Sunday, August 10, 2008

"Epic Adventure Day 3 ~ Grand Canyon National Park!"

The alarm rang at 4AM. Well, that makes it only about 3 hours of sleep. Gosh, that felt terrible. Had a hot shower (clean at last) and we're off on our journey again! The Grand Canyon is a 5 hours drive from Vegas. We had to leave early as Raymond and BL had to catch their flight back to Penang from LAX that night. And the drive from Grand Canyon back to LAX will take 9 hours!

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We passed by Hoover Dam again and crossed the border to Arizona. Along the way, there are a few spectacular scenic vistas to enjoy.

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The Colorado river... and the long and empty road.

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Loong drive.... I was expecting Grand Canyon to be as hot (or worse) than Vegas, but the weather and landscape turned surprisingly better. Trees can be seen and it was nicely cooling... what a relief!

Had to change driver after 2 hours. I was dozing off while driving. :-S Raymond took over and it was then my turn to get some sleep. After some time, we reached the park entrance and pay $25 per car and drove to the main visitor's parking. A very short walk later and...

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The Grand Canyon!

The view from right to left..

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Summarized from Wikipedia: "The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided gorge carved by the Colorado River in the U.S. state of Arizona, and parts of Nevada. The canyon was created by the Colorado River over a period of six million years. Nearly two billion years of the Earth's history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted."

There's railings along the main trail so that you don't fall off...
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But these guys are courageous! Notice you can just fall off and that's it! No protection, no lifeguard of whatever... :-S

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Ok, the crowd was getting too big in the main trail, lets go and see how 'close' we can get...

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And this is it, as close as we dare to hike...!
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The presence of these trees make for very scenic pictures....

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After an hour of so, we walked to the nearby visitor's complex.

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A model of the Grand Canyon! Nice...

Had a quick breakfast/lunch and we're on our way again.
But wait!

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Have to take the signboard! And this is the one and only group picture we ever took... :P

Now for the Epic Nine Hour Drive back! Raymond and BL took turns driving back to LAX. I was sleeping, but I'm sure they were speeding like hell to catch their plane!

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We reached LAX at about 8pm, dropped them off and me and Gf continued our journey....

Next:

San Francisco!!

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