Visit all the National Parks

Well, I thought I would be able to edit my list of parks, but apparently not. That’s disappointing.

I’ve got all the National Parks listed as places on my 43Places. Seems like a good way of tracking which ones you have or have not been to.

This was not my first trip to the park, but it was my first trip since it got promoted from a National Recreation Area to a National Park. The first time I went, I wasn’t collecting stamps yet either. (In all, it was not the best first visit, as I had a colossal case of the butts at the time- typical early teenager- and sat down on the edge of the towpath and refused to hike any further at one point.)

This visit was much more productive. I got three stamps at the Canal Visitor Center, thanks to the park website which features a list of all the potential stamps at the park. I’m not sure yet whether I think it’s a good idea to have the stamp list ahead of time, or whether it degrades the discovery process. If I hadn’t had the list ahead of time, I wouldn’t have known to ask at the counter for the Underground Railroad stamp, which has to be requested, for some reason, and isn’t put out with the other stamps.

We went to the Canal Visitor Center, which has absolutely no signage, so finding it was a big problem. The address wouldn’t show up as an attraction or park for my parents’ GPS until they were about 6 miles away. We had old-fashioned Google Maps directions, which claimed that the park was 276 feet from the turnoff onto Hillside Road, which was also not true. We went about two miles down Hillside Rd to get to the visitor center, only finding it because of my previous knowledge that canals are usually down by a river, and therefore we needed to go downhill and find some water. There was a great demonstration of how a lock works, which my daughter loved. She watched with rapt attention. We didn’t see all of the park- I would love to visit the waterfalls, and get the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad stamps, but that can be for another trip.

Arches
Yosemite
Yellowstone
Grand Teton
Glacier
Big Bend
Rocky Mountain
North Cascades
Mt. Rainier
Devil’s Tower
Redwoods
Grand Canyon
Lassen Volcanic
Sequoia
Canyonlands
Death Valley
Zion
Great Sand Dunes
Great Smoky Mountains
Guadalupe Mountains
Mesa Verde

I visited North Cascades National Park for the first time in September. I did two different hikes while I was there: Thorton Lakes (without the Trapper’s Peak hike, as it was cloudy the morning we were in), and Sahale Arm. Both were beautiful. Sahale was considerably more strenuous than Thorton, especially in poor weather.
Would definitely go back and spend a lot more time in this park, the weather was very tolerable and there was a lot to see. People we met in the park on our hikes were also really interesting and friendly.

Total now at 16.

I just got back from a major road trip. I visited the following parks:

Yellowstone
Wind Cave
Mount Rushmore
Devil’s Tower
Grand Teton
Badlands
Rocky Mountain

It was an amazing trip! Wish we could have spent more time in each place but at least I got there and I plan to make it back to a few of these for some major hikes.

We just hit Redwoods National Park in Northern California last week. =D

Might squeeze in John Day in September. We’ll see!

We spent a week in Acadia National Park in Maine in early June. It was great!

OHIO
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
William Howard Taft National Historic Site
(why aren’t the serpent mounds any sort of national site kind of thing? I haven’t been there, but I’m just curious)

HAWAII
Haleakala National Park
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

SOUTH DAKOTA
Mount Rushmore National Memorial
Badlands National Park
Jewel Cave National Monument

FLORIDA
Everglades National Park
Biscayne National Park

Shenandoah National Park, check.
Cedar Creek and Belle Grove NHP, check.