we are there

We are in LA, arriving at around 3am local time Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

We are still in the process of sorting our broken stuff, dealing with two insurance companies, and to top it off,my laptop has, to use a New-Englander term, "shit the bed," so sorry no witty/cute/majestic picture with this post. I am using my work computer and it can't edit shit.

Who woulda thunk a 40mph impact with a tree would damage a computer hard drive? Strange.

We are moving into our new apartment on Friday, maybe buying a car over the weekend if the insurance stuff is straightened out by then, and in between we need to start replacing things that we have to have like beds and plates and chairs and tables and, well, I guess you get the picture.

Please allow me to summarize my impression of the Grand Canyon, where we spent our last night on the road:

"Oh my effing God."

April and I ran out of adjectives after about two minutes. We only spent a few hours there, but it was easily the most physically immense and overpowering natural sight I have ever seen, and I have seen a fair bit of what the U.S. has to offer. Don't get me wrong here, I have seen a number of things that were easily more "beautiful," like the sun setting over Cape Cod from Martha's Vineyard in early Autumn, all the colors in the Badlands in South Dakota late in the afternoon, and the Catskills in upstate New York in winter, but the sheer, mammoth, overwhelming power of nature and time on this scale cannot be summed up in words. Actually, not even pictures do the trick.

Yet despite the futility in the effort, I will put together some panoramic shots and post for everyone to see, just to give you the vaguest impression of the immeasurable scale of this place. Well, that's not fair. It's very measurable. It's about a half-mile to the bottom. And if you get a good running start, you can make it all the way down in about ten bounces.

More in a few days, and by the way we miss you all.