Drive to Grand Canyon

All I knew of this place was it is a desert and nothing more. Though we planned the trip for end of summer, I was shocked that its really hot there even in September. I also learnt that part of the drive would be bad as the roads are not paved.

We started our drive by 10.30 AM and on the way took a short break at Hoover Dam. That is the point of entry to Arizona from Las Vegas, Neveda. It was so hot at 11 AM for the first time I felt like being in Chennai. Almost after 9 months away from Chennai, I had the feel of home. I drank water like I have not had water in the last 2 weeks. To add on I saw myself sweating. These are something which never happens specially for a person residing in Minnesota.

Then as we drove to Grand Canyon, we learnt that it was some 25 miles of unpaved road. As we drove through that area, it was like driving the siruseri route / probably chengalpet or Kancheepuram side where I had seen quite a lot of unpaved roads. The West Rim of Grand Canyon is the place where they have constructed the sky walk 2 yrs back. When they could do something so big in the Canyon area, I was surprised that they had unpaved roads. May be they assumed the 25 miles could be a different fun for driving if the roads are not paved :) I cant find any other reason for just leaving one stretch as unpaved. Or the other reason can be, promote business. They have shuttle service to drive through as tours for people who are not comfortable to drive the unpaved roads. But for people who have driven in India, these unpaved roads are cake walk :)

As we drove we took another break for lunch and then finally reached there by 3PM. Its always said it takes 3-4 hours to visit the whole place and we managed it in the same way and started to drive back at 6PM. It was quite important to drive back in light as you get to see cattle's and lots of animals on the way walking in the middle of the road. As the sun sets by 6.45 PM it was specially important to drive through the unpaved roads when sunlight was there. As we drove, we did see a lot of animals and we thankfully escaped hitting a rabbit and atlast managed to drive safe.

I would say drive to west rim from Vegas will be quite fun and also not so hectic for a day trip.