Day 3: What a country

Hoover Dam bypass. --Richard Carpenter/Special to the Daily Mail

The third day of our trip led us to some familiar locations to most Americans. Early in the morning, we visited the Grand Canyon. In the afternoon, we crossed from Arizona to Nevada by way of Hoover Dam.

Last night we ended the evening at Circus Circus Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

I included one picture with this story. It is the new bridge that is being built to allow a bypass around Hoover Dam. This is likely to be just as big an engineering feat as the dam originally was itself.

Located several hundred feet downstream from the dam high above the Colorado River, this new bridge dwarfs the dam in height. When it is done, I would love to come back and walk across it. The view back toward the dam should be amazing.

We stayed at Circus Circus, because we wanted the younger ones to have something to do in Vegas. It is really a family place, complete with an indoor theme park.

At the end of the day we were visiting about the sights we had seen. While these great American vacation spots were impressive, there was something we all noticed even more.

At the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, and last night at Circus Circus, we all noticed the many languages and races of people we saw. I am not making this up folks. During the entire day yesterday, we found ourselves to be in the minority.

I thought that perhaps our weak dollar has made vacationing here in America a real bargain for these foreigners. The result is definite however, there were a lot of people speaking German, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and a few I did not even know.

I will give them credit, mostly they seemed to enjoy the sights, and they were pretty friendly.

What bothers me the most, is that the average American cannot afford to travel to our national vacation treasure sights anymore.

What a country, isn't it!