On Tuesday at 5:45 (Guhh – i know!!), Hubby and I got on a bus tour to the Grand Canyon West Rim Tour. I got us this tour as a gift to Hubby (and a guest – he took me!! LOL!) for our anniversary. The tour was a “luxury” bus ride to past the Hoover Dam (stopping at the look-out point) and a visit to the Hualapai Indian Reservation in Arizona and the Grand Canyon Skywalk that they have built. The bus ride was mostly uneventful on the way there. We saw the Joshua tree forest and few animals. We also had a couple of pit stops at out posts along the way. The Grand Canyon was amazing, and the skywalk was REALLY cool! I only wish there had been less people, or no people at all, so we could have enjoyed the view in silence. We weren’t allowed to take anything – including cameras) onto the skywalk so I have posted one of their images to give you the idea. You can check out their website here for a more in-depth explanation.

After we took in the view of the “Eagle” (did you see it?) in the Grand Canyon we headed on a shuttle to other parts of the tour – the shuttles run from the skywalk to an outlook to a cowboy town. We were starving so we headed over to the Cowboy town for our BBQ lunch. We needed some hydration and cool air — it was another boiling day and the heat really takes a toll on us humid-weather people. The Cowboy town was kinda cute and we got to do some calf roping, panning for gold, hatchet throwing, and Hubby got thrown in jail too (don’t worry I bailed him out).

After all the beautiful sights, hot oven air, hatchet throwing, and shuttle bus riding we were ready to hop back on the bus and head back to Las Vegas, Nevada. Then we hit a bit of a snag…after we waited an extra half an hour for LATE people to come back to the bus we finally got on the road and then we blew a tire! Initially I smelled burning rubber and then I saw piece of tire flying by the bus window and then the bus pulled over to a stop and the voice of our friendly (although a bit odd) bus drive says “Well folks, looks like we had a blow out — enjoy this video.”

We waited for another half hour watching the history of Las Vegas video on the mini TVs while the repair men came and fixed the tire in another half hours time. The air conditioning was working well and I was just praying that we didn’t lose that too. The bus driver was very concerned about snakes in the desert so he didn’t want anyone to get off the bus. That was fine with me I much preferred the bus seat to the oven hot desert sand. Finally the tire is fixed and just as we all were thinking it was time to get back on the road again the repair man informs the bus driver that another tire will most likely blow out shortly if he doesn’t get it fixed. So now the bus driver has to drive the bus 2 minutes down the road to the repair station BUT he decided he will drop us off at a local store/motel/creepy as hell location and come back for us when the tire is fixed. I guess I was the only one who thought this was a bad idea — it was the beginning of a horror movie for real — because everyone cheered as if he had told them they had won the lottery.

This little store combination motel was in the middle of the desert with nothing else around and as I looked at the joshua tree needles, the trailer restroom with no running water, the dusty looking man who came walking out of the desert with a case of beer, and the empty road I realized I may just need to ration the sprite and bag of goldfish I had in my hands.

10 minutes later the bus drive came back! sigh of relief – we weren’t stranded in the desert anymore — we were going to make it out alive!!! We made our way back through the Joshua tree forest, the long stretches of empty desert roads, the Hoover Dam, and back into down town Las Vegas to the Excalibur hotel. We were practically the first stop on the bus drivers route and we could feel the other passengers on the bus staring us down – jealous of our good fortune at being the first ones off the bus! We ran inside to the first restaurant we saw and got some dinner!