Today our plan is to head out to the Grand Canyon while Mum and Joan visit elsewhere. We hop in the car and head into the desert. The landscape here is amazing, very mountainous and rocky with little vegetation apart from the amazing looking Joshua trees and a few other spiky plants here and there. We stop a few times to snap pictures but it is hard to really catch the feeling of such immense space!!
We arrive at the National park just before lunch and purchase tickets for lunch, viewing and the skywalk. Our first stop is the skywalk. The skywalk is a glass bottomed walkway which juts out into the canyon. We patiently wait our turn, slip shoe protectors on and hesitantly head out onto the glass. A few steps in and it is clear that 1. The glass walk isn't scary and 2. It is going to take about 5 minutes. If the Grand Canyon wasn't so magnificent then this would really not be worth the price. The platform does offer excellent views across the canyon which is truly enormous. No glossy pictures or TV documentaries can really do justice to the amazing colours, shapes and immense size of this natural wonder. It truly is awesome. We finish our walk and then head over to the edge, yes-the edge, there are no fences or barriers anywhere along the canyon here and we snap a few pictures before heading back to the bus for the next stop. Here we walk to the viewing areas, again no barriers anywhere and watch helicopters fly around in the canyon looking like mosquitoes!
We pile in the car and begin the trek home again...was it worth the 8 hour round trip for 2 hours of viewing... absolutely!! Would I do the skywalk again...no, but I am glad I did it once.
Back in Vegas, Mum and Joan have secured us tickets to see illusionist Jan Rouvin so we quickly change and head off. We have been lucky so far with tickets, buying them from the daily, cheaper ticket booth means that seat allocation is somewhat a gamble and tonight this is quite evident. We are stuck at the back on a corner of un-tiered seating which makes it a bit hard for the girls (and me...lol) to see. We shuffle the chairs a bit and manage to get a view just in time for the show. The show, like most modern magic shows includes some dancing among the tricks and some humour as well. There is also quite a bit of audience participation with a number of guests being chosen to help with some illusions. Jan Rouvin is German and he is quite charismatic, managing to mess up his English cleverly, such as asking us to all help him by holding our breasts (breath) while he performs his stunt!! Sienna thought that one was quite funny and will be reminding us of it for weeks I'm sure!! His illusions were very clever and the girls were able to meet him after for a photo and autograph.
Another great day, much less walking but somehow just as exhausting..only 1 day left in Vegas..that went so quickly.