What a Trip!!!

I remember this one like it was yesterday. One of my best friends and I went on a trip to California with our then girlfriends. I have since married the girl in the purple dress and my friend broke up with the denim skirt and is happily married and has three kids with another woman.

Myself and this good friend spent a summer together with some other really good Galway friends around five years previous to this trip. We were all university students and there was seven of us sharing a two bedroom apartment near Torrance in California for the summer, lots of blow up mattresses and people sleeping on coaches. You do what you have to do as a student.

Anyway on one of the many nights out during this time, we brought four or five girls back to the apartment for a party after a night out down in Hollywood and wouldn't you know it, one of the lads met his wife that night and stayed in California for a few more years.

My friend and I went to visit and during that trip we rented a sweet convertible Mustang beast of a car and drove from LA to Vegas and stopped at the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon on route. Man, it was such a good trip!!

Here are some photos from the Grand Canyon that I recently found on a pen drive that was buried in a drawer for many years!!

I have blocked out my wife's face, as she does not want her face posted online. My mug is already at the bottom of all of my posts, so I don't really mind sharing my own.

The Grand canyon is breath taking to be honest, and even these photos don't really do it justice in my opinion.

I have blocked out all the faces here on these shots too, as I don't have permission from my friends to post them, and as I was saying my friend has now split up with this ex girlfriend, so blocking them out for that reason too. We had such a good time on this trip.

Next stop after this was Vegas, and that was some craic let me tell you. I will always remember driving into the strip in Vegas to MGM Grand with the roof down on the convertible at dusk just as all the lights were coming on in the strip. It was a really cool time of the day to be driving in. I had been to Vegas once before, but this was far more memorable, there is just something cool about driving into Vegas with all those lights, hotels, casinos etc.

I threw the car into the MGM car park and the partying began and went on for 3 days. It took me almost as long to find the car a few days later when we were checking out. Yep, the MGM has a big Big BIG car park, it's to be expected with a 6,852 room hotel, although I think it only had 5,000 rooms then. Only the 5,000 like.... Ha ha ha

So I have no photos that I can find right now from LA and Vegas, so just make do with the ones above from the Grand Canyon.

There may well be a few folks who have not heard of the Grand Canyon, doubtful that there are many, but maybe a few, so for you let me give you this brief description courtesy of wiki (link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canyon)

"The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is 446 km long, up to 18km wide and attains a depth of over 1,857 meters."

"The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument, the Hualapai Indian Reservation, the Havasupai Indian Reservation and the Navajo Nation. The surrounding area is contained within the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of the preservation of the Grand Canyon area and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery."

"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. While some aspects about the history of incision of the canyon are debated by geologists, several recent studies support the hypothesis that the Colorado River established its course through the area about 5 to 6 million years ago. 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. The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was García López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540."

"The Ancestral Puebloans were a Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States. They were the first people known to live in the Grand Canyon area. The cultural group has often been referred to in archaeology as the Anasazi, although the term is not preferred by the modern Puebloan peoples. The word "Anasazi" is Navajo for "enemy ancestors" or "alien ancestors"."

"Archaeologists still debate when this distinct culture emerged. The current consensus, based on terminology defined by the Pecos Classification, suggests their emergence was around 1200 BCE during the Basketmaker II Era. Beginning with the earliest explorations and excavations, researchers have believed that the Ancestral Puebloans are ancestors of the modern Pueblo peoples."

"In addition to the Ancestral Puebloans, a number of distinct cultures have inhabited the Grand Canyon area. The Cohonina lived to the west of the Grand Canyon, between 500 and 1200 CE. The Cohonina were ancestors of the Yuman, Havasupai, and Hualapai peoples who inhabit the area today."

"The Sinagua were a cultural group occupying an area to the southeast of the Grand Canyon, between the Little Colorado River and the Salt River, between approximately 500 and 1425 CE. The Sinagua may have been ancestors of several Hopi clans."

"By the time of the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, newer cultures had evolved. The Hualapai inhabit a 100-mile (160 km) stretch along the pine-clad southern side of the Grand Canyon. The Havasupai have been living in the area near Cataract Canyon since the beginning of the 13th century, occupying an area the size of Delaware. The Southern Paiutes live in what is now southern Utah and northern Arizona. The Navajo, or Diné, live in a wide area stretching from the San Francisco Peaks eastwards towards the Four Corners. Archaeological and linguistic evidence suggests the Navajo descended from the Athabaskan people near Great Slave Lake, Canada, who migrated after the 11th century. In the mythology of some Third Mesa Hopi communities, the Grand Canyon was the location humankind arose out of the Third World from a sipapu.

Ok, so there ends the history lesson courtesy of Wiki. Hopeful you learned something and enjoyed my photos and ramblings!!

Laters...

The images used with Smiley faces were captured by my friends and I when we visited the Grand Canyon - the others were put on the Pen drive given to us by the Skywalk team which are great shots

Thanks as always for stopping by everyone.

Peace Out