Wednesday 7th - Friday 9th October 2015

We left Flagstaff and drove toward the Grand Canyon, we weren't sure what side was better the North or South, I couldn't remember which one I visited as a kid, but we headed towards the South rim as the signs said it was closer than the North!

We drove though the Grand Canyon village, where I did not recognizes! We brought our park pass from the ticket booth and continued into the park.

We drove to the visitor centre, this when I knew I must have been to the North Rim as we didn't have to catch a shuttle bus to the viewing spots! We went into the visitor centre and pick up a guide of what the see and where the buses dropped you off.

We jumped onto one of the buses that headed up towards the viewing stops, it was pretty chilly this morning but the temperatures were on the rise!! We stopped off on several stops so we jumped out had a wonder and took several photos. We took a walk between one stop which was great. We came across a big tarantula / spider...I took several photos...from a 'safe enough' distance. I had no idea what the spider was but he didn't seem to bothered when I put the camera in his face!!

The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon which has been carved by the Colorado River which we managed to get a glimpse at down below! The canyon is 446 km long and up to 29 km wide and attains a depth of over 1,800 meters. Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries have cut their ways through layer after layer of rock which the Colorado Plateau was uplifted.

It was amazing looking across the canyon to the other side and seeing all the different colours of the rock. I didn't fancy the idea of walking all the way to the valley floor only because I had no interest in walking back up!!

We took the bus all the way to Hermits rest, it is a structure built in 1914 that is nearby to the Hermit Trail which extends to the Colorado River.

We got the bus back to the visitor centre, the whole experience was awesome but the whole having to take a bus etc, made the whole trip about three hours long!

We headed back towards Las Vegas, another long drive for Andrew! We stopped in to the Hoover Dam. We had to stop for security, and they just asked us a few questions like where are we from...which then sparked questions as to why an English lass and Scottish lad were together, to which Andrew replied, I have no idea! Cheers! They the older gent said he should give me some money to buy some new jeans as mine were 'ripped'! The younger guy said I looked fine and it was 'younger' fashion! I seriously cannot escape these jokes I get from my dad!

We parked up the car and headed out to the look out points to take some photos. The Hoover dam was once known as Boulder dam, it is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River right on the border of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and cost over a 100 lives. The dam was built to generate and proved power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona and California (and of course to hide the cube's power from the evil transformers...the decepticons!)

It is a pretty awesome constructional structure and the bridge that goes over the Hoover Dam, route 93, is pretty cool too. Andrew was in his little engineering world here!

We headed into Las Vegas, where I was getting increasingly more excited...until we hit traffic...like ridiculous traffic!!! It took us about 45 minutes to travel about 200 meters to Caesars Palace to get into the car park. The signage around Caesars Palace was awful too...and Andrew experienced another one of my 'back seat' drivers!! We finally made it to the hire car drop off, now to find the desk to drop the keys off..first mission great success.

Our next mission was to find the hotel check in desk, it was a little hard and awkward walking through a huge casino with all your bags!! But we found it soon enough! We had an antagonizing long wait to check in, but we got a free upgrade as it was Andrew's birthday which we both were happy about!

Our final mission was to find the elevator to the room...this was the hardest mission of all...! It was bloody confusing in the casino. We eventually found it and headed into the room...we had a good view of the strip below us and the room was awesome too! Bloody huge too!!

We got ourselves ready and headed on out for food and some Vegas fun for Andrew's birthday!! So we headed out onto the strip, there is A LOT of people here! It makes me want to be back in Banff in the summer! We walked down the strip and found chillis so we had food and a fair few cocktails!

We went exploring in all the casinos seeing what's around and going on! We stood and watched the Bellagio fountains go off. They are pretty cool, dancing water along with water. I've not seen them before so really enjoyed it!

We hung around the hotel's casino playing a little here and there, grabbing a few drinks before going to bed around 2 am or something!!

We woke up pretty late and headed to the pool, which was AMAZING! However this d*** head of an American tried to start a fight, he was later evicted from the pool!

In the evening we headed out again and went exploring, there is so much going on I have no idea where to look!! This really is a city that never sleeps! I could not live here at all. It would drive me mental.

We had our last night together before we parted ways, we grabbed a taxi together to the airport and dropped Andrew off first. It was so sad to say goodbye and has been a great seven months. But we have our plans for the next couple of years to see each other so something to look forward to for sure!

The flight was pretty empty and I had a whole row to myself so I could stretch out and relax. Managed to get back in the country with no issues or questions thank god!! So I have another visa but for two years!! HURRAY!!!!