After dropping back down to a lower elevation to escape the impending snow storm at the Grand Canyon, we headed east on I-40 in search of the mighty meteor crater somewhere between Flagstaff, Arizona and Winslow, Arizona.

And after following encouraging signs that read, "Meteor Crater, 9 miles ahead," when we couldn't see a damn thing and "View exciting film on a big screen just like in the movie theater," oooh, I can't wait!  Just like a movie theater?

And we were clearly enthralled, because we pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of all this desolation and Jake and Christopher started to take cheesy, posed photos while I talked to my brother, Matt, on my cell phone and Suzie looked as bored as an ice cream sundae in the middle of winter while she sat in their powder-hued Lincoln LS that we had nicknamed Cottonball for our walkie-talkie exchanges.

I was half torn between listening to Matt's story about one of his friend's marriage woes and jumping out of the car to tell Jake and Christopher that walking down the middle of a deserted road with a case of Heineken over your shoulder is NOT web site worthy. As far as I could tell, Suzie felt the same way.

I think they were forced back into the car because some cars actually drove down the road. Shocker.

So $48 and 20 minutes later we were a bit stupefied because we couldn't figure out what had just happened. Clearly, we just saw a very large hole in the ground. And we had clearly been duped too. See weak photos. (In all fairness, we're probably horrible photographers.)

Yes, the entrance fee was $12 per person.  And that included a discount coupon for the gas station near the interstate.  And the annual pass was $15.  Go figure.  You're probably gonna get sucked in once, but you've gotta be a real space rock freak to go back again.

So from a grand-scheme-of-things viewpoint, it was worth it.  But otherwise, it's a sorry excuse for an attraction.  And the Subway ("Subway…eat fresh!") attached to the gift shop (also called the Rock Shop) attached to the museum, which is attached to the movie theater that is next to the Big Hole should put the whole experience into perspective.