GC West, Hoover Dam and Vegas - Days 86 - 87

I left Phoenix early Monday morning heading out across the desert for another view of the Grand Canyon, this time from the new Skywalk. The path to the Skywalk included 14 slow miles on unpaved road. Upon arrival, you purchase your viewing package and then herd onto busses. The main stop at the Skywalk provides awesome views of GC West as well as the Skywalk itself.

Unfortunately, no cameras are permitted on the Skywalk because they don't want people to drop them and scratch the view. They also make you wear slippers over your shoes. On the Skywalk, you walk out on a U-shaped platform that is centered with a see-through path offering views 5000 feet down to the base of the Canyon. While some people were terrified, mostly it is just a very unique view of the Canyon. It was pretty good, but nothing was as beautiful of the more popular Southern Rim.

The Halupi Indians are doing a lot of work on the area, and a few years from now, the place will look a lot different. Paving of the 14 mile dirt road should happen pretty quickly. And around the Skywalk area they are going to build a hotel, casino and shopping marts. Even with all that, I would still recommend the Southern Rim for drive-by viewing of the GC. But if you want to do a helicopter, GC West would be the better choice because the pilots are permitted to fly into, and not just over, the canyon. One woman I spoke with got nauseous from all the acrobatic flying the pilot did...sounds fun.

After the GC, I headed to the Hoover Dam. It was too late in the day for a tour, so I just did a drive-by and stopped at the viewing areas for fantastic views of the massive dam. It was pretty, but not entirely captivating. I headed on to Vegas for the night.

I played blackjack, and by the end of the night, I had won enough money to cover the entry fee to a World Series of Poker tournament. There are about 36 individual tournaments in the WSOP including the main event $10,000 No-limit Texas Hold'em. I entered a smaller tournament of Limit Hold-em.

This tournament was set up such that each table plays until it has a winner and the winner moves on to the next round. I had a nice group of players, and they knew I was really not going to win, but I was able to win a few hands early and hang around for 5 hours of play. There were about 800 entrants, and I remained after about 75% of them had gone. At our table of 10, I was the 7th eliminated.

With my table mates knowing I was a rookie, and interested in the once-in-a-lifetime experience of being in a WSOP tournament, Terrence Chan (This guy), called the tournament "chip counter" over and had him take down my name and chip count. It was added to the leader board. For quite a while I was up on the leader board, with a list of famous poker names trailing. Funny stuff. My one regret is that I didn't get a chance to play with or meet Doyle Brunson, the living legend of poker. But these people take poker pretty seriously and I don't envy the lifestyle the pros endure. I can count "professional poker player" among the careers I will not be contemplating.