By the time I woke up, I was already packing it...the thought of flying high into the air, in a tiny bubble is not very appealing to me...and as we waited for our limo to pick us up, the nerves got worse! Finally, our white stretch limo arrived, and in 5 mins we were out at the helicopter base... Sundance Helicopter Tours.
We went inside and got all the housekeeping out of the way...weight, evacuation procedures, motion sickness possibilities - all things that put me toatlly at ease - NOT! I wanted to meet the pilot, and let him know that I was feeling a little rattled, and not to do anything crazy, but Iz was a bit annoyed at this, saying,"Don't say a word till you've at least experienced it!" So I bit my tongue, and as our number was called, tried to calm my nerves.
Our group consisted of a 4 person family from England, and ourselves. Our pilot was a young bloke, who has been flying helicopters for 4 years - I wasn't sure whether to feel more nervous or not. Apparently you can learn to fly in about 4 hours - so I guess he has quite a bit of flight time. To my delight, he offered Izzy and I the two front seats beside him...total birdseye view out of our glass bubble - it had windows at the front, to the side, and down the bottom (though not directly under our feet - thank God!!)
With that, it was time to take to the skies...and as the pilot wound up the blades, I tried to stay calm. We began to hover just above the tarmac, before moving left, then forward, then down to the right, and along the runway. These things take off pretty quickly, and go up high pretty fast. Before I could say, "Holy Crap, get me out of this thing," we were arcing over the golf course below us (a little too sideways for my liking) but after this, I was smooth sailing.
The view was incredible, and even though you are traveling at 160 miles per hour, it only feels like you are going about 10. It was a very smooth trip...much smoother than I had anticipated, and definitely better than a lot of plane trips we have been on. We glided about 3000 feet above Lake Mead and on to the Grand Canyon. This took at least an hour, but the scenery was fantastic...everything out here is dry as a bone - it is amazing to think that the Indians survived out here, a long time before Hoover Dam was built to feed the State of California (that's right - it wasn't even built for Nevada originally). Out here, they receive about 10 inches of rain per year...not much. Yet the Dam and Lake Mead are rivers of blue in a very arid landscape.