Keith's travelogue

Week 2 Starting with the Grand Canyon

Well after the thrills of Las Vegas it was time to get down to the real business of why I'm here in the US and start visiting the great National Parks. And what better place to start than with the Grand Canyon. We arrived there after a drive fromVegads in time to catch the sunset, but a special thrill awaited as I took a helicopter flight over and around the Canyon for an hour. What a way to see it!

At first we travelled over the Ponderosa pine forest (and you just thought that was a place on Bonanza!) and then suddenly we were suspended in space over it. The enormity took the breath awaqy. It'slike a giant time machine looking back to some of the oldest rocks found on earth, with layer after layer of rock eroded away. We saw some of the features of the south and north rims, but as the canyon is some 280 miles long, 18 miles wide and a mile deep, we hardly saw any of it at all.

After the flight it was hard to speak, but we raced off to see the sunset, and the next morning we raced off to see the sunrise. Both were witnessed by hindereds of people, and this is nthe low season - the first really cold night had arrived and we woke to tents covered in a thin film of frost. Brrrrr! Perhaps this camping thing is not such a good idea. I hope you got the postcards, because my phots didn't do it justice, although I splashed out and bought the DVD of the flight. Haven't seen it yet though.