After our conference in Vegas, we had one free day left. We didn’t plan or book anything in advance for that free day, as we were busy with conference work. I got to think or plan for something just a day in advance. I wanted to go for skydiving or to Grand Canyon on that day.  Skydiving slots weren’t available for that day, so I chose Grand Canyon.

I heard a lot about Grand Canyon from my friends across US and was very excited to visit it, but we didn’t have much time to cover it completely.  We had two options for Canyon trip, either to take a 1 day bus tour to Canyon, where a lot of time is spent in travel (close to 7-8 hours) and the other one is helicopter tour which is ideal for one day, but expensive(400$). After a lot of contemplation, we chose helicopter trip. We booked our helicopter trip online through Viator with free pickup and drop from the hotel.

There comes the surprising and exciting part of the trip: Pickup and drop in Limoooo 🙂

Limo + Helicopter + Grand Canyon = Exciting experience ever!!

I was more excited for Limo, more than anything, not sure why, may be because this was something which I didn’t plan for and came out as a surprise and freebie :P. Also, I had been watching Limo cars going all around Vegas and secretly added having a ride in this car to my wish-list. So, the moment I got to know about pickup in Limo, I felt that the tour amount 400$ is completely justified :D. I can just keep on talking about Limo all through out my blog, but I need to put a break here and show you all the car (The Black Beast) !!

View from the Limo:

Though it just took around 15-20mins to reach airport from our place, enjoyed every part of the ride. It took me that time to just observe its interiors and take photos.

I also found out later that one can book a Limo just for local Vegas sight seeing (in case someone is interested). One of my colleagues told me that one can get anything in Vegas if they have money. I felt that he was so right about that.

We reached airport and waited for sometime before we are boarded on to our helicopter with small sticker and band tied to our hands. Helicopter is a small one (6 seater passenger). There was an option to sit in the front and back both. We (two of us) were asked sit in the back seats. Only one of us could get a window seat and I quickly grabbed the seat feeling little bad that the other person missed the view, but the view was equally good from every seat. The window seat just had an added advantage of clicking good photos. This was the first time I was in a helicopter and I was very curious on how the ride would be. Many questions were running in my mind then, if the view would be similar to the view from the aeroplane during landing, how high would it go, and how would be the wind above etc..

All my questions were answered, and it was a lovely ride passing through all the main attractions of Vegas. I could immediately figure out that the flight landing view and helicopter view are completely different. We took off vertically and felt very close to the land and had a better view than from the plane.

We quickly crossed the city and got to see lot of mountains on the way, with clouds casting shadows on them while playing hide and seek with the sun. It was an absolutely lovely experience of watching various geographical patterns.

We slowly reached the Lake mead, the largest reservoir in the US, in terms of water capacity, which supplies water to Vegas and other states nearby.

After Lake mead, we spotted the Hoover dam built on top of Colorado river, which was a visual treat. That dam generates electricity to meet the needs of Arizona and Nevada states. Hoover Dam is a major tourist destination and people generally stop there on the road route to Grand Canyon.

After Hoover dam, we could spot many rocks/mountains on the way, which for me looked like paintings on a canvas, with a variety of color combinations. They looked more like volcanic formations. I absolutely loved the ride, amazed by the rocky structures.

And slowly we reached the entrance of south rim of Grand Canyon and we could easily recognize the canyon from its carved rocky structure.  The various tributaries of Colorado river which goes in between the Canyon, resulted in this amazing structure.

After around 10mins of helicopter ride in the canyon, we landed at a place in between the canyon rocks. We were given around 1 hour of time there to explore and take pictures. They arranged us some snacks too, which we never bothered to even look at them.

The whole time had gone in just observing the place around and taking pictures. Even after clicking innumerable number of photos at that place, we were not satisfied. The climate and the surroundings are so lovely that I didn’t feel like going back from there. It didn’t feel like afternoon 1pm with the clouds. Yes, it was worth all the effort and the cost. But, I wish I stayed there for more time.

We got back into helicopter after an hour and started our journey back to Vegas. I offered the window seat to my colleague in the return trip and we got to sit in the front row of the helicopter, beside the driver 🙂 It was lot of fun observing how the driver operates the helicopter. It has a lot of buttons, I wondered if they would have to use those many during the ride.

We again passed through the colorful rock formations on our way back to Vegas. I felt very curious on how the various rock colors emerged, for which I might need to read a geography book on the formation of the Grand canyon and the various minerals available there. One day if I ever get to read it, will come back here and update the blog with more information on the rocks 😛

We landed back in Vegas airport and took some photos in the helicopter before saying good bye to it 😉

And of course we were dropped back in our hotel in the black Limo again 🙂

A half day trip to Grand canyon was filled with various kind of experiences, which are so special and absolutely worth revisiting and reliving !! I would definitely recommend this trip to anyone who wants to visit the Canyon, and has less time to cover it.

I would definitely go back to Grand Canyon again (next time by road) and spend more time in the canyon, close to the nature, exploring its various mysterious facts and geography.