Westward Ho! (Part 3) - Cowboy Up

"I couldn't do that. Could you do that? How can they do that? Who are those guys?"

It was time for us four city slickers to embark on the adventure that had caused the most excitement before we had even left Massachusetts: horseback riding! With very little to absolutely no prior experience on a horse, we weren't exactly sure how this would turn out -- but hey, we'd seen it in the movies, right? How hard could it be?
Returning to Zion -- which actually served as the shoot location for the Hole in the Wall hideout of Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Kid (above) --  we were sized up by the horse wranglers and saddled with our noble steeds.

WAIT A SECOND - HOW DO YOU DRIVE THIS THING?!?!?

Being so green, we were expecting detailed instructions, complete with charts and diagrams, about how to steer our animals (ok, maybe not charts and diagrams. But DETAILED, anyways). Once we were seated, the wranglers kindly told us, " 'Right, turnthiswaytogoleft, thiswaytogoright, kicktogoforward, pullbacktostop, LET'S RIDE!!" WAAAAIIIIITTTTT!!!!

In a trial by fire -- or water, actually -- our horses waded right through a stream within the first hundred yards, where a photog nabbed these profile-pic worthy snapshots. Presenting:

Calamity Heather, riding Kitten

Sheriff Andrew, riding Fancy

Jolly Jackie, riding Charlie

Outlaw Pat, on H.B. (He maintains to this day that the initials stand for Hell Blazer)

We have several friends who are horse owners/lovers who had told us before the trip how much we'd enjoy this particular outing; within the first half hour of riding, I knew exactly what they'd been on about. I put my hand on Fancy's flank once, and it was just a solid wall of muscle. Yet, for all their incredible power, these were some of the calmest, most tame animals I've ever been around, and it wasn't hard to form a connection with them before long. 

We did our cowboy thing for several hours, riding up and down through Zion as the sun (and the heat index) got higher, and it was everything we'd imagined it would be. The horses rode in single file line just feet from the rear of the rider before them; whenever a gap started to form, we were instructed to give the horses a little nudge to speed them up and close the space. I decided to hold Fancy back for a second at one point, before breaking into a gallop to see what it was like. For an answer, you should ask my mom and Heather, the two riders behind me, who broke into similar gallops and who are still on strained speaking terms with me.

"Riders of Rohan! What news from the Mark?!"

So yeah, we're all basically full-on cowboys/cowgirls now, in case you were wondering. Sorta. At the very least, I get why all those old Western heroes walk bow-legged now. One for the history books, for sure!

Next up: the City of Sin. We're coming for you, Terry Benedict.

Westward Ho! (Part 2) - The Narrows at Zion

Grand Canyon conquered, it was time for the Cook family to make their way northward, for the second stop of our Westward voyages - Zion, Utah! We were dragging our feet to leave a place as remarkable as Arizona's very own world wonder, but the destination awaiting us at the other end of the drive was more than worth the trip... as you're soon to find out.

First, driving up through Arizona all but confirmed that it might be the prettiest state I've ever been in -- every new mile on the highway, there was a new vista of purple and blue striped mountain formations in the distance; picture the scenery of any cowboy movie you've ever watched, and there it is on the plains of Arizona, staring you in the face.

After a quick rest stop at the breathtaking Glen Canyon (we figured it was kind of like the Grand Canyon's littler, lesser known cousin), it was onward to Zion!

Arizona Tourism Worker: "Hey mom, I got a new job! I'M WORKING AT THE glen CANYON!
"What was that, dear? Didn't catch that - the what canyon?
"AT THE glen CANYON!"
"It's kind hard to tell -- are you saying Grand Canyon?"

Our hotel for the Utah portion of the trip was the out-of-the-way town of La Verkin - and if you want to know what it's like, watch Napoleon Dynamite. No actually - that's where they filmed large portions of the indie super flick. We're not exactly rushing to get back there, but it did the job fine as our base camp for what lay nearby.

I want to be absolutely clear: for the most part, there was not a bad moment in our entire ten days away. We'd have been blessed and privileged to see half of our itinerary -- which makes what I'm about to say all the more impressive, hopefully. All four members of the Cook family unanimously agree:

Zion National Park was the highlight of this trip.

Although the other sections of Utah we drove through seemed totally arid, Zion is cut through by the Virgin River, and the water brings green along with it. Red rock mountains rise hundreds of feet in the air alongside both sides of the road through Zion, with trees spreading up the sides from their source in the river. The long valley is inaccessible to passenger cars, so we had to park and take a shuttle to the headlining attraction at Zion - the Narrows.

So that river I mentioned? The Narrows is a part of the trail through Zion where the cliffs converge to only the width of the water apart from one another. The Cook family hiked -- lol, hiked -- up our skirts and plunged into the river to follow along its twisting course, and you're hearing it here: it was one of the very best experiences of this writer's twenty-one years on Earth.

The water was more refreshing than I can describe in the desert heat, and we spent a good hour and a half wading upstream against the current without going in deeper than our knees. The river twisted every hundred yards or so, so there were new, even more beautiful sights around every new bend - honestly, I would have followed it all the way to the end, if I could have.

Rhapsodies in blue

We're heading thataway

Every now and then, walls of plants would descend off the cliff walls into the river, creating hanging gardens to walk through. If I'm allowed to say this without coming off weird, it all felt a bit mystical in sections; I don't know whether it was the Paiute Indian park ranger over the shuttle systems' speakers telling us all about "the spirits of this place" going straight to my head, or just a delayed-action effect of the intense Utah heat, but the Narrows really did have a special feel to them.

This sorta stuff makes a fella feel small - in the best way possible.

There'll be a return to Zion for me in the years to come, if I have anything to say about it, and I can't recommend a place for you to visit more wholeheartedly. NO must-see travel list is complete without a stop at Zion, and especially the Narrows, take it from me. Simply unforgettable!!

Next up: back to Zion for one of the Cook family's most memorable adventures to date. Want a clue? "Ride like the wind, Bullseye!"

The Defense of Atticus Finch

One of the really excellent things about writing for me has always been its ability to organize my thoughts into some semblance of coherent order; any topic, any time, any place, pen to paper is usually the most reliable way for me to clear up something on my mind or reach some understanding about it if I'm lucky enough. That could mean my (proverbial) pen that's doing the writing, or the pen of some brilliant author before me who's been lucky enough to get their words published; reading and writing are two sides of the same important coin for this English major. Today marks what I'm guessing will probably be the literary event of 2015 on the reading end, and I've got a lot of thoughts about it that I think need to get set down here on the writing end, really for my sake more than anyone else's, so here we go.

Not for nothing has Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird been required reading for pretty much every single person to pass through the American school system in the last several decades - if such a thing as a perfect book exists, I think most people will concede that Mockingbird is it. In that "take five books to a desert island" hypothetical scenario, I'd be ok with just taking Mockingbird and using the other four as kindling; making no short change about it, I love this book. With this in mind, you would think I'd be first in line at a Barnes & Noble today to pick up its newly-published "sequel" (or is it a prequel?), Go Set a Watchman... but amazingly, I'm not, and no one is more surprised than me.

For anyone who's not familiar with the nitty-gritty publishing mire that's been in the news the last few days, the Cliff's Notes version is that Harper Lee wrote this new book, Watchman, FIRST, sometime in the late 1950s; she sent it off to an editor, who then sent it back to her with the request that she go back in and expand upon certain parts of the text that had to do with her upbringing in 1930s Alabama... the rest, as they say, is history. What's being released today is that first, original draft, claimed by a source near Harper Lee to have been "recently discovered" and deemed worthy enough for wide public release. It follows a grown-up Scout from her life in New York City on a visit back to her home in Alabama. What she finds there is what's gotten the American reading public so distraught since it was first uncovered several days ago, and it's the reason I find myself so conflicted over this book as a concept: Atticus Finch is now allegedly a racist.

I can see now why Harper Lee was so dead set against releasing Go Set a Watchman for as long as she was; to be perfectly honest, every new rumor of her failing health and advanced age make me think some kind of foul play may or may not have been involved in gaining her consent for Watchman's publication all these years later. As a self-professed writer, I'll confess, I'm more than a little curious to see if some of the elements of Mockingbird are contained as kernels within Watchman, to find out if there's a genesis or arc of those elements from a craft point of view. But for the sake of Atticus Finch alone, I find myself leaning more and more towards the notion that I might just leave those kernels to the imagination, and let this book go unread.

In a parody "Literary March Madness" bracket organized by the English department at Holy Cross this last spring, the quiet Alabama lawyer was selected as the ultimate champion by significant popular vote, beating out the usual crowd-pleasers like Edgar Allan Poe and Frodo Baggins; in a ranking several years ago of the all-time greatest big screen heroes, the American Film Association ranked Atticus (as famously portrayed by Gregory Peck) their #1 male protagonist out of THOUSANDS of possible candidates, capping a top-ten that included the larger-than-life figures of Superman, Indiana Jones, and Luke Skywalker. This is a character who clearly resonates deeply with the audiences who encounter him in some way or another, and it shows; no other character from literature strikes me as being so unanimously and deeply cherished, because perhaps no other character is as unquestionably heroic. 

Atticus never bursts his way through a steel-plated wall firing heat vision out of his eyes or wielding a lightsaber in a way consistent with other members of that top-ten listing; although he's known as the best shot in his county, he hides the fact until absolutely necessary, and only for the protection of his children. He is just a good man, an ordinary lawyer who stands up for justice above all else and calls for his children (and through them, us) to do the same. He is, rather than a hero we can simply admire, one that we can all hope to aspire to, effectively representing America at its best in circumstances that characterize America at its worst. 

I'm not about to ordain myself here as a preacher in the church of high school literature or pretend that following the example of a made-up, fictional character will solve America's current epidemic of racial problems (problems that I, from a place of privilege, have NO right to sermonize about) - but yet at the same time, I do think that we as a species need a symbol or a hero to aspire to, some benchmark against which we can set ourselves, and this decent country lawyer is as pure a one as has ever existed. I, for one, intend to keep him that way, in my own imagination at the very least. Atticus is a figure, fictional though he is, that has inspired countless people over the years into doing some good in the world; God only knows how many people even joined the legal profession in the first place because of this one shining example as their precedent. If this symbol of pure goodness, of dignity and integrity and respect, of all the things that we as Americans and human beings can hope to be, becomes tinged... what then does that mean for us?

Maybe the aged, more jaded Atticus of Go Set a Watchman does actually jive with this existing ideal, or perhaps the reports of his all but donning a white hood in this new novel are sensationalized, in which case I'll happily be proven wrong -- but from all accounts, I doubt it, and for that reason do I think should the whole idea of it be left alone. Or, in other words,

"Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird."

I'm not at all trying to dissuade the masses from buying as many copies of Go Set a Watchman as possible; I have no doubt that it'll top all the best-selling charts for weeks, if not months, to come, and for Harper Lee's sake, I truly wish this is the case. I know several friends who already pre-ordered their copy, and I eagerly await their reviews on what could hopefully even turn out to be a well-written, enjoyable, entertaining story that features some of the best-loved characters in the history of American literature. "They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

Miss Jean-Louise, stand up. Your father's passing.

Westward Ho! (Part 1) - The Grand Canyon

Hey there everyone - or should I say, howdy! I apologize for being a little neglectful on this blog here since the first posting, but to be fair, Netflix binge-watching is hardly what I'd call good posting material. An EPIC, 10-day family vacation to the Wild West, on the other hand... now that's a different story. And that's the story I'm here to tell you! There's enough material here for a book, so I'm just gonna go over the highlights for the sake of expediency; even so, the summer 2015 exploits of the Cook family will take several posts to cover over the course of the next few days/weeks. To begin with, I'll go over a little background. As a graduation present for my sister and I (Heather's on her happy way to attend Stonehill College in the Fall), my parents sat us down with an offer.
"We can either do a no-holds-barred party for you guys, or, if you want, we'll do a vaca--"
"--TION" we both replied, immediately, and that was that .
Having never been out further West than Ohio, this trip was all uncharted territory for me; to be honest, it's unbelievable to think that we saw all the breathtaking, incredible things we did without ever leaving the borders of our own great country.

My plan here is to chronicle an adventure per blog; this first one is gonna focus on our time at the Grand Canyon and, fair warning, is on the longer side, but as I sit here confronted with the mountain of stories that need to be told, that seems to me the best way of doing it.

Before proceeding, there's a disclaimer that has to be gotten out of the way before we detail a single adventure. I'm a New England guy who's used to bitterly harsh winters, who ran for three hours in fifteen below temps this winter to train for a marathon... for lack of a better quote, "the cold never bothered me anyway." This was not. A. Cold. Trip.
"It's a dry heat" was the go-to platitude of everyone who we asked about the impending heat-pocalypse. To those people, I concede, yes, you were right. A dry heat is the kind found in your run-of-the-mill kitchen oven, and if you're an ice-blooded Northerner like me, the two are interchangeable.

Our first leg of the trip touched us down in Phoenix, Arizona, "the Grand Canyon State," and after picking up our rental car, we were soon melting away the miles towards that very attraction. I can't really be sly or tongue-in-cheek about our experience at Wild West's Natural Wonder of the World -- it's beyond anything else I've ever seen in my experience, and totally beyond my ability to describe. The canyon - if something this massive can still qualify as a "canyon" - stretches about ten miles across from north to south, and about three hundred from east to west. It's...grand. Yep. That name's making more and more sense, now I think about it...

The cameras on our iPhones were great (and very convenient), but even if we had the highest-end Nikons available, they still wouldn't be able to do this place justice. It's just something that has to be seen with the two best cameras you'll ever have access to - the ones about two inches apart on your face!

Heather was happy with the healthy amount of orange (her favorite color - can you tell?) to be found in Arizona's picturesque rocks

I looked, so I can confirm - the first step's a doozy

After heading back to the hotel to reinsert our eyes back in their sockets and a steak dinner that went straight in at one of the top five best I've ever eaten - they ain't lying about those famous Western steaks - we woke up at the crack of dawn the next morning for a hike down into the Canyon itself. We're a pretty active family, but in terms of adventures we've done all together, that had to rank pretty highly among them for sure.

The Canyon workers stressed over and over again the importance of water on the arid Canyon trails, to prevent dehydration. I assumed that held true for these bold guys as well.

Is photobombing still a thing when you're hiking the Grand Canyon? Is the Pope Catholic?

As you can imagine, this was one of the best mornings I've ever had. 100% spectacular.

We followed a series of switchback trails about a mile and half down into the canyon... and we didn't even come close to the bottom. 

The often-hairpin switchbacks meant that, whenever we weren't on the lookout for Jawas, we could grab cool shots like this

And this

And these!

I never could resist the opportunity to climb a precarious precipice (or ruin a beautiful scenic backdrop)

Beautiful all the way around

We then made the arduous trek back up to the Canyon's rim and napped it off the rest of that afternoon, before returning to the Canyon at a different location later that evening. The Desert Watchtower is the easternmost access point to the area, and it offers some pretty spectacular views at sunset.

That little ribbon of blue there is the Colorado River, and amazingly, is responsible for pretty much everything you're seeing here.

And (fitting as the end of this posting), the last thing we saw was one of the most unbelievable sunsets I've ever been privilege to. With some heavy clouds that may or may not have been from a wildfire (as Heather maintains) rolling in off the distant north rim, the sun's last rays cast some unreal colors on the vistas before us. When the whole thing was said and done, Dad was the one to sum it up pretty succinctly as he said, in his best impression of a movie director, "Anddddddd cut! Scene!"

My Mom and I agreed that if we threw a rock out far enough, it would smack into the green screen obviously creating these kinds of  images, because how could these views actually exist in real life? It beats me, but it was enough for me just to take it in. I'll be remembering that one for a while, you can bet.

That could have been an entire vacation in and of itself, but let me tell you: we're just getting started! Next stop -- Zion, Utah! See you there!!