Tag: National Parks

Things are picking up.

I’m happy to report that things are picking up in the travel department. Before COVID we happily welcomed regular visitors to Austin and made our share of trips. Four years later, it’s feeling a bit more normal. We took a trip to Denver in January. Noreen and David visited us this Spring. I did a girls’ trip to Santa Barbara. Monte made a guys’ trip to the BVI. We flew up to Seattle in June. Laura came for a visit at the beginning of July. Last week we finished a road trip to see family and National Parks in the midwest.

Monte and I took the Subaru on another road trip. 3000 miles. 8 days and 7 nights. 9 states (well 10 if you count passing through the corner of Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas – aka OKKAMO). Made my first-ever visit to a Great Lake. Earned 3 new geocache state badges. Visited four more National Parks, bringing my total to 30. Still lots more to see.

It is nice to reflect that this year alone we have had in-person visits with all of our siblings, most of our nieces and nephews, and even a few grandnieces and nephews. What a treat.

Gateway Arch NP was much more interesting than I expected. The construction of this monument was an engineering marvel at the time, and it is MUCH bigger than I imagined. We took the tour up to the top, and even the tram system was an interesting innovation to learn about. The view from the top was amazing. I was a tiny bit freaked out to look out the window and see both feet of the arch below us(!)

View from the top of the Gateway Arch. The muddy Mississippi River to the east is at the top of this pic.

Indiana Dunes NP was a lovely stop for about 4 hours. We tootled by the homes from the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1933 that have been moved to the lakeshore and are now privately owned and lived in. We scored an amazing parking spot by the beach. And we walked up and down the beach, which did have dunes, but lots of rounded rocks. I waded into Lake Michigan, another first.

The south shore of Lake Michigan. No sea glass was to be found.

Cuyahoga Valley NP was a highlight for me. It commemorates the Ohio and Erie Canal system, with locks, and a tow path for the mule-pulled canal boats. The canal was dug by hand in the early 1800s. It was fed with water from the nearby Cuyahoga River, and carried goods between the Ohio River and Lake Erie, putting Ohio on the map for commerce and transportation. The canal isn’t operating anymore. It was wiped out by floods in the early 1900s and eventually made obsolete by the railway built alongside it. But its footprint is clearly visible and the miles and miles of tow paths make for amazing walking and biking trails. The park is located between Cleveland and Akron and I expected it to be an urban park, but it is in the middle of beautiful forests and hills. It is spread out, so do your research beforehand to pick from the many spots you may want to visit.

We spent 2 half days there, starting at Boston Mills Visitor Center, then visited Brandywine Falls, and the Everett Covered Bridge, walked along the towpaths, stopped in Peninsula to check out the town and to visit Lock 29, and made a visit to the Canal Exploration Center, which helped us to understand the whole canal operation and its history. They have rebuilt a working lock there to demonstrate how they worked.

I’m envious of the people who have this park in their backyard. It’s a beautiful place to get out and explore. If I ever make it back, I’ll bring a bike. And take a ride on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway.

Brandywine Falls @ Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Everett Covered Bridge @ Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

A rebuilt, working lock at the Canal Exploration Center @ Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Mammoth Cave NP. Having driven by this park probably a dozen times, it was time to make a visit. We took the Historical Tour – a 2-hour, 2-mile, guided tour that took us through the cave at numerous levels of its 400′ of depth. It is different from other caves I’ve visited – a “dry”cave – in that it doesn’t drip water from the surface. So, no stalagmites nor stalactites. Rather, the maze of caverns has been cut from adjacent rivers that flow through the cave. It was amazing to experience a tiny bit of its vastness.

A view inside Mammoth Cave along the Historical Tour.

On this trip, we stopped in Rising Sun to visit Gary & Judy, Mary & Megan, and Bryan, and in Gobbler’s Knob to visit Susanne, Lanny, and Mica. We spent an afternoon making peach jam, and brought some home!

It was a great trip, indeed. I have already drafted our national park road trip for next year!

Earth Day 2024.

Some National Parks are created to preserve a rare species. Others are created to preserve a uniquely beautiful location. I’m sure there are other reasons that motivate a place being enshrined and protected as a US National Park.

Sequoia National Park was founded in 1890, to “protect giant sequoia trees, the largest living trees by volume on Earth,” according to the National Park Service website. In the early days of Sequoia NP, fire suppression was a major focus. It was fascinating to learn that in doing so for upwards of a century, we were actually threatening their existence. It turns out that the seed cones of the giant Sequoia trees require the high-temperature heat from wildfires to release their seeds. And natural thinning by wildfire is also needed to provide adequate sunlight for the new trees.

In the end, modern researchers have provided better guidance to preserve these gentle giants, who are obviously resilient to fire. It was hard to find one of these up to 2000-year-old trees that hadn’t been scarred from fires at some point.

This is an important lesson to think about on this 54th Earth Day. We should act with preservation and conservation in mind, but learn and adapt to the best methods. Sometimes we are wrong.

The North Entrance along General’s Highway greeted us with hills and canyons full of fire-damaged trees.
Nearly every giant sequoia bears the scars of wildfire (they are over 2000 years old!) Some don’t make it, but many do.
A balance of nature.

Park Warriors.

As we roll into this year’s Earth Day, I find myself coming home from a whirlwind trip to California where I experienced four national parks in four days with Lori, Doray, and Laura.

The first park was Yosemite, where I got a glimpse of the amazing scenery of El Capitan, Half Dome, Bridal Veil Falls, and Yosemite Falls. We walked through the Yosemite Valley, along the Tuolumne and Merced rivers.

El Capitan to the left. Bridal Veil Falls in the middle, with Cathedral Rocks above it. And Half Dome way in the back between them. Taken from Tunnel View.
A better view of Half Dome 💙

We stayed at the Wawona Hotel. It was comfortable, but the shared bath/shower house attached to the Hotel might not be for everyone. There’s no elevator, so pack light, because everything must be removed from your vehicle at night to prevent attracting bears. The restaurant meals were good. The scenery everywhere was amazing.

The next park was Kings Canyon, a deep glacially-formed canyon where the ‘kings’ are gigantic monarch sequoias, including the one called General Grant. We enjoyed up-close views of these giants, and hiking through incredible groves of trees.

General Grant monarch sequoia.

The next park was just down the road, Sequoia National Park. Snow and downed trees had kept the connecting road, Generals Highway, closed this season until just an hour or two before we arrived. This was a much appreciated surprise which saved us hours of driving.

Inside Sequoia, we stayed at Wuksachi Lodge for two nights. It was comfortable, but we schlepped everything up and down stairs here, too. The restaurant and lodge was convenient for breakfast and dinner. But we made our own lunches to eat on the go. We visited petroglyph rock, the Giant Forest of 2000+ year old sequoias, and its museum. We had lunch at Beetle Rock, overlooking the San Joaquin valley. The highlight of Sequoia for me was the hike to, and up to the top of, Moro Rock and its 360 degree views of the canyons and surrounding valleys. It was breathtaking.

Lunch stop atop Beetle Rock.
Moro Rock taken from the foothills. We made it to the top of this bad boy @ 6700+ feet above sea level

Even though we were pooped, we made the trek down to see the biggest known single trunk tree, by volume, in the world, General Sherman. Impressive. But I sure wish it wasn’t downhill from the parking lot at the end of day three. 🙂

The next park was Pinnacles, which featured rugged peaks formed from volcanic eruptions. We didn’t spend much time here but we enjoyed lunch and a hike. We didn’t originally plan to hit this park but realized it was close enough to include in our trip after we arrived.

Taken inside Pinnacles NP from Peaks View

We started and ended the trip in Santa Barbara, which allowed us to see Laura’s beautiful new home.

I’m back home now. And scheming my next park adventures.

Quick trip.

I had an opportunity to visit two more National Parks this week. Lori and Mike are driving to Arizona to visit her sister, and planned to visit two parks I’d yet to see. So, I stowed away in their backseat on Wednesday morning. We drove all day, staying in Van Horn, Texas for the night.

A Say’s Phoebe singing to me outside the Van Horn hotel

Thursday we took a short detour north to see Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We crossed into New Mexico to see it, and the underground caverns are stunning.

One of the too many photos I took inside the amazing Big Room cave chamber at Carlsbad Caverns National Park

After the caverns we turned around and headed back south. We hiked the Devil’s Hall trail at Guadalupe Mountains National Park on our way back up I-10.

Guadelupe Peak in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, aka the ‘Top of Texas,’ the highest natural point in the Lone Star State

We stayed in El Paso for the night, my first time visiting this border town. Our hotel had an amazing rooftop bar with great views.

This morning I flew back home. Lori and Mike are continuing on west. That was a whirlwind 48 hour trip. And two more Parks in the bag!