Dam it!

Hoover Dam, Boulder City

The road between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon takes about four hours.

One stop you can't miss on the way : Hoover Dam, about thirty minutes away from Vegas.

Yes, hydroelectricity is everywhere in Quebec. But this dam is still impressive. They finished it two years earlier than they expected and it did cost less than expected...

Located near Boulder City, this dam brings electricity to Nevada, Arizona and California. More than two millions cube meters of concrete were used to build it.

You can visit the powerplant at the bottom and the dam itself. Since you're there...

To get to the Grand Canyon, you need to drive on highway 93. Impressive at first because of the mountains and the cliffs, it ends up making the driver sleepy, like H-40 you take to go east. The straight parts are very long.

Two things on the road.

1- When a store in the middle of nowhere (literaly) has a sign stating "World Famous Store", but nobody has ever heard of it, it means there is a marketing problem somewhere. It's not nice to lie...

2- American radios don't offer a lot of diversity. Listening to the same song 14 times a day, at some point, it gets annoying. I had brought my iPod to play music in the car, but there is no AUX plug in my Mitsubishi... Damn karma! That said, for The Lumineers, Bruno Mars, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars, Kelly Clarkson, Bruno Mars, Pink, Bruno Mars, Phillip Phillips and Justin Bieber (and Bruno Mars), it probably brings a lot of money home. Good for them, because after getting tired of their songs on the radio, we don't want to buy their albums anymore. Did I say they like Bruno Mars around here?

In the end, I reached Tusayan, about one kilometer south of the Grand Canyon national park entrance (South Rim). Little fake-village for tourists, the place has a few hotels, some restaurants and two convenience stores. But be aware that in January, almost everything is closed after 8 PM. Low season they say. Still, the McDonald's closes around 10 PM for those who are hungry.