On Vegas, the Grand Canyon and the vast desert in between

I woke up bright and early for my 4 hour drive to the Grand Canyon. Thanks to my beautiful rental car, I had a skip in my step that is rarely there at 6am. I had my coffee; I had my music. The views as I drove were exquisite...

It's cool to do this drive alone because you can just focus on the sites and take it all in. The perks of having someone with you though... they would be able to take the pictures while you drive. Instead I kept wanting to stop every five minutes... which if I ever wanted to get to the Grand Canyon, I clearly could not do.

After a bit, it began to rain, which didn't dampen my spirits one bit - nothing could get me down - I was Grand Canyon bound! (For some reason unbeknownst to me... the fact that the view at the Gand Canyon could be affected never crossed my mind).

As I was passing through the gate into Grand Canyon National Park, there was a sign that said "No refunds for limited visibility." That was the first time that it crossed my mind that I might not be able to see some of the canyon because of the clouds - I was still not too worried though.

As I walked over to the ledge, a lady walking away said, "Oh you made it just in time - the clouds are breaking!" This is the sight that I came upon:

I couldn't see much, but I wasn't worried because that nice lady had said that the clouds were breaking! And then this happened...

The fog completely engulfed the canyon and you could only see a few feet in front of you. If I hadn't had to pay $35 at a gate that said "Grand Canyon National Park," I wouldn't have even known that I was there. At a loss of what to do since I didn't have a canyon to take pictures of, I took about 50 pictures of this squirrel...

Somehow, my spirits were still high - I think the only reason for that was because I was in utter shock and had not reached the stage of acceptance yet.

I began to listen in on other tourists' feelings on the inclement weather that was affecting their visit as well...

Ungrateful child: "What are you doing, Sarah?! Why are you even taking pictures? You're literally taking pictures of clouds."

Sarah: "I still want to look back and remember our time here!"

Ungrateful child: "DAD!!! Let's GO."

And with that they left... Thankfully though, the majority of the other conversations sounded more like this...

3 year-old kid: "Wow, daddy, we're on top of the world!"

Older brother: "No, we're not."

3 year-old kid: "Well, we're on top of the clouds!"

Older brother: "Not exactly..."

3 year-old kid: "Well... we're in HEAVEN!!"

Most people I passed were still happy, discussing and explaining to their kids how cool it was that the canyon was engulfed with fog, because apparently it very rarely happens.

A dad: "Most people get to see the Grand Canyon on a regular day, but YOU get to see it when it's covered in clouds!"

After wandering for over an hour from lookout to lookout without seeing anything, I decided to go to my car, grab my book and lay on a bench and read. I figured I might as well make the most of my day and relax before my four hour drive.

As soon as I came back, the clouds were breaking again - thinking that I only had five minutes before the clouds took over again, I quickly had a dude take a picture of me, thinking it was going to be my only picture with the Grand Canyon.

Can you imagine me coming back with this as my only picture with the Grand Canyon and trying to convince people that I actually was there?!

And then as the rain poured down, people just became happier and happier, because for some reason, the visibility was getting better and better each moment. Then this happened:

I've never been so unbelievably grateful for the rain. I couldn't believe my eyes, and the excitement of everyone at the lookout was beyond contagious.

Then, I found people that wanted to climb out to a ledge. This involved rocky, slippery terrain where one misstep would be quite bad - but with a super nice dad offering to give me a hand, I shakily followed him down the cliff...

I started shaking a little when I would look down and seeing nothing to keep me from plummeting... but I soldiered on, and boy am I sooo glad that I did!

I snapped as many pictures as I could - I ended up with over 500 pictures of the Grand Canyon - it took me sooo long to go through those pictures!

I reluctantly left and made a quick stop for pictures at the Hoover dam - one of the many sites on the beautiful drive through Arizona and Nevada.

Hoover Dam

I quickly stopped in Downtown Las Vegas while I still had my car, and after losing my car (Vegas is a horrible place to forget where you parked), I made it back to the rental car place in the nick of time.

I then grabbed a beer, walked the strip, and planted myself in front in the Monte Carlo and worked on some social media marketing for a client - which I hate doing - but if I gotta work on it, I think the Las Vegas strip is as good a spot as any.