard Tim G told us, we would need a passport if we wanted to stay, drink or play any more in the casino. As I had just hit big on the slot machine ($13) we decided that we would finish our Long Island Iced Tea and Rusty Nail (me the former, James the latter), cash in my voucher and move on to the next place. And as it was about 3am and we were both flagging a little we made our way along Las Vegas BLVD back towards the LVH for a possible nightcap – we still had one more can of Tecate, although it would be room temperature by now. Thankfully, the people in the room next door weren’t being their usual loud selves, so we were good to get some much-needed sleep and prepare for our final full day in Vegas.