Back from Wyoming

And ready to run again

The Moulton barn just outside Jackson, Wyo., has been photographed probably millions of times by now, but I got a chance to take one too.

There were airplanes. There were shuttle vans. There was heat — lots of heat, ninety-degree temperatures every day. And there were lots and lots of sunshine, mountains, and brilliant blue skies.

I’ve just returned from a week-long trip with my 10-year-old to visit the national parks in Wyoming and South Dakota, where we saw a few moose, several elk, foxes and buffalo, including ones that walked right up to our hotel and parked themselves for a rest on the grass right outside our window.

The trip was amazing, in every way — not least because we got to see a part of the country that’s completely different from where we live in Georgia, a place that, for the past couple of months, has felt like a tropical rainforest somewhere on the equator.

No, in Wyoming (where we spent most of our trip) the air was completely dry, without even a hint of humidity. That meant chilly mornings and evenings, even after temperatures reached the mid-90s during the day; some days, we felt a 30-degree difference between the night and the middle of the day.

We saw herds of bison in the Yellowstone Valley, and the geysers, steam vents and mud pots inside the park’s caldera — which, by the way, sit atop a giant, ancient magma chamber that is very much still an active volcano. (It erupts roughly every 600,000 years, and last erupted… oh, about 600,000 years ago.)

And the skies we saw… I don’t know how to begin to describe them. Stunningly beautiful, awe-inspiring, and you find that your mouth drops open, almost without you realizing it, when you stare at them long enough. They’re so big, so expansive, so sweeping, I can see why so many people feel such a pull to go there, and to stay there.

Some horses I couldn’t resist taking a photo of, on a ranch near Buffalo, Wyo.

I’ve spent so much of my life in the South that, at times, I’m sure I forget the way we live isn’t the way everyone lives, the way everyone thinks. That there’s a completely different way of imagining how life can be, what the possibilities are, and where you can go.

I felt that out west. (I often wonder if people who live there call it “out west”; those of us who live in the South never say “down South” or “deep South.” To us, it’s just “the South.”)

What I mean is that the land, the sky, the weather — all my surroundings combined to stir a completely different feeling inside me. One night, we went to a rodeo. (Which, to be completely honest, I wasn’t too excited to see.) But once we were there, little T and I got completely caught up in it.

There were bucking broncos storming out of the gate, ridden by a string of 18-and 19-year-old riders, the only people whose spinal columns could possibly take the whiplash-like beating they dished out. There even was an under-12 category, in which kids as young as nine and ten rode steers that tried to buck them off. Later, I found out they start training how to do that at age three or four… which is just mind-boggling.

But, that’s the way they live there, a place where it’s completely normal to put your four-year-old on a contraption that mimics a bucking horse, so they’ll grow up one day and do it themselves on a real one.

The stunning Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

But, and it’s of course a cliché to say this, but the best part of taking a vacation sometimes is the part when you come back home. Last week was the longest I’ve been away from home without the whole family in maybe… ever? So, coming back, I felt in a small way like I’m rediscovering home.

And, I missed running. Our days were pretty packed, and I couldn’t leave little T by himself, so I’m afraid I didn’t get any runs in. So, I’m excited about getting back to it, and about feeling athletic again.

I hope your week — and your summer — has been great so far, and that you’ve gotten some great runs in. I’d love to hear in the comments, or in reply back — I feel like I’ve been gone a long time!

As always, keep in touch and let me know how your running/life is going.

Your friend,

— Terrell

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Our training miles for this week

How did last week’s miles go for you? I must confess: I didn’t run at all. But, like I mentioned last week, that’s okay — we have plenty of weeks ahead of us, and plenty of miles to go. It’s catch-up time for me, but since it’s early, it’s much more doable.

Here are our miles for the week ahead:

• Thursday, July 18 — 4 miles

• Saturday, July 20 — 4 miles

• Sunday, July 21 — 3 miles

• Tuesday, July 23 — 3 miles

Feel free to reach out with any questions (as always!) and keep in touch 👍 — Terrell