Red. Woods. If you enjoy staring up in disbelief all day then this is the park for you. Grove upon grove of trees are waiting for you to wander around and marvel at their size - even the downed ones with little trees trying to sprout from them were so impressively massive. I was struck … Continue reading California, Here I Come! →

At 1,940 feet, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in America and the 9th deepest lake in the world (the deepest being Lake Baikal in Russia for all you trivia-lovers). This is a lovely little park that is accessible and provides tons of awesome views as you make your way around the 33-mile Rim Road … Continue reading A View of the Deep Blue →

Olympic National Park has it all and it made it up to my top list of favorites among Acadia, Dry Tortugas, Isle Royale and Zion. It has such a gorgeous variety of landscapes from mountains to oceans to its very own rainforest with a delicious climate and (when we visited) rare bugs! We stayed at … Continue reading A Park of Olympic Proportions →

OK, OK. I'm a believer now. I get why people move to Washington. I have been so impressed with the scenery and the fresh mountain meadows and the rich variety of wildflowers. There is an unlimited supply of coasts, mountains, wildlife, trees and ocean. I feel like I have some street cred now on some … Continue reading On Top of the World →

This was one of those I-had-no-idea-this-was-a-national-park-before-I-started-this-trip parks. This trip has definitely been a great geography lesson that I forgot about or never payed attention to in grade school. I'm not complaining. I'm happy to be learning it now. North Cascades boarders Canada in Northwest Washington and is home to mossy forests that I have never … Continue reading Glacial Goodness: Part 2 →

4 nights in this Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park was a nice respite from our usual pack-up-and-go way of life this past month. The scenes here are outrageously gorgeous causing you to have to blink to make sure they're real and not just your imagination - though I'm not sure I could dream up even this … Continue reading Glacial Goodness →

This past week I got to cross another item off my middle school bucket list as I watched Old Faithful erupt for 3 minutes in all of its geyser glory. Several people told me to lower my expectations so this might have helped me think it was just as fantastic or even more so than … Continue reading Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons →

I don't really want to tell you about this place. I want to keep it for myself so it remains away from the crowds. Thankfully, I think its location will help keep it secretive, regardless of my disclosure since it is so remote. We saw tumbleweed for the first time on this trip while driving … Continue reading Great Beauty in the Great Basin →

We spent only 19 hours here but it was some of the most exhilarating 19 hours of my life. As we drove into the park from the East on Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, my eyes teared at the shear largeness of the awesome 2,000-feet cliffs of solid stone and I tried my hardest to refrain from … Continue reading Marching On to Zion →

This is one magical place! I honestly felt like I was in a castle on some claymation set the whole time we walked through the Bryce Amphitheater which is the most popular section of Bryce Canyon National Park. This park has the largest collection of hoodoos (odd-shaped pillars of rock that look like sculptures) which … Continue reading Hoodoo You Think You Are? Bryce. →