Saturday night/Sunday morning was spent flicking between sleep and reading on a old greyhound bus from Vegas to Phoenix. 3 days before, i'd made the opposite journey and the infilling gap was full of everything Vegas legally had to offer (to a 20 yr old atleast!).
Thursday afternoon, shortly after arriving, i went on abit of a whim and did a 12000ft skydive from an air-strip just south of Vegas. What an awesome experience! I have to reccomend it to anyone, even just to do it once - the feeling of freefalling at 120mph towards the earth is indescribable. The dodgiest bit though was stepping out of the plane at 12000ft onto a 1ft square ledge beneath the wing whilst your instructor (strapped to your back) gets out of the aircraft behind you.
Friday i went on an all day trip (literally! It left at 5:50am!) to the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon. It was something like 580miles round trip which i only found out once on the bus but despite that, it was worth it. The Hoover Dam was a spectacular piece of engineering especially during America's great depression, extending 750+ft in height from Lake Mead to the north and the rest of the Colorado river to the south. Another, more spectacular engineering feat is being built nearby. The tallest arch bridge in America is being built to span the gorge created by the Colorado with views of the Hoover Dam.
The Grand Canyon was simply indescribable. It left me momentarily speechless! No photos or videos (although i took quite a lot!) can portray the awesome beauty of what is essentially a big hole in the ground. The river is bearly distinguishable from the canyon rim and the geology is so well exposed, even a geographer could interpret it! I wanted to go hiking down to the bottom but we didn't have time and our bus driver was being quite strict about keeping to schedule. BTW: The big bird in the photo's is a California Condor. They circle on the thermals in the canyon and have wing spans of around 8ft. An awesome sight in itself never mind the background!
So back to everyday life and back to Tucson. This week is probably the busiest yet. Ive got a presentation tomorrow (thursday) on something i could talk for about 2 hrs on but ive got to condense it into 10 minutes. Then theres the 2 other reports and final exams to prepare for. Fun times!
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