Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

The three of us blearily grabbed Starbucks and hopped in the car for a day trip to Arizona, during which we made Alex listen to all the Taylor Swift albums she hasn’t heard yet (she will be converted). Four hours and a lot of ooh’ing and ahh’ing through the desert later and we arrived at THE GRAND CANYON. CAPS REQUIRED. IT WAS INDEED GRAND.

I haven’t seen too many pictures of the canyon so I didn’t really know what to expect, but walking up I had butterflies in my stomach. Alex kept telling me to look at my feet until we were within range at which point she told me to look up… immediate and utter disbelief.

How?

How?

How?

I sort of blustered through a few gibberish sentences trying to explain how I felt about what we were seeing and I finally settled on: “My depth perception doesn’t understand what I’m looking at.” It sort of felt like looking at a mural or a painting which was the only way my brain could make sense of the scale. And even then it wasn’t adequate because we watched a short film after that showed the scale and I was nowhere near accurate.

We saw a bunch of people climbing down near edges and onto little outcroppings, completely aghast that they would stand in the high winds so close to the cliff that was like 400 feet to the first platform below. NOPE. NO THANKS. I got the closest to the edge of all three of us and was still at an extremely safe distance. I peeked my head over the cliff and could see greenery and a river down at the bottom past hundreds of layers of all different red and rust coloured limestone. Pictures just don’t do it any justice. Looking at it with my own two eyes barely did it justice. I would highly recommend making the trip for anyone who hasn’t. I am rarely speechless but in this instance I definitely was.

I drove us home, all the way into Vegas with no issue. Vegas is officially the biggest and most insane city I have ever driven in! We ate a late dinner and I formally requested a quick stop at the casino to gamble just once. I can’t come to Vegas and not gamble. I took out five 1$ bills and stuck them into a slot machine, immediately doubled my money after one pull and cashed out. I was very proud to be a winner.

We made our way up to our room and crashed after such a long day.

It’s been an extremely short but fun first taste in Vegas, and I’m looking forward to coming back one day to really explore.

Off on a new adventure tomorrow!

Sav