Today is Mother’s Day and I treated myself to a few minutes of catching up on national park posts! It was a good reminder of how grateful I am for my children – and the chance to travel with them! We arrived in Badlands National Park on August 29, 2023. This was part of our […]
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Theodore Roosevelt, in western North Dakota, is a lovely and underrated park. This was the third park of our 2023 National Park Adventure and it hit all the right notes – beautiful warm weather, no set agenda, and plenty of time to enjoy the scenery, plus good health and energy all around. A quick note
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The second park on our Colorado tour was Mesa Verde, a “green table” of historic cliff dwellings located in the southwest corner. They’re a classic attraction – every native Coloradan we spoke to remembered coming here on a school field trip. These ancient homes are presumably 700 years old and surprisingly, they still seem pretty
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When we got home from Yellowstone in September 2023, we set our sights on Colorado as our next big national park trip. There are four national parks in Colorado, spread out around the state. We started working on a plan to fly into Denver and circle the state, ending up in Rocky Mountain for a
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We took this trip in July 2023, but it didn’t get posted until June 2024 (hello baby Claire) Judging from how many people have never heard of Voyageurs, I’d say it’s one of the lesser known national parks. This park is made up of a series of large lakes at the very top of western
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Our most underwhelming park yet, Wind Cave is located in the southwest corner of South Dakota. It is, obviously, a cave, and entrance is allowed only with a guided tour. Sadly, after reserving our places on the cave tour, I was notified that the park elevator had broken and all tours were canceled until further
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Getting out to Wyoming to visit one of America’s most famous parks was a huge undertaking for us this year. With the rapidly growing interest in national parks, reservations for activity passes or on-site lodging at popular places have to be reserved no less than 9 months in advance, sometimes earlier. When we planned out
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Like many of our remaining parks, Isle Royale takes a lot of planning. It’s not one where you can drop in unannounced. A small ship makes daily runs from the closer Minnesota side of Lake Superior, while a larger ship does the same from the further Michigan side. For the wealthy, seaplanes come and go
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This trip to St. Louis was a departure from our normal meticulous planning; instead, we made a hasty decision in late August to visit Gateway Arch over Labor Day, influenced by the looming season of colds and potential masking requirements. The plans for driving 11 hours out (and back) then became entangled with a Labor
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After a visit to New River Gorge National Park, we traveled about 9 hours northwest to reach Portage, IN, just outside Indiana Dunes. These dunes have been on our radar for a while, and they are yet another park, in a 20-hour driving radius from Charlotte (my current personal limit for road trips). This was
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