After some moderate success with a little mini vacation last year with just Angela and myself, we decided to book something a little more ambitious this year. Aiti came to Elora to look after the kids, and we flew to Las Vegas! In addition to taking in all the sights and sounds of the strip, we went on a bus tour to the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam.

The tour itself was... interesting. The tour company only employs stand-up comedians as their tour guides. I guess the theory is that it is a way for these comedians to make extra money, and although they are not telling jokes during the tour, they are comfortable talking and interacting with a random group of people.

Our tour guide was very nice... so although we didn't learn anything about the history or geology of the area, we did learn a lot about where to go for $2 beers on the strip, where the cheapest steakhouses were, and which casinos had the best deals on free gambling money. Anyway, the Grand Canyon was beautiful and peaceful, and our tour had the advantage that we were the first ones there in the morning, so we kind of had the place to ourselves before all of the other tour buses showed up.

Our tour guide was also an amateur photographer, and offered to take this photo of us near Guano point. He liked my camera a lot. Our tour didn't take us onto the Hoover Dam itself, but we walked out on a nearby bridge that gave us a great view of it. Behind the dam you can see how far down the water levels are in Lake Mead.

Technical Details: The photo on the left was taken by our tour guide with my Canon 5D Mark II + EF 17-40L at 17mm, ISO 100, f/11 for 1/160th of a second. The photo on the right was taken with the same setup and settings, for 1/80th of a second.