We're HOME!!!!
It feels so good to be back. Raney couldn't stop wagging her tail, and Reba kept wanting us to pet her! It was a really great trip to the Grand Canyon... it was so beautiful and amazing!
(If you're curious about pictures, we'll have other posts about them so this one isn't 12 pages long)
Day 1
We left Bellingham and flew to Las Vegas. We rented a red minivan (our "spy van") and drove to an awesome state park called Valley of Fire State Park. (of Nevada). While we were there, we saw a bighorn sheep. He was really old, but it was so cool! At one point, he was probably about 6 or 7 feet away. We climbed on these amazing rocks and took pictures. It was really fun. The park is northeast of Las Vegas.
After a couple hours there, we drove to our hotel and dropped off our luggage. We went then to Mandalay Bay Resort/Casino to eat at the Burger Bar. It was a good dinner... we had burgers, fries, and we shared a chocolate shake.
Once we were finished eating, we went to other hotels (and casinos...although we didn't take much part in the latter :D) like Monte Carlo, New York New York, the Belagio, and other ones. We saw a water show, where the water "danced" to a song. It was cool. After that, we caught a cab to our hotel and fell asleep.
Day 2
First, we went to M&M world, where we both got different colored (not otherwise buy-able) M&Ms. There were SO many colors!
After that, we left Las Vegas to go towards the Grand Canyon!!!!! It was about a 4 hour drive, but we stopped at some places, like In-N-Out Burger to eat lunch, and the Hoover Dam. We took a tour of the Power Plant system there... it was interesting, but we had to wait for a LOOONNG time. But the dam itself is really cool! It is really really really tall! And wide! And big!
We arrived at the Grand Canyon at 8:30pm, very ready to be there.
Day 3
We got up at about 7:30 to eat breakfast and then to hike a trail called Bright Angel Trail. Breakfast was at a big lodge called Bright Angel Lodge. The trail was a pretty popular place to hike-- there were lots of people there-- but we got up at a good time, because it was warm but not hot. The rocks were so cool and very tall! We were walking along part of the the inside of the South Rim, so we kept getting further and further away from where we started. It took a while for us to hike it. We never got to the bottom (by the Colorado River) because it was taking so long. Mostly because all us Chutes were taking about a thousand pictures every minute each!
After the hike, we ate lunch at the Bright Angel Lodge. We took a bus tour (they had free buses that took the people all over the South Rim of the park) and got to see a lot of cool stuff on the western side of the rim.
We got back (late, because we got off the bus to take another little paved trail to take MORE pictures of the sunset!) We arrived at OUR lodge (even though we were staying in a motel-like building behind-ish it), called the Maswik Lodge, at around 8:00 PM!!!!! It was so late, and we were tired, and THE LINES FOR EVERY TYPE OF FOOD PLACE WAS LOOOONG AND LIKE AN HOUR WAIT!!! We ended up at the Maswik Cafeteria (bleech...) and ate at the "Pizza Pub". During our wait, we looked at the gift shop and played Scrabble on our dad's phone. :)
Day 4
We ate, again, at the Bright Angel Lodge for breakfast. (Hey folks, this is a national park... there's not many options!)
We got on a different bus, one that took us to a trail called South Kaibab Trail. It was on the eastern side of the South Rim. We went for a little ways, but it was really windy, so the dust would fly up in your face. The trail was really cool here because you could see all the people below you in switchbacks. :) There were mules that came up the trail, too!!! There were two packs of mules carrying supplies and one pack with people on it! They walked next to all of us. It was cool.
We took another paved trail afterwards that went along the Rim. We both ran it, so when we turned back around to catch up with our parents and Celeste, they were waiting there, ready to take our pictures as we ran by. We were both rather reluctant to do it about 12 more times (LITERALLY.) so they could each get a perfect picture of us running by the Canyon.
We all took a bus back to another lodge, Yavapai, that we ate in the cafeteria (again, bleech). We (H&S) had pizza slices that weren't cooked at the bottom, so they were all floppy and greasy and gross. Oh well.
We went with Mama to a General Store because we both really needed chap stick. It was so dry and windy out there! We had chapped lips, sun-and-wind-burned faces by the end of the trip). We also got beef jerky (for Celeste. :D), Gatorade (for Papa. :D) and socks (for Mama. :D)
After a nap, we went for dinner at the Bright Angel Lodge called the Arizona Room. Our waiter did not smile.
But the chicken was good!
We went out for ice cream afterwards. Hannah had raspberry sorbet, I (Sarah) had chocolate, Papa had Almond Praline, Mama had Espresso Chip, and Celeste had Cookie Dough! We walked around the rim for our last sunset-view of the Grand Canyon.
Day 5
We got up and had coffee/hot chocolate in this little room at the Bright Angel Lodge.
Then pretty much after that, we went to drive to Las Vegas again. We stopped by In-N-Out Burger (see previous post) for lunch again, and got to our hotel by I-don't-know-when. It was a pretty low-key day like Day 2, so there's not much to report. We did drive on Route 66, though! That was cool.
Day 6 (today)
We got up and ate breakfast at the buffet downstairs. I had ordered pancakes and so there were, as a standard, 3 of them. I ATE ALL BUT TWO BITES! And bacon. I WAS SOOOO FULL! Hannah had a waffle and bacon, too.
Then we went to the airport and flew home!
The Grand Canyon was an amazing trip and it was so cool and beautiful! We're so glad we could do this.
Hope everyone's having a good spring break!
-hANDs
