When I was in fourth grade my family took a trip to South Carolina to visit friends who had moved there from our small town in Pennsylvania. The 10 hour journey was a BIG DEAL to me. At this point our family vacations typically consisted of quick trips to amusement […]
National Parks
44 posts
I thought vacations were for sleeping in. When you’re in a crowded National Park with a couple other adventurers, they’re not. Sunrise has become my favorite part of the day in parks. It’s beautiful. Quiet. Deserted. Calm. Chilly. It’s when you’ll see more animals than people. It’s when you’ll find […]
Name a US National Park. If you are like most Americans you probably named Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, or Yosemite – at least those are the Big 3 that have always come to mind for me. I couldn’t complete my #100by100 quest of seeing 100 National Parks before the Park Service […]
The Cascade Mountain Range is an icon of the Pacific Northwest. Stretching from Canada through Oregon, the Cascades parallel the coast and are responsible for the wet weather this area is known for. The Cascades are also known for creating beautiful vistas of snow capped peaks. While I was familiar […]
As part of the National Park Service Centennial Celebration, the National Mall and Memorial Parks organized a scavenger hunt to lesser visited sites throughout the National Mall area. I love games and parks and learning (#nerd) so I was excited for this. But I was also thinking it was probably […]
Since starting my #100by100 quest over 2 years ago, I often thought about where I would celebrate the Centennial. Yosemite is iconic. Maybe I should hike Half Dome? Most people don’t get out to American Samoa enough. Maybe I should book a flight? If it’s too expensive, how about Hawaii? […]
On the eve of my birthday in March 2014 I was contemplating a visit to Antietam National Battlefield. But laying on the couch sounded pretty good too. Did I need to go on a hike? Antietam isn’t going anywhere. Can’t I just go another time? As I lay in bed […]
If you’re an avid reader of The Road Lots Traveled you may remember meeting JUCY in Utah Roadtrip: Part 1. JUCY was our camper-minivan that we picked up in Las Vegas. All the fun of RVing without the clearance restrictions or the anxiousness that comes with driving a big rig. […]
Zion. A land devoted to God. Utopia. To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about Zion. It was the last park at the end of a whirlwind roadtrip. And now the final morning was here. Our day didn’t start as we planned. We partnered with Zion RV & Campground for this journey […]
Nothing can prepare you for a visit to Bryce Canyon National Park. Its scenery is unlike anything you can experience elsewhere on earth. Yet it is incredibly accessible as it is less than four hours from Las Vegas and 90 minutes from its park cousin, Zion National Park. Just outside of […]
Though technically managed by the Bureau of Land Management and not the National Park Service, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was on my list of places to visit in Utah. Although I’m sure all of its nearly 2 million acres are beautiful, I was there for one site in particular: Grosvenor […]
Capitol Reef National Park. That must be somewhere in Hawaii. Or maybe Guam? Or American Samoa? Or at least somewhere off the coast of California? Right? That’s what I thought too, but no. Capitol Reef National Park is in Utah. A reef in the desert. Capitol Reef gets in name […]