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| - I had a wonderful day with Grand Adventures Tours! Our energetic and knowledgeable guide was Chad. He gave us a brief history of Las Vegas, the building of Hoover Dam, and the making of the "Cars" movies. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the stop at Seligman, it's a place I would not have bothered to visit had I been on my own. I took pictures of the ancient autos for the guys in my life. Chad understood how things are connected--how the development of Las Vegas impacted the building of Hoover Dam and the communities around it, where the water in Lake Mead comes from, and where it goes. He had a lot of interesting things to say, which made the miles fly by.
It's true that it's a looong day in the van. If seeing the Grand Canyon doesn't compensate you for the hours on the road, don't go. For me, it was one of the famous places that managed to exceed my expectations. A highlight of the trip was having a long time to sit and look at the light change over the canyon as sunset approached. I would have to be a better writer to describe it; and this is a review of the tour and not the Canyon. I wondered if I would have a problem with the altitude (I seem to react to high elevations). Chad was considerate and encouraging, and I felt fine after a meal and a cup of coffee (at the bar in the hotel, Chad told me where to find it). The sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies and grapes were good, and there was lots of water. We took an easy walk along the rim trail for about a mile and had some fun taking "falling off the edge" pictures--no passengers were lost since Chad knew places to safely stand and pose below the "edge." The pictures came out great.
I liked the pacing of our day. We stopped several times on our way there, and I don't agree that the MacDonald's bathroom in Henderson is the best we'd get--they were all fine. We had a good amount of time at the Canyon, and made at least one stop on the way back to Vegas
An unexpected pleasure was meeting the others on the tour--we came from all over the US and Europe, and I enjoyed getting to know everyone and hear our stories. We met the following morning for brunch, which was a really nice coda to our Grand Adventure!
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