Day 10...Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - 6th July

Got up around 6am (urgh!) to get picked up by shuttle and taken on tour to the Grand Canyon!

We went to a small Vegas airport and caught a cool 30 seater plane out there. We flew over the Hoover Dam (hoopher- dayum) which was a hell of a lot larger than we expected. We also flew over the western rim of the Canyon before landing near the South rim which is the bigger and better area. Passed out in the bus on the way there, but woke up when I heard some excitement and saw that there were elk outside! There were some people walking up to them to take photos, which I'm not so sure was a good idea. They had pretty big looking antlers to me. Stupid Americans! Hee hee

At the first stop we walked through a hotel and came out on the other side and - there it was! The camera just couldn't capture the distance of that canyon. It was so wide and flat at the top (it reminded me of table mountain Neil). It was definitely less desert-ey (is that a word?) than I expected, but it was cool because it had all those weird pine trees you see in western movies. The best part ws that we watched it turn from sunny and hot to seeing an electrical storm patch cross over with huge lightening bolts,a and there was this fantastic wind and pressure in the air. It was magic. I tried for ages to catch a lightening bolt with my camera, but did not have the best reflexes for it, as is my want for reflexes as fast as the speed of light haha.

Then we bussed to the 2nd stop which was even better! We stood on a cliff edge that went for miles on either side of us, then it took miles and miles for it to even out on the other side. There were lots of hills and valleys in the middle. It was sunny so we got some great shots. It was just like all those old western movies. I could almost see the Indians running around wearing their tan pans ("Come wind in his pants, we must smoke our pipes to decipher whether to hunt buffalo this summer".) Or I could also see the cowboys riding through the valley and hearing the "eeaaah" screech of an eagle high above, then seeing the glint of the sun's reflection off a mirror or pair of binoculars from the enemy high in the canyon above! Yee ha!
It was almost like those painted sets you see at Movie World or something, but real.

On the flight back (after a fantastically crappy lunch!) I fell asleep on the plane. (There's that passing out issue all over again!). I woke up to some really spooky turbulence which literally jolted me awake! I looked out the window and it was sunny and nice outside so I started to feel better, then look ed out the left window and shat myself as there was a massive storm on that side and we were skirting it! We bounced dramatically all the way back home, with one huge dro pwhere most passengers screamed and I thought I was going to die for a second. Funnily enough, Nate (who I think has has some exposure therapy with the amount of flights we are taking) thought the lady screaming was funny, and wasn't too fussed about the turbulence at all. He is an odd fellow! I felt like applauding when we landed safely.

On the way back we passed through a dodgy area of town (where every second store was a bail bonds office haha). There is so much grittiness and crappiness to America that you don't really comprehend in movies and stuff. Anyway, we rested for a bit then headed out again to a show. We had been disappointed that we were going to miss a Vegas show, as we had decided that our budget allowed us to see the Grand Canyon or a show, but not both. So we picked the Grand Canyon. Dad however, insisted that we see the Blue Man Group so he helped us out there. We were so excited that we were able to see a Vegas show! We had no idea what the Blue Man group was about.

It was amazing! I've never seen anything like it (I felt a bit emotional at the end for some weird reason coz it was so good) and it would be impossible to categorise it. The percussion was fantastic - there were 5 drums plus the blue men mixed percussion with pipes and drums and stuff. There was some strong music (a good rock and roll section) and also a lot of elements of my uni "media-art" stuff (TV heads, lights, scopes, use of lighting and colour) which was great and they were funny too. They didn't say one word but managed to interact with the crowd really well. The end involved waves and waves of paper rustled and rushed from the back of the theatre to the front of the stage via us pushing it forward over our heads to strobe lights, so it was tough to pick out where we were at! I sat next to a nice guy called Steve who was from Rhode Island and had a funny Boston accent.

Then we went to Barbary Coast for more cheap $2 drinks but just felt so rooted from our big day that we sort of stared cross-eyed at each other, then decided to go to bed around 2am.