A Day Trip to the Grand Canyon!

A year ago, a huge dream of ours came true when we finally got to visit the Grand Canyon. I'd been pretty much obsessed with seeing the Grand Canyon with my own eyes ever since I first saw Thelma & Louise a long, long time ago. When we decided to spend our Thanksgiving break in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, we immediately looked into the possibility of also including the Grand Canyon in our plans. As always, we didn't want to drive ourselves, so we needed to find a nice tour. We ended up going with Grand Canyon Tour Company, specifically their South Rim Bus Tour for around $80/person.

The tour day was super long, more than 14 hours altogether! The bus picked us up from in front of a hotel close to the Strip in Vegas at around 6 am and drove around for quite a bit, collecting more people from their hotels. We then got taken to the company's main office where we got our wristbands for the day (people have different things that they've paid for, such as helicopter rides, movies etc.) and were divided into different groups and buses based on what kind of things we'd booked. We were on one of the first buses to leave, yay!

Our first stop was the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, which is on the border between Nevada and Arizona. We got to get off the bus, walk around a little bit and take pictures. I'd never even heard of Hoover Dam prior to visiting it so it was a nice extra bonus!

The Hoover Dam.

We then continued on our way towards our first Grand Canyon viewing point of the day, Mather Point. The drive was LONG - altogether at least 4 hours one way - and we were dozing off...or trying to, as the bus driver was showing loud action films throughout the trip, aaaargh! Not my idea of fun when I've slept for a couple of hours, or ever...We survived, though.

Once we'd entered the National Park, we had a quick lunch stop at The Explorer's Café at the Visitor Center, after which we drove straight to Mather Point.

Pink Jeeps.

This was my first visit to a U.S. National Park, and I have to say I was surprised to find out how touristy it was. I was honestly expecting a remote wilderness without any people (even if I was arriving on a tour bus myself, hehe...) and hadn't been prepared for massive parking lots and so many people that you need to queue for a spot next to the railing for an unblocked view and nice pictures. What a shock!

Nevertheless, the Grand Canyon is by far the most amazing thing I've ever seen! It's so vast, so sublime, so beyond anything you could ever imagine based on pictures. I couldn't believe my eyes when I finally saw it!

Happy Julcsi!

From Mather Point, we continued to Bright Angel Lodge, where we had the chance to see the Canyon again from a different spot as well as visit the shop there before heading back to Vegas.

Visiting the Grand Canyon was such a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime experience, and a huge dream come true for us both. We are so, so grateful that we could go!

My next posts will be all about Las Vegas and how we, very unexpectedly, fell in love with it! Stay tuned!