Go West, Mr. President, to America's wilderness

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. — President Barack Obama is hardly the consummate Western outdoorsman.

The Marlboro Man he's not.

He's spent his adult life in big cities — New York, Chicago and, now, Washington. Basketball, golf, and bodysurfing are how this jock rolls. Indoor daily gym workouts are the norm. Hunting, climbing, rafting — not so much.

Yet there he was on a summer weekend, enthusiastically soaking in America's vast wilderness. He toured Yellowstone National Park, checking out Old Faithful. He strolled trails along the Grand Canyon's rim. He cast a fly while fishing in a Montana river and spent a night in a mountainside lodge.

"Pretty nice, eh," Obama said Sunday as the family took in the breathtaking view from the Grand Canyon's Hopi Point under a magnificent blue sky and overlooking a 5,000-foot drop to the Colorado River. "Last time I was here was when I was 11 years old." Asked by a ranger if it looked the same, he said, "It does!"

A day earlier at Yellowstone, the first family watched the world's most famous geyser erupt. "Oh, that's pretty good. Cool! Look at that. That's a geyser there," Obama said. His entourage also traipsed across wooden walkways in the steamy Black Sand Basin, a brilliant-hued hydrothermal spot in the park dotted with hot springs, geysers, mudpots and fumaroles.

With the wonders of his country at his disposal, Obama did things that might seem a little out of his comfort zone. It's safe to say that this Hawaiian-born president has spent more time on beaches and in cities than he has in the mountains of the West.

But this is also a guy who clearly has a zest for recreation and a curiosity about the diverse nation he governs. He seems game for trying just about any sport or activity. And he appears intent on broadening his kids' interests and, perhaps, his own.

So it was of little wonder then that he brought his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha, as well as other relatives, including half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng and her young family, on a trip that was part family vacation, part policy promotion.

He held a couple of town hall style events to plug his efforts to overhaul health care. In Belgrade, Mont., he opened with this comment: "Here in Montana you've got bears and moose and elk. In Washington, you have mostly bull. So this is a nice change of pace!"