Last night we decided to aim for leaving at 0800, so that we might leave by 0830. I had done quite a bit of packing before we went to bed, and we were lights out at around 10pm, so there was time for plenty of sleep before the 0630 alarm clock. I still didn’t want to get up though…!

After finishing the packing, loading the car, taking a final look from the balcony and checking out, we departed at…exactly 0830. The first hour or so took us south down AZ-64 to Williams, where we stopped at the Route 66 diner for breakfast.

After that, with both us and the car fully fuelled, we continued along I-40 to Kingsman and then north to the Hoover Dam, where we pulled off, passed through a security check, and parked at the bridge viewing area.

A slight aside here. You may be wondering why this year’s blog is called the Mighty Six. “The six what?”, you ask. (Or maybe you don’t, but I am going to explain anyway). In 2013, Utah ran a campaign to advertise ‘ the Mighty Five’, the five national parks in southern Utah. It was (possibly too) successful. As we were potentially visiting all of them, plus the Grand Canyon, I took a few liberties and made it Six. If you’ve been taking note, we have visited Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches and Grand Canyon… making only five, as we didn’t have time for Canyonlands. I have therefore decided that the Hoover Dam is going to count as ‘Mighty’!

The view from the bridge of the Dam are indeed impressive. You get a better sense of scale from the bridge than from the Dam itself.

After that, we drove into the Las Vegas area, stopping first at a Dillard’s, which I could vaguely remember the location of. After some swift and purposeful shopping by Andrew, it was off to REI. Only a short browse and then our final shopping stop at the Columbia outlet store. All done in three hours, including a stop for a sandwich and coffee!

This left us driving to the hotel in rush hour and rapidly fading light, but we made it without getting lost and checked in before 6pm. A quick visit to the bar across the parking lot for dinner and then back for a final packing session and an early night. It’s a very early start tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are the bird pictures from Grand Canyon for you to identify…