This is it folks, the answer to the question we are asked most often: “which park was your favorite.” I’ll cut to the chase and tell you that we didn’t have one favorite park – at least not one that all family members agreed on. The best we could do was create favorite park categories where we had a high degree of family alignment. After a year in the...
I was born in Dallas, TX. I went to pilot training in Wichita Falls, TX and I have spent quite a bit of time working in Austin, Fort Worth, and San Antonio, TX. I have probably spent more time in the state of Texas than any other state. Other than the Hill Country outside of Austin, I generally considered Texas pretty flat. Our trip to Big Bend turned that...
Well folks, today is March 3, Super Tuesday is upon us. I have done my level best to keep this blog apolitical – after all this is a family-centric blog and there are days when our politics don’t feel entirely suitable for families. But as we gear up for what will likely be a highly partisan election cycle, I would like to offer up what I hope is a nonpartisan...
This is America’s newest National Park. It was officially designated “Park” status on 20 Dec 2019 – which also just happens to be my birthday! We nearly missed knowing about the new designation. In January I just happened to read an old Instagram Post from the National Park Service announcing the change. Fortunately for us, the park happened...
Lassen is the National Park that we almost had to miss. When we first set the goal of seeing all the lower 48 NPs, we knew that weather would be a critical factor. In the winter time, several parks shut down everything but one visitor center operating on limited hours. Or they become almost inaccessible, especially to someone in a large RV. The challenge we faced...
When I sat down to write this a few days ago, it was my birthday. Due to vagaries of timing on this trip, I celebrated in a wonderful place called Death Valley National Park. Not sure how auspicious this is, especially since we had to cross over the Funeral Mountains to get here…. And with fun names like “Devils Golf course”, “Dante’s view” and “Furnace Creek”, I...
For those of you keeping up, you know that the top 2 parks I was most excited to visit on this trip were Glacier and Acadia. Glacier ended up being amazing. Which of course just added to my personal hopes (as well as those of the family) to have a great time in Acadia. During the planning of our trip, I lost count of how many people told me Acadia was by far and...
As much as I loved traveling through the National Parks in southern CO and UT, I have to admit I am very happy to be headed back north. We drove up with not much more than a hope that we could get a spot in the park. We got lucky and found an outstanding spot – with a short hike to a beautiful river and a fantastic view of the main Teton range. ...
So far, Capitol Reef NP has been the surprise of the trip for me. Driving in, I quite honestly was questioning my sanity for wanting to visit and really questioning anyone who actually was going to make a homestead here. It was the most desolate landscape I have seen outside of the Saudi deserts. Once we got in though, things changed quite a bit...
We spent Saturday and Sunday in Mesa Verde National Park, in the southwest corner of Colorado near the Ute Mountain Reservation. Mesa Verde is a fascinating park, in part because it was created to protect a cultural resource and not a natural one per se. It was created in 1906 to protect the cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblo people. The parks founding is an...