Monday 10th

Today is our helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon which we are really looking forward to. We started off the day with a last shuttle ride into the strip to have a light breakfast and then back to the hotel for a rest before our helicopter adventure.

The Grand Celebration is the crown jewel in Papillons selection of helicopter tours. This helicopter tour provides stunning aerial views of Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, and Grand Canyon West. Additionally, this tour lands at the bottom of the canyon on a private plateau overlooking the mighty Colorado River. There, we enjoyed a champagne picnic and refreshments while surrounded by the awe-inspiring grandeur that is the Grand Canyon. It is truly an experience unlike any other!

We were picked up from the hotel by a stretch limousine along with two other couples from England and Wales.

Las Vegas is a lot more than just the Casinos on Las Vegas Boulevard, there are thousands of residential homes.

It is dry barren countryside.

Expensive golf course outside Vegas where many celebrities have residences.

Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, 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 controversially named after PresidentHerbert Hoover.

Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States, measured by water capacity. It is on the Colorado River about 24 mi (39 km) from the Las Vegas Stripsoutheast of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, in the states of Nevada and Arizona. Formed by the Hoover Dam, Lake Mead is 112 miles (180 km) long when the lake is full, has 759 miles (1,221 km) of shoreline, is 532 feet (162 m) at greatest depth, with a surface elevation of 1,221.4 feet (372.3 m) above sea level, and has 247 square miles (640 km²) of surface, and when filled to available capacity, 26.12 million acre feet (32.22 km³) of water. The lake has not reached full capacity, however, since 1983 due to a combination of drought and increased water demand.^[1][2][3] Owing to current low water level, Lake Sakakawea holds claim over Lake Mead in terms of the United State's largest reservoir by total area and water in reserve.

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.

We stopped to refuel on the way back to Vegas.

Returning to Vegas at sunset.