American Diary # 17 Grand Canyon

June 13th - Grand Canyon and Kipper's Birthday! Left Vegas and to cut a long blog short, we drove for ages and crossed into Arizona. We stopped at Laughlin for a driving permit (not far from Hoover Dam) and Colorado River winding through a barren desert area. Strange to see patches of green grass and new housing, fuelled by the fresh water supply and local jobs in the hydro electric industry. At some point we stopped on ROUTE 66 and a place called Seligman, where the PIXAR movie 'CARS' was based. It's a great film, "If you get the chance , I highly recommend it... it is so choice" (direct quote from another movie, guess which one?). Anyway, I bought some tacky souvenirs from the museum and barber shop (famous) and took some photos. The shop owner told me about the BBC visit last year with Blue Peter, he even has a badge proudly displayed in the shop. Stopping for groceries in WILLIAMS we saw some British firemen from Portsmouth who were taking part in a transameric cycle challenge, West to East Coast in 10 days. I gave them all my loose change for the childrens hospitals, and wished them luck. After more driving, we arrived in a forested area near to the Grand Canyon and had achieved 7000ft without noticing. Myself, Chris and Nicole took a helicopter ride over the Canyon at 6pm just as the sun was starting to drop and gave us some amazing colours and shapes in the rocks strata below. With 'Jurassic Park' music in our chopper headphones it was a spectacular experience and I can't use enough words to describe it. Again ... I highly recommend it. The AP's watched an IMAX thing, which can't have been anything like as good, but they got free sticky stars and were happy. Camp was on hard dry ground near the Canyon edge, and after pitching tents we drove to a viewpoint for the sunset around 8pm. This too was amazing, and as we left there were over 50 astronomers set up in the car park offering free looks at the stars. After dinner ( I cooked) I persuaded a few people to come back with me to the telescopes by walking along the dark roads and we got to see some cool stuff. Big dipper ( Plough) North star, Jupiter and it's moons, Venus, Ring Nebula, Dumb bellNebula and Whirlpool Nebula, also Scorpio, Polaris, a constellation called M13 in Hercules (whatever) and some other stuff I forget. The Mily Way was bright and there were a few meterorite showers thrown in for good measure. Almost got lost in the dark getting back to camp but a brilliant evening.