We’re off on another adventure! This time we are travelling with my sister, Jen, and her husband Tom, along with our niece and nephew, Beth (9) and Sean (11) on what I’m calling the National Parks Vacation. We are flying into Las Vegas and heading to the Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, petrified forest, four corners, Bryce Canyon National Park, Arches National Park, Zion National Park and probably some other things I’m forgetting.
It was an early morning start as our flight was at 6:45a.m. As we pulled up to the airport we noticed that there was Honor Flight taking WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam War veterans to Washington D.C. We ran into a couple of fellow 128th members helping out with the flight and even helped pushed a wheelchair down to the gate since we were leaving out of the neighboring gate. Tom and Jen have run into travel hick-ups in the past (missed flights, snow storms, etc) so we were expecting that we might run into some as well since we are travelling with them. They were flying to Las Vegas direct from Minneapolis, while Tom and I were leaving from Milwaukee and connecting in Minneapolis to meet them for the same flight. Before we left Milwaukee I got a text from Jen that said the adventure was starting as Beth had thrown up at 3:00a.m. I’m happy to report that there was no further puking, all went smoothly, and we had no flight problems and we all made it to Las Vegas together. Obtaining the rental car wasn’t quite as smooth. I had made a reservation with Thrifty and when we got to the car rental service center, found that the line of customers for Thrifty to be quite obnoxious. A lady who had just gotten her car walked past us and told us she had waited for two hours. We decided to forgo the Thrifty rental and instead headed to Avis where there was no wait. We did pay a bit more, but time is money. We were soon on our way.
Our first stop was the Hoover Dam where we took the 30 minute Power Plant tour. We were able to see one of the turbines that was out for maintenance. Apparently these only come out once every 17 years or so, so were fortunate to be able to see it. The visitor center was quite a bit different than I remember from a past visit here more than a decade ago. When we left the parking garage I turned left, taking us over the dam, as I had driven this way in the past to be on our way to Arizona. Little did I know, until we hit the dead end, that they no longer flow traffic that way. So we turned around and went back over the dam and on our way towards the Grand Canyon.
We were hoping to catch the sunset at the Grand Canyon, but we got there about 5-10 minutes too late. Wish I would have turned left instead of right out of that parking garage at Hoover Dam. We might have caught the sunset. Oh well, we were still able to see it and my favorite quote of the day happened. Upon coming up to the railing and seeing the canyon Sean exclaimed “Well . . .it’s grand.” We’re looking forward to coming back tomorrow at sunrise to see it again.
It has been a long day and we’re all exhausted. Time to hit the sack before another early morning to enjoy the sunrise!
