On May 1st we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary.  On our first anniversary Bill was in Tulsa on a business trip and I went with him.  On our second anniversary we put the house in Florida on the market in preparation for Bill’s retirement and the beginning of our RV adventure. On our third anniversary we were in beautiful Bodega Bay, California.  So what shall we do for our fourth anniversary?  How about a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon?  Of course!

Neither Bill nor I had ever flown in a helicopter and neither of us have a fear of flying.  My only fear was possible air sickness but 2 Dramamines helped prevent that problem.  We arrived at Grand Canyon Airport and checked in where we were weighed and shown a safety video.  Since we would be flying at some points over the Colorado River we were given a personal flotation device which was folded up and worn like a fanny pack.  It was a state of the art helicopter with large seats arranged for maximum viewing.  There were two other couples on the helicopter with us, one from England and one from France.

We put on a seatbelt and safety harness and headphones so we could hear the pilot, narrations of what we were seeing and music.  I thought it was funny that while we were waiting to take off the song p!aging on the headphones was “Everything Is Going To Be All Right”.

Soon we were off flying over the tops of a forest of trees.  The take off and landing was very smooth as was the entire flight.  I never felt sick or afraid.

As we reached the end of the forest and over the ledge into the canyon, the theme song from “2001 A Space Odyssey” played and as the canyon walls dramatically appeared before us the view was breathtaking.  Beyond description.  We flew around in the canyon seeing the Colorado River snaking through the canyon as well as buffalo grazing on a cliff top.

We will continue with more pictures from the helicopter in our next blog.