A Grand Time

Like the proverbial Phoenix rising from the ashes, a return to blogging after far too long away from the keyboard.  Blame it on graduations, blame it on proms, blame it on summer malaise, blame it on a West Coast road trip, heck, just blame it on flat-out laziness.

All those excuses aside, it's time to do some SERIOUS pipe-cleaning, a cathartic blogsplosion long, long overdue.  For regular readers of the blog, apologies, and welcome back.  I'm quite confident you've managed to muddle through this summer quite handily without regular check-ins at a Wicked Good Blog.  More than likely, you've had your Cook blog fix satiated with Andrew's new blog, Andy's room, found here: Andy's Room

Anyways, in no particular order, in fact, quite OUT of order, cometh the first in a series of West Coast reports, with sights, sounds, and senses-shattering scenarios from the Great American Landscape.

As readers of Andrew's blog know, this year the Cook family headed West, to expand our horizons to the West Coast, in search of that perfect Mexican restaurant, not to mention new trails to traverse, new roads to run, and new horizons from which to yell Carlooooosss.

First stop?  Arizona, home of the dry heat, a ceaselessly repeated oxymoron, which really, only grates on you more and more with each bead of sweat that trickles down the center of your back or rolls out from beneath your hatline.

(You may have seen a few of these pics via Andrew, but I'm aiming for a variety here to avoid TOO much overlap)

First stop, the Grand Canyon, so naturally, here's the three Grandest people I know

 

Lots of romantical photos to come in the days ahead, so run away if the sight of two people married for nearly 23 years yet still madly in love with another makes you tremor with revulsion

Andrew had a blast posing with the panoramas, as will be made abundantly clear in the posts ahead

He dared to step out for the peek down to canyon's bottom.

His sis?  Not so much.  Heath preferred the relative safety provided by standing a few steps back from the precipice.  Still all smiles, though!

Andrew spent considerable time just taking it all in.

And occasionally, Dad would step in to ruin the portrait shots

No camera can do the photo ops justice.

One of my favorite things about vacationing anywhere is the ability to run some new courses and explore new pathways, roads and trails, all while continuing to log the running mileage.

This trip would be no exception, and in fact would lead to some historic outings.

The first night, trails right off our hotel's driveway would run for miles and miles heading into the Grand Canyon National Park.  And while Andrew and I may have been the only humans out on these dusty trails that night, we certainly weren't alone.

While it wasn't the Moose race in which myself, Barry, John and Nate claimed an historic team victory a few years back (see: previous Remember the Moose posts), this animal was the genuine article.

Clearly, he didn't care that we were in his neighborhood.

And while I'm always on guard for the errant cougar back in Massachusetts, the cougars out west are a  bit more savage, though not nearly as predatory.

Day One wrapped up with a return to the Canyon for some nighttime stargazing.  Wasn't able to capture much by way of pics, but did catch the solitude of the canyon when the only light to be found for miles around was a tiny campfire on the canyon floor below.  Andrew vowed to someday return to the Canyon walls and take part in one of those selfsame canyon floor overnight outings, fire and all.  I have no doubt it'll happen.