Holy Heli

Today officially started at 6:40. On a bus. Oh joy.

After dragging ourselves through a shower at 5 a.m. (!), we moseyed down to “American”—one of the few restaurants in the hotel that remains open for 24 hours—and ordered breakfast through our lovely waitress, Ness. Ness works from 11 until 7—the drunk shift. We didn’t envy her.

At 6:30, we boarded the bus that took us to the airport where we’d start our helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon! We thought we were going to be the only people on a bus built for 30 or so until a transfer bus pulled up, and our bus rapidly filled up.

Our pilot was Nate, who was pretty fun and knowledgeable. And happily, only our group was on the copter. Nate distributed us by weight, so Kevin got the front seat, but really there were no bad seats. This was our helicopter.

And this is us with Nate.

And just after takeoff.

Aside from the history and geography at the area, we talked with Nate about UFOs (he hasn’t seen any but is interested in the subject and hopes some day to see something he can’t explain) and the strangest thing to be revealed by the low water level in Lake Mead—a small Navy plane that had crashed in the lake in the 50s but that was kept secret until last year.

I know it’s a cliché to say, but pictures really do not do the Grand Canyon justice. Yes, you can get a sense of the colors, the play of light and shadow, the plant life, and all that from pictures, but the sheer scale of the place and the sense of the power and time it took to be born is overwhelming once you see it in person, especially from above.

The helicopter ride wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it!

A quick apology for the photos. It was hard to hold my camera steady with the zoom lens extended, so some are out of focus. Additionally, WordPress has changed their interface (or something is wrong with my theme), so some basic functions seem to be hidden, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to delete the bad images. I’ll try to take care of that on the drive tomorrow and also add some of Mark’s iPhone pics, which are better.

We got back to the hotel a little after 10, but since we’d all eaten breakfast at 5:30, we were hungry and headed out to explore and get an early lunch. We first tried a kind of Italian food hall called “Eatily,” but Mark and I couldn’t find anything that sounded good. While Kevin and Jeff ate there, Mark and I wandered the strip for about an hour then just ended up at Hard Rock Cafe. It was easy, and there was no wait. I had a vanilla milkshake. I also had a pretty good pulled pork sandwich, but the shake was the main attraction for me. It was around 1:15 when we got back to New York New York. The boys texted us to say they were going to the pool, but we stayed in the room and napped or read for a bit.

We had an early dinner and then went to a Cirque du Soleil show, KA. It wasn’t the best Cirque show I’ve seen, but it was still enjoyable. I’m really happy Kevin and Jeff liked it. I picked it out but didn’t know what their reaction would be. Afterward, we people watched for a while, and I had another milkshake.

Tomorrow, we drive to Springdale, Utah and get ready to hike Zion National Park. This should be interesting. At least the pics should be better.