Doctor's Orders

The Fall TV season is picking up now, with a slew of new shows about to take to the air, and some of you are maybe wondering about which ones deserve your precious time for a tune-in. If the opinion of this humble blog writer is worth anything, a show you should maybe check out isn't new at all -- it's about to begin its fifty-second year, and is still one of the single most worthwhile things you can populate your TV (laptop) screens with. "What?? What??" you're asking... Nope. It's "Who..."

Shameless pun opportunity, taken, thank you very much.

Thing is, I think it's safe to say that everyone nowadays has at least HEARD of Doctor Who... has that friend who raves ad nauseam about it, maybe, has walked past big displays in mall windows, has seen it pop up in the Netflix cue. The general awareness is there in the periphery, but a lot of people still haven't made the jump to actually watching an episode. It's quirky, yes, and British, and can be heavy on the sci-fi side, but those things usually don't break the deal for most people. In my opinion, the problem is that a lot of people just don't know where to start. I said it myself earlier, the show's been around for fifty-two years -- A) How is that even possible, you're thinking, and B) How am I just gonna hop in now when there's that kind of a back catalogue I might need to catch up on? Add in the fact that, confusingly, there never seems to be the same actor in the main role, and it's no wonder that a lot of people just go no thanks and move on to the next show. But stay calm. I've got you covered.

To boil it down to a simple book report version for you: the eponymous Doctor -- no surname, it's not Mr. Who, M.D., his name is just "The Doctor" -- is a centuries-old alien who's stolen a time machine and uses it to travel across the universe for kicks, accompanied by "companions" who assist him on all his adventures. That time machine, the TARDIS, is the blue police phone box you've seen everywhere, and is famously "bigger on the inside" than the outside. Due to his alien biology, every time the Doctor suffers injuries serious enough to be fatal, he "regenerates" into a new body -- literally, every cell of his person changes and he becomes an entirely new individual. There have so far been twelve Doctors (and another incarnation who refused to call himself "The Doctor," but here I go again confusing you...), and it's for this reason that the show's been around since 1963; basically, regeneration is one of the most ingenious plot devices in TV history, since the show can find itself a new lead anytime the old one wants to move on, meaning it can carry on indefinitely. Its first episode was actually almost bumped off the air by news coverage of President Kennedy's assassination, but it's managed to overcome that rocky beginning to since become one of the most iconic television institutions in global history.

A baker's dozen Doctors. Pointy guy in the middle there with the angry eyes is the current Doctor, played by Scottish actor Peter Capaldi

The irony isn't lost on me that the "simplified version" I just gave took a whole lengthy paragraph to explain, but it's why most "Whovians" have learned to tell their friends with a wry smile "Just watch it. Trust me. Just watch one episode." The most agreed-upon starting point for newcomers is a 2007 standalone episode named "Blink." Strangely, the Doctor (played in this incarnation by David Tennant, who most people will recognize as the tongue-twitching Barty Crouch Jr. from the Harry Potter series) only appears in this episode for a few minutes, shouting worriedly from a TV screen. But it's the first episode I watched myself, and in all the years since, it still stands as one of the most brilliant hours of television I've ever watched. It utterly, utterly hooked me, and I have a suspicion it might just do the same to you.

The episode is also one of the best examples of a headlining feature for Doctor Who: the monsters on this show have been sending kids flying behind their couches or beneath their pillows for the last fifty years. The Doctor's travels bring him into contact with some truly nightmare-inducing species, from the robotic Cybermen to the genocidal Daleks. "Blink" introduces the Weeping Angels, statues who move whenever you're not looking at them and who entered the pantheon of all-time classic horror creations from their very first appearance.

"Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink."

No-one will deny that the show's production values haven't always been exactly...cutting edge, so to speak. The reason the Daleks look like trashcans turned upside down with a plunger sticking out is most likely because those were the resources on-hand in the BBC production shed when they were introduced back in 1963.

Silly or no, they've become one of the most recognizable pop culture symbols in history, with their synthetic EX-TER-MIN-ATE squawk resounding from global playgrounds for the last half century

The reason this exists is because...Well... I actually don't really know what this is, to be honest

But the show's really stepped up its game in the modern era, producing special effects on a weekly schedule to rival any Hollywood space epic

So that's a great hero, some iconic bad guys, and cutting-edge sci-fi writing that geniuses like Stephen Hawking have credited for sparking their imaginations (no, seriously); add on the fact that the "sandbox" to play in here is all space and time, with historical figures from Robin Hood to Van Gogh to Agatha Christie making the occasional guest appearance, and it's sounding like a pretty sweet pot. What I think is most poignant and worthwhile about this show, however, is its grasp of how the universe and everything in it is fleeting, and that's what makes it all more beautiful in the end -- just because you know something won't last forever doesn't mean you can't enjoy it while it lasts. If anything, the opposite should be true! For all its sci-fi geekiness, Doctor Who isn't afraid to explore these sadder, deeper themes, whacking its fans hard in all the feels.

Companions who die, or get trapped in alternate timelines, or simply move on with their lives, and the Doctor's regenerative biology being what it is, means that you'll get very attached to these characters before having to part ways with them in just a few short seasons.
But trust me. You're in for a heck of a ride through it all. All of time and space awaits...Geronimo.

40 Years Down the (Thunder) Road

FINALLY sitting back down here at the keyboard, after what's been about a month-long hiatus now. My apologies for not chronicling the remaining escapades of the Cook family on their Western voyages, but at this point, I'd say it's time to move on to greener pastures. For anyone still wondering how we fared in Yosemite National Park and the City by the Bay, keep a watchful eye on my dad's A Wicked Good Blog - you're probably in better hands over there anyway, they don't call him the Blogfather for nuthin'.

Besides blogging, there's a slew of other things the two of us also overlap on: running, comic book geekiness, and dashing good looks (just to name a few), but one particular area of shared interest is celebrating a milestone birthday today, and that's just what I'm here to talk about. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen's landmark Born To Run album turns the big 4-0 today... yes, that's four whole decades since Columbia Records released one of the most iconic pieces of Americana ever created by the music industry into the hazy heat of a late August afternoon in 1975. The world's become a different place since then, and the man behind that album has changed and grown accordingly with the times; nevertheless, something about this particular album was lightning in a bottle, and I'm gonna try here to find out why. Now, I get it: to most people my age, Springsteen is A) the title of a crazy popular country song that I've never personally been a fan of but has spawned infinite Instagram captions regardless, or B) that guy your dad listens to at barbecues with friends where everyone's wearing their best pair of dad jeans (any bespoken dads offended by that, just trust me, I'm on your side here). But don't go away just yet - this is a story both personal and epic in its scope, and I have a feeling it's gonna be a good one...

Let me set the scene: it's early 1975, and at this point, Bruce has released two studio albums. He's an unshaven, rag-tag Jersey shore tramp, with a backing band of similar origin (and appearance). His first album was created largely with the use of a rhyming dictionary, to be honest, and even though the second album was critically hailed as genius, it was a big commercial flop. In other words, that's two strikes; in the music business, that's one strike away from oblivion.
So, Bruce takes pen to paper, and after making a few key lineup changes in the band, composes eight songs that put his personal troubles and anxieties on full display for the listening public. This is it - it's his "last chance power drive," a Hail Mary full-court press that will either make him or break him. He bought his first guitar at age thirteen from a pawnshop, and now, at age twenty-six, he has no plan B. Either this album succeeds, or the dream that's consumed literally half of his life thus far comes to a crashing end. Forty years later, we're lucky enough to say the rest is history.

The E-Street Band, circa 1973 - a bunch of Tramps if ever there were any

The E-Street Band, circa 1975. 

The E-Streeters gang, circa 1988 -- but wait, my bad, this is a different group of guys. Looking at you, Patrick Cook et al. To be honest, these guys look like the shadiest of the entire lot.

The album's set in a nameless (read: any) factory town in New Jersey with the bright, glittering lights of the Manhattan skyline beckoning from across the Hudson, hailing from the same universe as Marlon Brando's On the Waterfront or Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets; mobsters, waifs, and perfumed beauties continuously drift in and out of the lyrics. Musically, "guitars flash just like switchblades," there are sweeping piano riffs, and the whole thing is held up by the earth-shattering saxophone notes of the Big Man, Clarence Clemons. If such thing as a cinematic album exists, this is it.
The veneer of the album centers on efforts to escape, get out, leave this confining hometown environment behind, and I actually wrote my college application essay on this subject. Lowell has the kind of blue-collar background that Springsteen would appreciate, and the 17 year old kid about to embark on his college adventures empathized with this "time to see the world" mentality. But now that I'm HAPPILY back in Lowell (and plan to be for a while) and a few years wiser, I think I have an even better appreciation of the album beyond its preliminary "we gotta get out of this place" ambition. At its core, I think Born To Run is about passion. Not "passion" in the *adopts French accent* "ma cherie... my love for you... it is a flame... A BIG, ROARING FLAME," kinda way, but in the sense of "that thing that you were put here on Earth for."
Springsteen's passion, the thing that literally got him out of bed every morning - and still does, probably - was music, and he imbued the recording sessions for BTR with every possible ounce of energy and effort he could muster; he had a spark, and he was gonna keep it alive at all costs. Hearing some firsthand eyewitness accounts, he was an utter taskmaster and a nightmare to anyone who got in the way of that vision. But all that taskmastery (yes, it's a word, I've decided) was simply another manifestation of all the times in his lyrics where he tries to leave the factory life of New Jersey behind: an attempt to keep this passion alive. To stay or to settle is to have it crushed, to become just another cog in the machine, to have his dreams sacrificed... now that's something anyone can sympathize with.

Bruce would go on to write about what happens if these dreams aren't realized: in Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, he learns to make do with "adult" life, living for the weekend, as it were, and later stuff like Nebraska and Born in the USA makes beautiful art out of bleakness. But for Born To Run, Springsteen's optimism is still there (if only just), riding into the sunset in a blaze of glory. "If I play my chips just right," he seems to hope, "and if I have the right person there in the passenger seat with me, then maybe, just maybe, this dream's still got a chance. Let's ride."

Forty years later, and the ride hasn't stopped for Bruce. Born To Run transformed him into a household name, especially on the merit of his live shows; a kind of catalogue of epic tall tales surround Springsteen's concert career over the decades, from the time he "broke a stadium" in Sweden for packing in too many people and playing too hard, to the time he allegedly "ended communism" in Germany by playing a concert to both the East and West factions (these all may or may not be true, depending on which rock historian you talk to). It's believed that The Boss burns about 5000 calories per concert; with sets that last about four hours or so, it's not hard to see why. I saw him play in Orlando back in 2008 on an ordinary Tuesday night, to an audience that was full but not quite sold out (Florida's never been Boss central...their loss); in short, it would have been pretty understandable if he had simply played to par. We had seats one row behind the stage, so we were able to see him exit once he'd finished for the night. Springsteen emerged from beneath the stage literally dripping sweat, his eyes shut, all but stumbling down the tunnel to his room. To an unremarkable Tuesday night crowd, he had just emptied his tank 1000%, left it all out there for everyone to see, and was utterly spent now because of it. THAT is passion, ladies and gents. THAT is the thing that he was hoping for back in the summer of 1975, and that's kept him going all these years later.

I had a professor at school who saw him in 1975 promoting Born To Run - in his words, "It was like nothing I'd seen before. He was James Dean with a guitar."

Now. This has all been very long-winded and pedantic, some of you may be thinking. Heck, it's probably even delved into a bit of hero worship. But what started as an heirloom interest from my dad has turned into something that's significantly shaped my own worldview. I and several million other wide-eyed, idealistic graduates have recently entered into "the real world," every one of us nourishing our own little passions and dreams. Well, "the real world" can be a nasty, harsh place - I think Born To Run knows that, deep down. But you don't have to like that fact, or accept it. Dreams are some of the most important things worth having, and they need to be fought for.  It's very easy to be cynical, or pessimistic, and more often than not, "Just give up and lie down, it's easier" seems to be the prevailing viewpoint.  But BTR is a celebration, a last call to arms, for passion, to show enthusiasm for that thing (whatever it may be) that matters to you more than anything else in the world. Dress that message up with the most lavish wall of sound this side of Phil Spector, and THAT'S something I can (and do) buy into - in Springsteen's own words, "THAT's rock'n'roll!!"

Sprung from cages out on highway 9, 

Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin' out over the line 

Oh-oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back 

It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap 

We gotta get out while we're young 

`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run 

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!!