After many years of thinking about it, we finally took the plunge (but not literally) and visited the Grand Canyon, Nevada, USA. Basing ourselves in Las Vegas (approx 1 hr away) it is perfect for day trips to the Canyon and also to the area known as Red Rock. I have to admit that after waiting so long to see it and having heard so much about it, I really expected he Grand Canyon to be much, much deeper i.e. 3 or 4 times deeper. Valeria on the other hand said it was as she expected (after 5 years of marriage she seems to have lowered her expectations on everything LOL :)
Photos below, Valeria on the left and myself on the right - as we stand at Guano Point on the West Rim of the Grand Canyon (which is part of the Hualapai Indian Reservation). Guano Point offers the most spectacular views of the West Rim.
All photos by Valeria Lo Iacono; Paul Symonds - 2009
...and something quite amazing happened during the trip: Something Valeria should be very proud of. Despite having a fear of flying she suddenly liked the sound of including the helicopter ride (the salesman was good) and the rest is history and pictures below of our 1st ever helicopter experience. We flew over the Grand Canyon and then we landed 4,000 feet below at the base of the Grand Canyon, where we went for a short trip on a pontoon boat on the Colorado River.
Below, in the boat as we cruise along the river at the bottom of the Grand Canyon (Colorado River).
Even when visiting the Grand Canyon, an Italian lass must eat and the food cooked by the native Hualapai Indian was very good! Below left - a photo from our visit to Red Rock Canyon (which is an area just outside of Las Vegas and in the Mojave Desert). Red Rock Canyon and its red rocks are coloured this way because this area was located under an ocean during the Palaeozoic Era (600 million years ago). When the Earth’s crust started to rise in the Mesozoic Era (around 250 million years ago), due to tectonic shifts, this area emerged from the water and the iron in some of the rocks oxidized, hence the colour red (Valeria wrote history part - I am only learning this bit myself now also :)
Below Valeria near a Joshua tree, in the Red Rock Canyon. Joshua trees are native of the south-western area of North America and they are very common in the Mojave Desert. They are cacti and belong to the Agavaceae family.
During our visit to the Red Rock Canyon, we stopped for lunch at the Spring Mountain State Park, a ranch founded in the 1800s and which has been owned as a ranch by various people, including the eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes and German actress Vera Krupp. Today the ranch is owned by the Government and it is part of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. In the photo below you can see a vintage car on the grounds of the Spring Mountain ranch and Paul launching a new sunglass fashion on the right (having lost one of the lenses somewhere in Red Rock).
Go to June 2009 Part 2 - Las Vegas and Virginia Beach.
And Part 3 - Glastonbury 2009 |
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