A Grand Day Out

Awaking in Holbrook we had a pretty good sleep, considering it was the cheapest hotel we had stayed in so far. After a few slices of toast (gotta watch our figures you know) we headed off west once again.

A few miles down the road was the small town of Winslow, Arizona and in keeping with the Eagles song I made sure I was 'standin' on the corner'. Sadly there was no girl in a flat-bed Ford slowing down to take a look at us, just some roadworkers. After buying more 66 crapola we were back on the road heading towards Meteor City and the nearby 'Meteor Crater'.


The self proclaimed 'best preserved meteor crater on Earth' was quite a site and was truly awesome in scale. 50,000 years ago a meteorite approximately 150 feet across impacted the site. As a result of the impact, the crater floor was 700 feet deep; it is now approximately 550. The crater is over 4,000 feet across and 2.4 miles in circumference. Needless to say it is difficult to show via just this picture the sheer size of it but believe us when we say, this was one big hole in the ground.

After seeing the crater we thought we had better move on and see another big hole in the planet, The Grand Canyon was our next stop. As we drove at a leisurely pace through the various national forests en route we were flanked by huge trees reaching up to the sky. What we weren't expecting was the scale of the Grand Canyon, but I get ahead of myself.

Before we had a chance to gaze upon the canyon itself we pulled into the Grand Canyon Airport, we were feeling quite homesick and I am still dying to get a decent cup of tea. We thought we should check out the flight situation. When it was clear they didn't actually fly internationally we thought we would find out what they could do for us. England and a cup of tea would have to wait. After all our driving it would be nice to get a bus tour or something, it turned out that a nice man named Kenny would take us by another mode of transportation over the Grand Canyon by helicopter!

Neither of us had been in a helicopter before so it seemed the perfect opportunity to quite literally live the high life and take to the skies. As soon as we were briefed, we boarded the EuroCopter ec130b4 and put on our headsets. We definately needed them as the noise of the rotor blades was deafening, as the video shows.

The view, to say the least was absolutely spectacular. Truly we had never seen anything of this phenomenal size and it made us think what the first travellers must have thought when they had crossed the great plains and forests of New Mexico and Arizona to be confronted with this:












After a 45 minute flight around a large section of the canyon it is still difficult to comprehend the size of it. While Meteor crater was immense the Grand Canyon defies explanation and put the behemoth meteor impact into perspective, like a dimple on a golfball.When we landed we thought it would be rude not to have a drive along the crater rim and get some shots before heading all the way back to Flagstaff and our classy Days Inn hotel. Another meal at the Outback Steakhouse was a brief, if overly filling meal and off to bed. Content in the knowledge that we had seen two major national landmarks today and felt we were ready for a few relaxing days in Las Vegas.

Neither of us knew what to expect... But that is another story.



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