As most of you know I’m in Las Vegas for the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International Convention. But yesterday we had a free day to explore – so we thought we would head to the Grand Canyon. It didn’t exactly go to plan…here’s the story!

First off we visited Hoover Damn – which is kinda a cool place…Lovely sunny weather… 

So then we headed towards the Grand Canyon. By the time we reached the Canyon (4hrs later), it was snowing a little and visibility wasn’t too good. That was kinda a bummer, but it was still an awesome sight.

Some Elk:

Some behind the scenes shots from Donal Doherty:

This is what happens when you get too close and the Elk runs at you:

In the visitors centre the guide mentioned a ‘storm’. On the way out I joked how Americans always exaggerate the weather…maybe I shouldn’t have tempted fate :-).

So driving around the Grand Canyon edge (massive drops) – it started to snow….

…. and snow….

…and snow…

Not too worried about this so called storm, we headed to the Imax to watch the Grand Canyon film which was totally awesome..

But on the way back, temperatures dropped and it was properly snowing a blizzard. The Mitsubishi convertible (by the way, if you really really have to buy a Misubishi get this one 🙂 ) wasn’t designed for the conditions, and progress slowed to 10mph.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact I was going to wear shorts (luckily I decided to save the Arizonians from the sight of my knees)..These massive lorries kept passing by – was a little scary. Eventually traffic came to  a stand still. We where told there had been an accident ahead and we had to wait until it was cleared. That was 9pm…. 10pm, 11pm, midnight passed. Problem was we only had 1/4 tank of petrol (gas) left so we couldnt run the car all night to keep it warm. This was the view that greeted us at sunrise (6am) – still in the car after a crap nights sleep:

The road was sheet ice:

Eventually a knock at the door came, and a truck driver offered us a cuppa coffee. We got chatting to the nicest truck drivers ever – Craig & Anne Leonard (check out their blog at http://anneandcraigleonard.wordpress.com/about/ ). Really interesting, Craig used to work on Wallstreet and through the change in the markets, changed direction and became a truck driver. They do 6000 miles per week – thats like 3 laps of Ireland each week!

Thanks to Donal for the next one:

Here’s there dogs Max & Lil Bit who also live in the truck:

Another nice lady (think from Volvo truck 3 pics up) made us french toast which was great. We where typical tourists – no food, no water, no gas, no clothes, no clue.It was just so great to meet these guys and learn about what life is like on the road…

Talking about the road, eventually at 10am (13hrs later) we got on the move again – and back to Vegas. As one last homage to the rental car, we popped the roof down, enjoyed the sound of a 747 landing over head and cruised down the strip. Now I’m off to bed!