“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful” – Alice Walker

This morning we woke up at at 6am as we had to be ready and on the coach by 7:15 that was to depart to the nearby helipad for our helicopter trip over the Grand Canyon. We had the choice to either do the a 25 minute flight or a 50 minute flight that went over the the entire Grand Canyon. Naturally, we went for the longer flight to get the most out of this once in a lifetime experience.

We had to wait at the helipad for a while. By the time we got on the helicopter we were both feeling pretty rough because we’d had a rotten short sleep and our room was way too hot for a comfortable sleep so instead we stayed up for a bit and watched Jurassic park and Planet of the  apes on AMC. As far as American tv goes, they have some pretty decent channels. AMC is probably our favourite that they have had in most of the hotels so far. To go with the good channels though, there are a multitude of absolutely terrible channels. Most of them featuring infomercials or dickheads preaching the bible trying to get you to send in donations. Also we didn’t get a chance for breakfast.

So we got on the flight and Ronnie was sitting in the middle so he didn’t have the best view and was next to this fat American guy who was heaps stinky. The views were absolutely stunning and it was Ronnie’s first time in a helicopter so it was pretty amazing. However, it was hindered by the way we were feeling at this point. The experience of being in a helicopter with other randoms was about a 3/10. However, the views of the location were a solid 10/10 and absolutely breathtaking.

We got back to the lodge and rolled down to the cafeteria for lunch, we had a pizza and salad which was pretty substandard. Then we came back to the room for a bit of a rest. Up next was a bicycle tour around the rim of the Grand Canyon. We walked up to the visitors centre to meet up with the rest of our group of 12 and met the tour guides. They were really good. The bike tour went for 2 hours and we rode heaps of the rim of the Grand Canyon and stopped at different parts to have a look, hear some stories and take photos.

It was really good. Aimee reckons it’s the best thing we have done yet. It was just a really good fun time. It felt great to get some exercise in too.

We returned to the room for a lay down. We were meeting the whole group at 6:15 for a picnic at Hopi point to watch the sunset over the Grand Canyon. It was really beautiful and a nice time. Watching the sun set over the Canyon is just one of them moments that you never forget. We had a few drinks and ate a sandwich at the picnic. We actually bought a heap of food for the picnic but barely got around to eating any of it. Our bus driver Alex had an absolutely massive bottle of fireball and was pouring shots directly into everyone’s mouths haha that was pretty good. On tour manager Braden gave this really nice speech and poured us all a drink from a goon bag he bought and we toasted over the sunset.

We went home for an early night as we have to be up and at the coach by 7:15 for a long drive day to Durango, Colorado. All up the Grand Canyon was a really different experience to Las Vegas, a stark contrast really. In Vegas you can’t see the stars at night due to so much light pollution. However, in the Grand Canyon, the stars are extremely visible. It was nice to be out in nature as well. One thing we noticed is that there are a lot of Elk that hang around very close to people. They are massive creatures and there are a lot of them here. Our bike tour guide told us that the Elk hang around humans because the mountain lions are scared of humans and the Elk are scared of mountain lions. We thought that was an interesting tidbit.

Much love

Ronnie & Aimee.