Grand Canyon

Finally.
We have arrived.
{At the grand canyon, that is.}

We pulled into the national park late at night, so no pictures were taken upon our arrival.

However, Carl convinced us to wake up early enough to see the sun rise.

We rolled out of the [very comfy] bed in the morning very sleepily and realized it was snowing once we stepped out of our lodge.  (This picture is from later in the day after the sun was up.  But this is our lodge.  Also, the photo was taken from the car because yours truly was shivering.)

 

We headed for the rim of the canyon in search of an eastern view to watch the sun come up.  Well, it was snowy and foggy so our view was not one to be excited about.  The fog cleared up slightly, so we hopped out of our car to take some photos.

I wasn't meaning to make such awful faces in these pictures, but I was shivering to the core.  I was wearing a long sleeve shirt under a sweater, which was under a sweatshirt, which was under a leather jacket, which was under my coat.  I tried to dress warm.  I am from Florida though, so give a girl a break.

 

The fog started clearing a little bit so we took a few more shots. Still, the canyon was hazy so we couldn't see the bottom.

   

On our way back to the lodge to get ready for our trip, we hoped to see a real mountain lion. But this was the best we got.  (A sign. I know, I know. Lame.)  We did see a pretty big deer though... but since those are pretty common in the sunshine state, it wasn't as exciting as a mountain lion would've been.

  

We grabbed breakfast in a cafeteria, where we saw this little sign sitting on our table. It made us laugh...

 

If you don't see why it made us laugh, read the top line in the red background.

Once we finished eating, we headed back out to our car. It was time to pack up our room.  

Once our room was packed up, my wonderful husband carried our luggage out to the car.  

We were back on the road heading for the museum. Yes, this is the road.  

Next to the museum, there was a lookout point of the canyon. At this point, I was so thankful that Carl dragged us out of bed in the morning to go see the canyon, because if we had waited, this is what we would've seen for the rest of the day.  

The park rangers were stoked about how snowy it was. They said it's rarely as snowy there as it was that day... unfortunately the visitors were all a bit let down that they couldn't see this amazing wonder.

We explored the museum for a while, and heard a talk about the canyon, and then we left the park to go see the iMax movie (per the recommendation of some friends...thanks guys!) about the canyon.  That provided us with a pretty realistic view of the canyon, but we'll still need to take another trip back sometime to see it in real life.
At least we got a few different views of it.  Next time, it'll be a summer trip.