Day 10: From Grand Canyon, AZ to Las Vegas, NV

2900 miles driven so far.

Today was the day to truly experience the Grand Canyon, one of the highlights of the whole trip, although it strictly is not part of Route 66. Unfortunately, the weather was not as motivated as us and the day started very cloudy and a bit chilly. Still, this was our only chance of visiting the place, so we started early to explore the park.
This is a huge natural park, and you can visit several places by car, or hike down the canyon or even rent a helicopter to fly around. The park also offers a very useful free shuttle service that takes you to the most interesting viewpoints, allowing one to hop on and off the buses any time you want, so it is really convenient. We decided to use this service and went straight ahead to the beginning of the bus route, where the view wasn't  to bad to make the waiting time more interesting...

The bus took us to several viewpoints where we were able to see different parts of the Canyon, ocasionally catching a glimpse of the Colorado river which, as small as it looks, is responsible of all this mess.

Actually, the view from the different viewpoints was more or less similar. However, the sight was still breathtaking. It was difficult to assimilate the sheer scale of the canyon, it seemed unreal, as it looking at a painted landscape. Still, just by looking down over the fence on to a 1,000 m drop you coud realize this was something unique.

Unfortunately, time was pressing and just after noon we had to get on the car again to drive to our next destination: Las Vegas, over 5 hours away.

This time, the path took us back to Route 66, although only for a few miles, as Las Vegas does not form part of the original route. So, along the way we went back to see remainings of the old Route, mainly in the form of gift shops, vintage gas stations and signs along the road.

Right on the border between Arizona and Nevada, and just before reaching Las Vegas, we made a quick stop to visit the Hoover Dam, which made a welcome break from the long hours of desert crossing.

A few more miles on the road and we arrived at our hotel in Las Vegas when it was fully dark. We were staying at the Luxor Hotel, an Egyptian themed one in a piramid shape.

The hotels here are more like resorts, with their own casino, restaurants, shops, etc, which is a bit annoying when you are walking over 20 min dragging your baggage across the casino just to check in. Very different to other hotels in Texas and Oklahoma where we parked just at the door of our room!

We were very tired after the long day, so we postponed exploring the city until the next day, as we were going to be there for two nights. No rush then.

Day 9: from Holbrook, AZ to Grand Canyon, AZ

2580 miles driven so far

Today we had ahead of us a marathon journey, which would take us to two of the most mythical nature features of North America. For that, we had to abandon Route 66 which continued its way towards West and head instead up North. A "small" diversion of over 500 miles.
On our way up to the North we were crossing Indian nation lands, we saw several reservations scattered around, and also lots and lots of horses.

But the most significative sign of indians living there was the abundance of gifts, jewelery and indian craft shops, almost one every mile.

We were driving across remote lands, and therefore houses and signs of human life were rare. Indeed most of the houses we saw were pre-built as we imagine that getting all the materials and builders in the area might be difficult, much easier to buy the whole house built and furnish. We only had four hours of driving to discuss these matters : ).

At noon we reached yet another state, Utah, and with it our first destination: the "Monument Valley". This is a landscape that we have all seen in classical western films. Contrary to what these films show, this place is now owned by the Indians, and they manage the tourism there.

 Even as we were still getting nearer the sights were already quite impressive, and you could almost see John Wayne running after the Indians.

Once we got inside, we took a path of 17 miles that allowed us to see most of the valley.

Actually, we could not finish the circuit because a film was being shot and they didn't want cars driving around, but we didn't find out which film it was : (
The sights there were as breathtaking as driving on the non paved truck. The car ended up with dust everywere that now we are carrying with us everywere. Now we are the owners of the dustiest car of the whole parking lot, it is a good thing it is not really ours.

The experience of being among these huge rocks in the middle of the dessert was truly unique.
After visiting this magnificent place we headed West towards the second nature marvel of the day "The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River", which needs no further introduction.

The second part of the journey took us another 3,5 hours driving across a semi-desert landscape, with not really to much to see around.

Finally, we got to the Grand Canyon just before sunset, so we were able to experience the sun setting over the huge canyon.

Unfortunately, this meant that we didn't have more time to see much more, so we had to leave it for the next day. We also found that the weather had taken a turn to the worst, from the 30 ºC heat we had in the Monument Valley at noon to the barely 15 ºC in the canyon.
Time then to go to bed and prepare to another long journey tomorrow.