Day Date to the West Rim

Yesterday Derek & I had a little day date to go visit the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. We loved visiting the South Rim over Thanksgiving as a family, but we thought it would be fun to see it one more time just the two of us! Living in Las Vegas has a lot of perks, and the proximity to so many amazing sights is definitely one of them! The West Rim is a 2.5 hour drive from our house. We got Chick-fil-a for breakfast on the way there & stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-a on the way home, and we didn't feel one bit bad about it, ha! We don't have a CFA near our house, but there is one on our way out of Las Vegas, so it's a must for us every time we travel. ;)  We had such a fun day!!!

The South & North Rims are part of the National Park Systems, and there were handrails/clearly marked off areas to keep you away from the edge. The West Rim is on Native American land, so it was a completely different experience. First and foremost, there were NO RAILS ANYWHERE!!!! Here is Derek's favorite picture of the whole day when we first walked off the bus and I realized this:

And here's a couple other pictures from the opposite direction of where I'm standing in the above picture so you can see what I'm talking about--there is nothing keeping anyone from the edge. I kept thinking all it would take is someone bumping you & that would be it! I probably yelled at Derek 1.5 jillion times to stop or be careful or something else similar. There were all these people literally right on the edge, and all I could think was: "Where are their mothers to tell them to STOP IT?!"

One of the "cool" parts of the West Rim is they have a SkyWalk, which is glass walkway that goes out over the canyon so you can see straight down. I was excited/nervous to do this, but we found it pretty underwhelming in person. So we ended up skipping it altogether. Compared to the National Park version of the Grand Canyon, the West Rim seems like a bit of a tourist trap. Since Derek is military, the National Parks are free for us. The West Rim was $50 per person, then the SkyWalk is an additional $20 per person and then they won't even let you take your phone or camera out there. They will offer to take pictures for you for a fee of course. ;)  In my head, I envisioned the SkyWalk being this huge thing but in reality it was just really small and crowded. I don't think we missed much not doing it. You can see the SkyWalk in the picture below.

I think the Grand Canyon is one of those things you really have to see in person to fully appreciate it, but that being said I think we got some cool pictures! One of the neat things about the West Rim is there is this little peninsula if you will near the Guano mine where you have a 360 degree view of the canyon.

{Derek taking a picture looking down from the edge. You can bet I was probably yelling at him while he was taking this picture!} 

We left the Grand Canyon around 2:30ish to head back to Las Vegas. And less than 3 hours later, a helicopter crashed down in the canyon. There were no helicopters in sight when we were at the National Park over Thanksgiving, but the West Rim was practically crawling with helicopters due to its proximity to Las Vegas. Derek & I kept commenting on how crazy it was to see them flying down in the canyon so low and how close the helicopters would be to each other in flight. On our drive to the West Rim, I kept commenting to Derek about the lack of civilization and wondering where these people would shop? Derek's line of thinking was much different and kept saying how bad of a place it would be to get into an accident. Ugh, and then to hear that news just hours after we left. According to our local news, 3 people died & 4 are in critical condition at UMC in downtown Vegas. The part that I can't even imagine for those surviving victims is that the crash was reported around 5:20, and they didn't arrive to the hospital until 2 am b/c of how difficult it was for rescuers to get to them and for them to get the victims out. NINE HOURS LATER. All of the passengers were from Great Britain according to our local news, and I keep thinking what a nightmare this must be for the families of the victims being so far away from their loved ones. So horrific and so incredibly sad.