We didn't have snow tires for our rental car

Tuesday we rented a Dodge Caliper (a step up from a Chevy Rotor) and drove to the Hoover Dam. It was definitely a trip worth making: an amazing feat of engineering and the story behind it is both breathtaking and sad. The men that built the dam worked seven days a week year round with only Christmas and July 4th off. They tried to strike to change their working conditions (one of their demands was clean drinking water), but they were forced back to work. The construction of the dam was completed two years ahead of schedule.

I was really impressed with the Art Deco touches on what could have solely been a massive, brutal, sheerly utilitarian site.

We continued on to Grand Canyon West where we went on the Skywalk which juts out into the canyon, 4000 feet above ground level. We were so high up that it was hard to fully understand it. Our depth perception was way off until one of the guys made a huge snowball and dropped it over the side. We watched it fall and fall and fall and we kept anticipating that it would hit the closest ledge but it didn't, it just became smaller and smaller and when it was hard to even make out anymore it smashes against a jutting shelf (this wasn't even the bottom of the canyon).

The scenery was stunning, even more so because of the recent snowfall. It was overwhelming. It was so vast and so incredible that I think it overwhelmed the already faulty synapses of my puny brain.

It was a brilliant day to be able to go from the man made marvel that is the Hoover Dam to the natural wonder of the Grand Canyon and I'm very appreciative that I was afforded the chance to see it.