After 2 Days in vibrant Las Vegas Team Lipstick took off to see the Great Canyon driving via the Famous Hoover Dam which supplies Las Vegas with water.

 

Hoover Dam, originally known as Boulder Dam from 1933 to 1947, when it was officially renamed Hoover Dam by a joint resolution of Congress, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. The dam was named after PresidentHerbert Hoover.

 

Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume (when it is full).[5] The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada.Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction; nearly a million people tour the dam each year.

 

Hoover Dam
high water marks

Currently this famous dam is rather empty as can be seen on the picture where the high water mark was.

 

By driving over the dam’s wall the guys actually left Nevada and arrived in Arizone:

 

Arriving in Arizone
The dams generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California

After visiting this gigantic dam the boys drove on to an other spectacular site about 150km north West of Hoover Dam:

 

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a horseshoe-shaped cantilever bridge with a glass walkway in Arizona near the Colorado River on the edge of a side canyon in the Grand Canyon West area of the main canyon.

In the old days, the most thrilling view you could get of the Grand Canyon came standing at its edge. In 2007, that view got even better with the opening of the Skywalk at Eagle Point. This 10-foot-wide, horseshoe-shaped glass bridge extends 70 feet out over the rim of the Canyon. Look down and you can see right through the glass platform 4,000 feet to the floor of the Canyon below. Profiled by the National Geographic Channel, The Today Show, and CNN, this engineering marvel offers unparalleled views of the one of the world’s Seven Natural Wonders.

 

The Great Canyon SkyWalk

 

It was a bit of a shaky feeling as the guys walked over the glass floor of this enormous pice of architecture – especially the first 2 meters after which some confidence came back.

 

horseshoe shaped sky walk bridge
Some confidence came back.

 

 

All visitors walking on this horseshoe shaped bridge need to put a protective cover over their shoes in order not to scratch the glass floor

 

There are a lot of nice viewpoints other than the skywalk from where on can see this massive crack in mother earth called the Great Canyon

 

The Grand Canyon (HopiOngtupqa;[2] YavapaiWi:kaʼi:laNavajoTsékoohHatsohSpanishGran Cañón) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in ArizonaUnited States. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,093 feet or 1,857 meters).[3]

 

Nearly two billion years of Earth’s geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted.[4] While some aspects about the history of incision of the canyon are debated by geologists,[5] several recent studies support the hypothesis that the Colorado River established its course through the area about 5 to 6 million years ago.[1][6][7] Since that time, the Colorado River has driven the down-cutting of the tributaries and retreat of the cliffs, simultaneously deepening and widening the canyon.

For thousands of years, the area has been continuously inhabited by Native Americans, who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon a holy site, and made pilgrimages to it.[8] The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was GarcíaLópez de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.[9]

 

The views down the Grand Canyon
Part of the seven wonders of the world.

 

The views down the Grand Canyon are absolutely spectacular and it is understood why this area is part of the seven wonders of the world.

 

 

After leaving the Western wall of the Great River Canyon the boys took off to drive along route 66

In a westerly direction towards Los Angeles.

 

U.S. Route 66 (US 66 or Route 66), also known as the Will Rogers Highway, the Main Street of America or the Mother Road, was one of the original highways within the U.S. Highway System. US 66 was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year.[4]The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in the United States, originally ran from ChicagoIllinois, through MissouriKansasOklahomaTexasNew Mexico, and Arizona before ending at Santa MonicaCalifornia, covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km).[5] It was recognized in popular culture by both the hit song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” and the Route 66 television show in the 1960s.

US 66 served as a major path for those who migrated west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and the road supported the economies of the communities through which it passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive in the face of the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System

 

Route 66 is also called the mother of all routes
Many old stores along the road
R66 old times 

Many old stores along the road allow Team Lipstick to imagine life along this historic road some 100 years ago before stopping in a Town called Needles.

Day 26 – 12th September – Las Vegas to Grand Canyon and Needles

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