Hey all! Hope you are all well... Missing everyone lots now, but not long till i see all your faces again.
So, the last two days were pretty darn epic! I've seen one of the 7 wonders of the world in a multiple of forms...
We drove to the Grand Canyon via the famous Route 66! We drove a short while on it and stopped off in Seligman (the town the Pixar film Cars is based on). I raided the souvenir shops and we stopped for lunch in this iconic town. We continued our drive to the Grand Canyon and first stop was the HELICOPTER RIDE! I've used my birthday money from family to fund this once in a lifetime experience so thanks so much all of you for a wonderful present- it was truly incredible! It was a smooth ride and the pilot was feeding us information through headphones. We had to fly over 7 minutes of forest and then all of a sudden I just heard 'welcome to the Grand Canyon ' and i was in awe of the sights we were flying over. The video I uploaded is that exact moment. The Colorado River looked like a baby stream and we must have looked like a dot in the sky. I can now tick off a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon off my bucket list. We later drove to a spot on the rim of the canyon and admired the sunset. I've never seen anything so beautiful. The pictures really don't do it enough justice.
Thanks to the state of Arizona opening up the national park for 10 days we were lucky enough to enter the park and do some hiking. By changing the schedule of the tour we've been so lucky to visit the Grand Canyon as the US Government have shut down all government run attractions- so this was a massively pleasant surprise that we were able to go into it. Us girls opted for an easy-moderate hike whilst the boys went off to a very difficult route. In total we walked 5.8 miles of the south rim of the canyon. We are pros at hiking now ;). We also opted to do the 'junior park ranger booklet' which qualified us as junior park rangers after doing some drawings and searching for animals. It's something for kids but who cares we are now officially junior park rangers after taking a pledge to protect the canyon haha! Talking of animals we saw 3 Californian condors which are rare, big birds with only 66 in the canyon and 423 in the world (gosh I'm a knowledgable ranger). After a long, tiring day we headed back to the lodges for a nap and our tour leader kindly cooked a yummy pork and veg dinner with traditional American apple pie for pudding. It was such a nice few days, with great views and great company!
Not sure much can beat these experiences but we still have 3 more days to explore 3 more places. Next stop is Lake Havasu where apparently it's around 25degrees so this makes a nice change. We are also kept in the dark with what we will be doing but we've been told it's water related so I'll keep you updated on that.
Hope you are all good?? Lots of love, Katie xxxxxxx