Erynn and I flew down to Phoenix to visit our friends Jerod and Mylynn for a long weekend. The four of us went to Case Western Reserve University as undergrads, and we try to visit them as much as possible. Jerod likes to drive. And on this occasion we were sitting having dinner the night we arrived, and we decided to take a little road trip. He's not afraid of driving across country, and we were discussing one of his marathon journeys when the idea of driving to Las Vegas came up. It was about 8pm and we up and decided to drive to Vegas that night. After a couple phone calls to find someone to take care of their dog, Sebastian, we all headed out of town in Jerod's Corrado. The trip ended up being 24 hours we'll never forget. The other thing you'll notice is that we experimented a bit with the black & white film on this trip.
Our first stop on the whirlwind tour was Hoover Dam. Of course, since we hadn't started our trip until about nine at night, we didn't reach the dam until the middle of the night. This explains the exciting pictures I have of Hoover Dam. You're looking at it. It was much more impressive in person staring down hundreds of feet into the darkness.
We then rolled into Las Vegas in the small hours of the morning. We were pretty tired, but still managed to walk around a bit and visit a few casinos. However, I didn't take any photos. Or I could say "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," which sounds much better. In truth, I couldn't be bothered to carry the camera around.
After taking a quick nap in the car, we got our second wind and decided to drive to Utah and Zion National Park. Erynn had heard great things and convinced us it would be worthwhile. She was right, because the park was breathtaking.
Here are some photos from the park. There's a little road that winds its way through the valley floor. Around each bend is another Kodak moment.
It just so happened that in order to get back from Utah to Phoenix, we had to somehow cross the Grand Canyon. So the next stop on our trip was the North Rim. Here's a picture of myself in front of the North Rim Visitor Center and a shot of the center from the cliff below.
From the visitor center you can walk down to this outcropping and stare out miles in each direction. In the left-hand picture you can just barely see the people. In the right-hand picture you can see Jerod and Mylynn on the same outcropping with the expanse of the Grand Canyon behind them.
And here's a shot of all four of us.
Here are a bunch of photos I took while walking around the visitor center park.
On our drive back to Phoenix, we passed over the Colorado River near Lees Ferry. Here are pictures of Marble Canyon and the old Navajo Bridge before they built the new one.
After a long lie in to recuperate from the road trip, we headed out to Tonto National Forest for a bit of target practice. Jerod has quite the arsenal, and he was happy to let us fire off a few rounds. More than a few, actually.
© 2000-2005 Doug Rathburn