Have you seen this thing? The Grand Canyon actually is as big as people say it is. The thing about photographs is that they just can't reproduce the sense of depth that the real deal offers. We've noticed this a lot while driving up and down mountains. We'll be descending and think "whoa, we gotta get a picture of this!" and then we look at the pictures later and it looks like any old boring dirt hill. Same deal with the Grand Canyon. Sure, the postcards you've seen look all canyonful and stuff, but when you actually stand on the edge and look down... waaaay down, you get the point.

See? That picture doesn't probably make you dizzy, does it? Well, it did in person. And check out that fog? We either: A) picked a bad first day to see the canyon, or B) brought the fog with us from San Francisco and ruined the view for everyone else. I'm hoping it's A.

Jenny was commenting that she would notice how crazy far away a certain spot might be, and then a second later, she'd see another something or other that was even further away. And then she'd notice what looked like a little building or something, down next to the Colorado River, that was too tiny to even notice until you know where to look.

Here's us at our first viewing. Following the advice of Jenny's friend, Barry, we drove right on past the south rim, which is usually everyone's first stop. We instead went up the east side to get our first glimpse, away from all of the more touristy tourists, and it really paid off. We got a nice, clear view (other than the fog) with about 10 other people total.

I should backtrack and comment a bit on our drive from Needles to the canyon. It was pretty short, but Jenny (who was feeling what we now know was altitude sickness) still needed a little nap. I promise she's not usually sleeping and making me do all the driving. This was an isolated incident, and I just had to snap a picture.

We saw lots of great desert vistas along the way. This is the part of the drive where the desert really starts to look interesting and pretty, with all of the odd vegetation and mesas. The clouds are also top shelf.

The highlight for me, which involves food as usual, was the Korean "candy" we found at a random grocery store in a randomer desert town. It's called Crunch Up, and it's sort of a cross between Rice Crispy treats and Dippin Dots, the Ice Cream of the Future. Jenny, for some reason, keeps referring to Crunch Up as "Dots of the Future". This is not a properly mashed-up name, and I reject it.

But yeah, Crunch Up is incredible. It's a light, airy bar that has a subtle cocoa taste, not milk chocolate. Find them and enjoy.

So we really didn't do too much at the canyon today. We just checked out the east and south rims and then checked into our lodge room. It's not as cool as it sounds. It's really just a normal hotel room that happens to be in the middle of a pine forest right next to the deepest hole in the world. Cool enough, I suppose.

We did also make it over to "The Arizona Room" for dinner. This, too, is not as cool as it sounds. The dress was casual, the waiter was rude and unattentive, and Jenny's food was undercooked. The waiter's tip was a well-deserved $2.50. Bam!