Day 8: The Grand Canyon

“The best view comes after the hardest climb”

Today was long, but today was great. I left Vegas around 10:30 this morning. It was so nice to have a hotel room all to myself, you have no idea. I didn't have to worry about sharing the bathroom, or wearing flip flops in the shower, or talking to strangers in common areas. Glorious. You never realize how important your own privacy is until you don't have it anymore. I drove down strip before I left. I rolled down the window and took another handful of my mom's ashes and spread them as I was driving. I knew I wanted to spread some in Vegas but I didn't know where specifically and figured I might look suspicious walking around and trying to spread ashes. So I decided to do it while driving, I think my mom would've thought it was funny, I hope.

I made a pit stop at the Hoover dam, I had been there before so I just drove over it, didn't bother getting out to look around, plus parking was $10! I wanted to get on the road and get to the Grand Canyon, I had about a four and a half hour drive ahead of me. I discovered a pretty awesome 90s rock station on my spotify so I was busy rocking out to that pretty much the whole way. It took about 3 hours to get to the exit that takes you to the grand canyon, it was a one lane highway almost all the way there and I wanted to die being behind all the slow moving vehicles. Luckily I'm not afraid of passing so I leap frogged my way around all the slow cars and made it to the Grand Canyon by 4:30.

I had to walk for about 10 minutes before I saw anything, there were tourists everywhere, which is my own fault for choosing the location I did. I was on the south rim trail, which is a pretty popular spot for people to stop. Once I saw it though, it took my breath away. It didn't really matter that there were tourists everywhere, it was amazing. I climbed down a small cliff so I could get some good pictures and discovered a small trail leading back up to the main road. There was a small cave where you could sit so I parked it there and just took some deep breaths and enjoyed the scenery, uninterrupted by other people. I brought some of mom's ashes with me in my backpack so I threw some down into the canyon. I like knowing that whenever I go back to these places that a little piece of my mom will be there too.

After the Grand Canyon, I was headed to Phoenix to see an old friend. I hadn't seen her for about 4 years, we used to work at Blockbuster together, back when Blockbuster was still a thing. I made it to Phoenix in about three and a half hours, I'd been in the car for almost 9 hours, I was exhausted. My friend, her roommate, and I went out to a local bar and got hit on by some creepy dudes. None of us are interested in men so it was super weird and awkward. We did get some free drinks out of it though! They played some pool and we ended up leaving before it got too weird. I passed out pretty quickly, the day had finally got to me. I feel like I'm hitting my stride though, learning how to go with the flow, let things go that don't matter and trying to enjoy the view. The next 2 days will mostly be driving as I head toward San Antonio to go to Six Flags, finally!