The biggest day of our lives

Today we wrapped up the last day of WPPI by doing one last speed run through the convention. We checked out of Paris and headed to the airport to pick up our rental car. They gave us a convertible Mustang which back in NJ when you think about driving in the desert would be really cool.. however once in Vegas we found that it is still too cold to make use of it. So we left the top up and headed east, not having even the slightest clue that this was going to be one of the longest days of our lives.

We got to Hoover Dam quite easily and took a few pics of the enormous monstrosity, it is really amazing to see in person.


Once you go past the dam, there is absolutely nothing for miles and miles. If we didn't have a navigation system we totally would have gone back thinking we were going the wrong way. So for about 1.5 hours without seeing anything we come into the small town of Kingman, AZ and believe it or not.. I saw an oasis! This must be what every Englishman trapped in the desert would crave, a little shop selling British food!

Laura and I loaded up on some English loot, a few bags of crisps and headed north to the Grand Canyon!
This part would be the worst.. it's miles and miles of nothing for hours. Never in our lives have we seen such distance between civilizations. We even wondered how people survived accidents and such without cell phones.. scary thought! So after seeing this for many, many, many miles.


We start to hear these pops coming from our bag of food. We soon realized it was all the bags of chips popping because of the changes in elevation, it was too funny!


Then finally after so long we arrived at the South Rim Park. The ranger told us where to go to catch the sun set as we had gotten there just in time to do so. As we pulled up we kept asking each other if the trip had been worth it and then we saw this... our question had been answered for us!


There were even parts without a barrier and just these cute signs.


so after some amazing views and freezing photo ops (we were dressed for Vegas) we piled back into the car and headed back to Vegas. We did catch a few shots of the setting sun as we sped by.

We also have never seen a sky without any light pollution so getting a shot of some stars with the moon causing a lens flare was a really cool thing to us.

We were on schedule to be back in Vegas just before midnight so we arranged for a hotel and got a great deal at the Hard Rock Hotel from Traveloctiy so we rushed back to Vegas and barely had time to get a few shots of the Hoover Dam at night. I really loved this one.

And getting back into Vegas at night is a sight to behold so we grabbed these while we were driving.. kinda cool light effects with the slower shutters.


Once we arrived at the Hard Rock we checked in and I think they felt a little sorry for us after hearing about our day and gave us an awesome suite for no extra charge.. It was an amazing room! I even got a shot of Laura sitting on the couch about 5 minutes before she passed out from exhaustion.