We set off from vegas later than planned at about 10. First stop was to fill up for the day $3.77 per gallon. We headed to the Hoover dam. On the access road we stopped to take some pics of the lake below and came across some sort of caterpillar crossing point, there were dozens of them, all fat and brightly coloured.

The dam itself looks to be struggling with the drought, well down from what looks like its normal level. It's a massive structure with an equally impressive concrete bridge above to carry traffic on the highway. Due to the later than planned start we took some pics and skipped the tour.

We were now in Arizona, beside the highway changed a couple of hours out of vegas from a dry, brown wasteland to a greener version, still very much wasteland leading to mountains on both sides but greener and some flowers here and there. Petrol is cheaper here, we're seeing signs for $3.44/gal.

Two and a half hours out of Grand Canyon the weather ahead looked ominous, low dark clouds that looked like we were heading into storms - not overly conducive to flying :-(

Two hours out it was raining lightly, the radio was giving out thunder storm warnings for all around us.

An hour and a half out the rain was heavy, vision very limited especially when passing trucks. There's a lot of lightening up ahead to the left if us, we turn right in 30 miles so here's hoping it's ok where we're going.

An hour out, 2.30pm & the temp has plummeted to 11C, visibility is rubbish, the rain torrential. Lightening and thunder is all around us do there's a lot or water on the road, hopes we'll fly today are fading fast with the daylight :-(

Half an hour out, 25m to go. We're at 6000 feet, the temp has risen slightly to 15C & the rain has eased a lot. Up ahead we can see blue skies and fluffy white cloud instead of the thick black we are still under, slight hope returns lol

Grand Canyon airport, it's cold but dry and yes, we will be flying :-)

It's a Cessna and everyone gets a window. The next 50 mins we circle the canyon viewing it from a number of angles, it was pretty awesome :-)

From there it's a five min drive to check into our hotel for the night. We log into the wi fi and find that 30 mins before we'd been nominated for the ice bucket challenge by Mark & Sophie. Cheers guys, it's cold here! A couple of days ago we would've welcomed the cooling off in Death Valley!

Checking what we had to make it happen we loaded up 2 rubbish bins from our room with water and some ice machine ice in a bag and off we went to a canyon lookout. We had quite an audience as we filmed it, nominating Chris, Matt, Shane and Steph, Val & Graham and Gina with the awesome canyon at our back. Once done we got a few cheers from those watching lol back to the car to towel off and change then we set off to a lookout to watch the sun go down. Along the way we encountered a deer grazing, very cute.

The sunset was spectacular, the light playing on the canyon just gorgeous. On our way out of the canyon we came across first a young buck then a full on stag with huge antlers, both just grazing by the road and wandering across confident the cars would all stop for them.

Back at our hotel a hot shower followed by an excellent Mexican dinner, far too much food again!

We took another trip into the park yo escape lights for Pete to get some night sky pics and called it a night.