Lassoing the Sun

In this remarkable journey Mark Woods captures the essence of our National Parks: their serenity and majesty complexity and vitality--and their power to heal. --Ken Burns. Many childhood summers Mark Woods piled into a station wagon with his parents and two sisters and headed to America''s national parks. Mark’s most vivid childhood memories are set against a backdrop of mountains woods and fireflies in places like Redwood Yosemite and Grand Canyon national parks.. On the eve of turning fifty and a little burned-out Mark decided to reconnect with the great outdoors. He''d spend a year visiting the national parks. He planned to take his mother to a park she''d not yet visited and to re-create his childhood trips with his wife and their iPad-generation daughter.. But then the unthinkable happened: his mother was diagnosed with cancer given just months to live. Mark had initially intended to write a book about the future of the national parks but Lassoing the Sun grew into something more: a book about family the parks the legacies we inherit and the ones we leave behind.