In February 2018, our next door neighbors sadly moved to Tucson, AZ. After our trips the last few years, we'd been wanting to go west. So we decided that we should head their way during spring break! :) It was our first time to fly as a family of five and I was sorta excited for the challenge. I wanted to know I could do it and have that under our belt for future plans. ;) We chose to fly into Las Vegas, NV bc it was most affordable. We rented a SUV there and made it into a road trip. We also flew out of BWI, making it a road trip before and after our flights!
On the airport shuttle ~ lots of excitement
Could they be any cuter?
We took four backpacks and four small rolling suitcases between the five of us and it worked out great. The kids each had entertainment in their backpack (journals, pencils, crayons, books) and personal items (sunglasses, store your sweatshirt, etc).
On the way there, I got Lily and Ben. Mike got Peter. They were great but certainly by the end, I was ready for peace and quiet.
Mike geeked out and brought a little keyboard to use with his phone. I think surprisingly enough, his flight was more peaceful than mine. Who knew?
We arrived LATE at night, with a time difference, and no real meal in too many hours.
After food, cruising the strip, and a good night's rest, we were up and at 'em the next morning.
It was fun planning this trip! I loved the chance to see & learn about so many things.
Our first stop was the Hoover Dam.
My overwhelming feeling about the Hoover Dam was TERRIFYING.
It was unbelievably HUGE.
We were SO high in the air that everything below looked minuscule.
To a small degree (pun intended), it reminded me of the Empire State Building in the sense that everything below was matchbox size. But there wasn't that secure glass wall between us and below.
A road goes over that top part of the dam and while its partially blocked by the wall, its barely visible!
You can see where the water has receded in the lighter colored rocks surrounding the lake.
The lower part of the power plant. See those tiny trucks.
Learning about the process of men building the dam was incredible- quite the engineering feat! We toured the power plant underground and walked through one of the (I think) four tunnels that they blasted out to divert the monstrous river so they could build the dam on a dry river bed.
This pic below is taken from the Hoover Dam looking up to the bridge we were standing on for the previous pics above.
That afternoon we drove east to a town called Williams, AZ.
We had dinner on old route 66.
