The Grand Canyon Region

In April, Louanne and I flew out to Las Vegas to begin our road trip around the Southwest, canyon region.  If you want to see my photos of the South West without the blogging, you can just go here.  You’ll also find higher quality images that you can purchase there.

The day we arrived, we first visited Red Rock Canyon, before spending a night at the Trump Hotel.  It’s a beautiful hotel, and one of the few in Las Vegas that does not have a casino.

The next morning , we hit the road and headed to the Hoover dam and Lake Mead.  We were originally going to go to the SkyWalk, which is a glass walkway that extends out over the canyon.  But when we discovered that it cost at least $67 per person, and would involve a long detour, we decided to skip that.

Our next stop was the Grand Canyon Village, on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  The North Rim is highly recommended, but it was still closed in April, and we couldn’t wait until May due to my upcoming trip to Malaysia.  We spent a full day and two nights there before heading to Sedona.

Sedona is a beautiful artist’s town surrounded by beautiful cliffs and rock features.  Beautiful, but expensive.

Our next stop was a quick (1 hour) visit to the Meteor Crater, which is featured in many movies, like StarMan.

We were running late, so we had to skip the Petrified Forest so we could make it to Mesa Verde on time for sunset.

Mesa Verde is a high Mesa, with cliffs within the Mesa that housed cliff dwellers.

From there, you could see the Rocky Mountains.  I managed to get photos of the Rockies for both sunset and sunrise.  I can see why westerners call our East coast mountains “hills.”

We didn’t have time to take the hikes down to the cliff dwellings, but I got some nice views of them from the rim of the canyon.

Next, was a drive across the southern side of Monument Valley, with dramatic vistas, and an encounter with a Forest Gump impersonator.

Our next stop was Lake Powell, Marble Canyon, and the Vermillion Cliffs.

Then, the next morning we went to Bryce Canyon – wow!

On our way back to Las Vegas, we drove through Zion National Park.

Then back in Las Vegas, we caught the Cirque du Soleil show “Love,” a tribute to the music of the Beatles