The Grand Canyon and the start of our road trip!

After spending a rather chilled week with my parents (whom are currently holidaying here in America) in Las Vegas, it was time to move on. Our next destinations and planned trip I was really excited for, not only was I finally on the move again, I was now on track to see all these amazing places I had always wanted to see, as well as being able to do them with my parents.

Our first destination? The Grand Canyon!

There is a heap of options on how to see the Grand Canyon. The most extravagant of which was a bus ride to the rim, a quick helicopter ride from the rim down into the canyon itself, followed by a casual boat trip along the river that runs through it! Wow! Boating along inside the canyon sounds unreal!... yeah... it sounds great until you read that is it $300 each, and the entire day goes for 13 hours... ha! Not happening.

Instead we decided upon a 1 - hour plan flight tour over the canyon, a very awesome second choice I'd say. The result? Amazing!

Granted the flight was at 6am... which meant waking up at 4am... but the excitement for the day overruled any exhaustion! Plus it did allow for some really great views of the sun rising. Again, I will let the pictures do most of the talking here, however I fear that they in no way do the Grand Canyon the justice it earned.

"Erghhh... 5am wake up is tough..."

Waiting for our flight

And we are off to our plane! Check out the perfectly clear skies!

All strapped in!

And we're all ready...

And now we're off!

The Hoover Dam!

Time to land!

The pictures are a poor constitute, but I hope you can imagine the grandeur that it inspires when you are actually there. I would of really loved the boat ride along the river inside the canyon, but the plane ride was still awesome. I think whichever way you decide to see it the affect will be the same.

Upon landing we got dropped off to our hotel, then it was straight to the hire car place, and not long after (despite Dad's glacial pace when dealing with customer service people) we were on the road! Our first stop was to be a town called Bakersfield which is directly half way between Las Vegas and San Francisco, so we will spend the night there to break up the drive a little. Plus it provides a great launch pad to see Kings Canyon National Park the following day! The Kings Canyon National Park is the south-west part of the Yosemite National Park, so I am predicting great things ahead!

The planned route for the drive

3 hours later we arrived in Bakersfield! And what a dodgy town it is haha... the shadiest of people walking the streets even during the day, but we were only staying the night so it's not so bad. Our motel room is actually really epic too.

Mum and Dad insisted upon Italian food despite my lack of belief that a country town in the deserts of America would have too great of an idea of what Italian is meant to be like. It turned out pretty alright.

Then we got lost making our way back to the motel (I think a solid 70% of our time traveling together is spent looking at maps, signs, asking people for directions, U-turns, tantrums, and claims that 'this is definitely the right way!').

Tomorrow is going to be amazing I am so excited, the Kings Canyon looks incredible on Google searches.