Vacation- Day Nine: Nonstop Action

This was by far the hardest day of our vacation. I still have no idea how the kids survived- much less the near absence of complaining from them.

We started out the day in Flagstaff. We then started our drive to the Grand Canyon. The drive was nice and uneventful. The weather was absolutely fabulous for Arizona in July. The day before, the high at the Grand Canyon was 97 degrees. This day it was 87 degrees.

We parked near the front of the park, at Mather Point. The view was fantastic. The kids and Perry humoured me and my fear of heights by staying one big step away from the fence, lol. I tried to get close to the fence a few times, but it just made me dizzy and nauseous.

Don't ask me about the face Mischa is making- don't have a clue there...

After seeing Mather's Point, we jumped on the shuttle to the Bright Angel trail, made famous in the book, Brighty of the Grand Canyon.

To the right was the El Tovar Hotel.

After we took this family picture, a guy came and let us borrow his binoculars so we could see the two mule trains on the trail. Liesie wasn't liking me taking pictures for some reason

One thing I learned was that most of the buildings on the South Rim were designed by Mary E.J. Colter. I loved the Geologic Fireplace that she created, which mimics the strata of the Canyon.

We walked out of the lodge to catch the shuttle and saw the train from the Grand Canyon to Williams. Liesie and Josh really liked the "choo choo".

We then went back into Grand Canyon Village and caught the IMAX movie at the National Geographic visitor's center. I was really amazed at John Wesley Powell, who went down the Colorado River with only one arm.

Our original plan from here was to get to Las Vegas via the Hoover Dam. In Kingman, though, we had to change our plans. The highway was due to be closed over the Hoover Dam at 7:00, and we were an hour away at 6:00. We didn't feel comfortable cutting it so close, since if we missed getting through, the only way to Las Vegas would be to go back to Kingman, so we went west to Bullhead City. We made it to Las Vegas maybe about 10 minutes later than we would've if we made it to the Hoover Dam. We checked into the hotel and were out on the strip at 9:00. We parked at Caesar's Palace (wow) and took off to Treasure Island to see the pirate show.

F.A.O. Schwarz

It was so hot and crowded in front of Treasure Island. If we had really thought about it, a show called the Sirens of T.I. didn't sound very family friendly, and I am very glad that the kids could only see the fireworks and pyrotechnics from the show. I know that this family trip was part educational, but I didn't count on giving them the lesson the sirens were going to give them. We went to the Mirage to catch the volcano eruption, but, after waiting in front of the hotel for 15 minutes, we realized that we would have to wait another 15 for the eruption. The kids were melting onto the sidewalk by now, so we decided to run back to Caesar's Palace and catch their show, which was indoors. I loved the curved escalators in the Shopping Forum. The Harry Winston store wasn't a bad place to window shop, either. We made the show just as it was starting and the kids really liked it. There was even a big saltwater aquarium that the boys really liked.

We decided to call it a night and to just do a quick driveby of all the casinos on the strip. We caught a glimpse of the Bellagio fountains, and I'm sad we didn't get to see them. The kids really liked all of the different casinos. We got back to the hotel (which reallly liked me- we were on the 11th floor and the elevator was glass) around midnight. The kids just dropped, and it was the first time in the trip that Anneliese didn't wake up during the night.