Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon are two of the most well known places in the Nevada dessert, Hoover Dam more recently for its use in the Transformers film. We weren't sure how long either of these would take us to visit but as it happens we did these over two days. We first visited the 'Hoover Dam' on the day we left Vegas, only a surface tour of the Dam is now allowed and not rally required as you can get all the info you need from the information boards scattered around. So we were quite happy to do this ourselves and just walk over the Dam taking in the views, which if you get the right spot are pretty spectacular and now include a view of the new bridge being built to bypass heavy traffic away from the dam.

It is quite incredible the amount of water the Dam holds back, but just as incredible that without the Dam Las Vegas would not exist as it would have no power supply.

The building of the Dam caused the death of quite a few people, but this had no impact on the building of the Dam as it was seen as a necessary build regardless of its cost. It is a good piece of engineering for its time, as even close up the work done on the Dam is very precise and at the time it was built this sort of engineering was not common.

You don't need much time at the Dam as it doesn't take long to walk across and get the information you need, the best view points are from the hill as you drive down toward it or from the hill at the side the water is held. So you aren't actually near the or on the Dam at these points.

After an overnight drive to the Grand Canyon park we realised that the size of the park itself as much bigger than we had expected. There are several areas that the Canyon can be viewed from and several walks down into the canyon that you can hike. The temperature inside the canyon can be easily 30-40 degrees higher than on the surface and a it was ht nearly every day at present the rangers where advising no walks in the canyon. Now they cant enforce this as the area is so big but we didn't fancy it, plus we were off walking for a while as we had done our share in the last month or so. Instead we took the shuttle bus between points on the edge of the canyon and viewed it across and down from there, the view points offered different things as some gave views of the Colorado river at the bottom of the canyon and there were ones showing just the canyon walls in sweeping variations.

All the views were good but what really got us was the vastness of the canyon, we hadn't quite got to grips with how wide it would be as most pictures we had seen were deep as appose to wide. Not that I wasn't deep because it was, but it was ten miles across! Now that might not seem much but on a flat surface but over an open drop of peaks and rocks it's a long way across and very noticeable when you are on a level with it. There is something called the skywalk that you may be familiar with, which is a glass platform built out over the canyon which you can pay to go out on and vie the canyon straight down. You may be surprise do know that this is not in the 'Grand Canyon National Park', this is because the area it is built in is a kind of end piece of the canyon and a pure money making idea. Now the cause is not exactly a bad idea, as it is to provide the nearby Indian reservation with an income after the US government kicked the Indian off their land in the civil war times but have since helped set up reservations for them back on some of this land. The problem is that they are charging $70 dollars or more per person and the time is limited in order to get everyone on as it can only take so much weight, plus as mentioned above it is miles and miles away from the proper park and has little else there. So we weren't interested in this and stuck with the original.

The canyon is its own unique eco system providing water and a food chain in its every part, while also offering shelter at the same time in both winter and summer, but that is only for the right type of animals. The easiest to see are the Condor, as they regularly circle the top of the canyon waiting to spot food before they dive down to get it.

The best way for you to understand what we saw at the canyon on the pictures as in this case they can speak much louder than words, we hope you like them.