Posts
mount rainier national park April 9, 2026 July 7, 2025 A mountaintop rendezvous was the setting of our visit to Mount Rainier, “an icon in the Washington landscape,” according to NPS. My long-lost brother Peter and I agreed that we would meet on a Monday in July in a place neither of us had ever been before. He knew of Mount Rainier […]
glacier national park November 30, 2025 July 4-6, 2025 The “Crown of the Continent” is in northwestern Montana, bordered by Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada, and ranked as the 10th most visited national park in the United States. We have been to 8 out of the 10 most popular parks! We’re only missing Yosemite and Zion. This probably would have […]
olympic national park August 30, 2025 July 1-2, 2025 10 months after our last national park trip (September 2024), we were ready for our next adventure: Washington State. Our furthest trip west, and Greg’s first time on the Pacific coast. We sketched out an ambitious trip that would allow us to visit 4 national parks, including an overnight train ride to […]
rocky mountain national park September 29, 2024 September 5-8, 2024 Rocky Mountain (or RMNP as it’s referred to by park enthusiasts) was the crème de la crème of our 2024 Colorado trip. Not only is the park famous for rugged mountains and pristine lakes, but Greg’s parents also joined us for a few days of hiking and sightseeing together! We drove up […]
black canyon of the gunnison September 24, 2024 September 4, 2024 Our time in the Black Canyon – a foreboding name for a beautiful place – was short and sweet. Squeezed into a full itinerary of Colorado activities, Black Canyon was the third park on our 2024 trip. We started the day at our tiny rental house in Bluff, Utah and stopped by […]
mesa verde national park September 22, 2024 September 3, 2024 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 […]
great sand dunes national park September 20, 2024 September 2, 2024 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 […]
grand teton national park November 25, 2023 September 4-6, 2023 Grand Teton was the last park of our 2023 trip, right before Claire was born. It gets overshadowed a bit by Yellowstone (they share a border), but in my opinion it’s just as beautiful and even more enjoyable. No sulfurous smells and plenty of incredible scenery. We looked at the options for […]
yellowstone national park November 21, 2023 September 1-4, 2023 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 […]
theodore roosevelt national park November 20, 2023 August 31, 2023 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. […]
badlands national park November 18, 2023 August 29, 2023 We arrived in Badlands National Park in late August 2023. This was part of our big Yellowstone trip right before Claire was born, which is why (as you can see in the pictures) I’m always behind everyone else. It’s an absolutely incredible park – one of our favorites – and essentially a […]
wind cave national park November 15, 2023 August 28, 2023 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 […]
voyageurs national park July 24, 2023 July 2-3, 2023 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 Minnesota, right on our (watery) border with Canada. After a lovely Shabbat in Grand Marais, […]
isle royale national park July 12, 2023 June 30, 2023 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 […]
gateway arch national park June 6, 2023 September 6, 2022 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 […]
indiana dunes national park November 8, 2022 July 3-4, 2022 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 […]
new river gorge national park August 28, 2022 July 1-2, 2022 New River Gorge is the second closest national park to Charlotte (closer than the Great Smoky Mountains but not as close as Congaree) and yet it’s taken us a while to visit. It’s the newest national park (thank you President Trump), a lovely natural area featuring one of the world’s oldest rivers […]
grand canyon national park August 3, 2022 June 1-3, 2022 We had a grand ol’ time at the Grand Canyon! It is truly GRAND! This was our grandest trip yet, a cross-country expedition to see America’s most famous national park! All jokes aside, this trip was no joke. We flew into Phoenix on Sunday, and after stops in Saguaro National Park and […]
petrified forest national park July 14, 2022 May 31, 2022 From Phoenix, we traveled north to the Petrified Forest, an unusual area of colorful mesas and ancient fossilized trees about 100 miles east of Flagstaff. We had low expectations and ended up pleasantly surprised! The park is long and narrow, like Shenandoah, with one main road going from top to bottom. We […]
saguaro national park July 7, 2022 May 30, 2022 The Arizona national parks have been on our radar ever since my sister Mary moved there two years ago from Cleveland. You might remember that Mary also visited Cuyahoga Valley with us when she lived in Ohio! In 2021 Mary and I daydreamed about visiting Saguaro together, and we shopped the Madewell […]
carlsbad caverns national park February 14, 2022 December 28, 2021 We have worked our way up in size and popularity of caves, from Linville Caverns, NC –> Luray Caverns, VA –> Mammoth Cave, KY –> now, Carlsbad Caverns, NM. Carlsbad is such a big attraction that we had to settle on an exact date and time for our visit months in advance, […]
guadalupe mountains national park February 11, 2022 December 27-28, 2021 We’ve been intimidated by Guadalupe Mountains for a while. Despite its beautiful Spanish name, the park is actually a vaguely menacing range of flinty mountains. We arrived on a mild December day to find a harsh wind whipping past the visitor center. We were blown around an embarrassingly short trail and then […]
white sands national park February 9, 2022 December 26-27, 2021 White Sands was the second park on our recent trip out to Texas. We left Big Bend Friday morning (Christmas Eve) and drove up to El Paso, stopping at Fort Davis along the way. With sundown being early and restaurants closing for the holiday, it was a fun rush to pick up […]
big bend national park February 7, 2022 December 22-24, 2021 We drove to Texas to avoid being stranded at the El Paso airport. Originally we were going to fly into El Paso a few days before Christmas, rent a vehicle, loop down to Big Bend, and then head north to a few other national parks around the TX/NM border, but after a […]
hot springs national park October 24, 2021 August 23, 2021 While Hot Springs originally seemed a bit out of reach (13 hours from Charlotte), we seized the chance to stop by on our way to Greg’s family reunion in Tennessee this year. In the interest of gaining more states on our scratch-off map, we planned a circuitous route going from Charlotte -> […]
acadia national park July 16, 2021 June 29-July 7, 2021 A couple months ago Greg and I started chatting about Acadia over a second (third) cup of coffee on a quiet Shabbat afternoon. “Let’s run up there this summer!” we enthused. “We’ll drive overnight and spend a long weekend. Easy!” It became a fun game to work out how we could […]
virgin islands national park April 4, 2021 February 28-March 4, 2021 We celebrated our tenth anniversary in March with a spectacular trip to the Virgin Islands national park on St. John. It wasn’t the most romantic trip, since we were covered in children the entire time, but we decided to make it a family affair because I am still nursing Rachel. After […]
dry tortugas national park January 13, 2021 December 24, 2020 If you’ve talked to us recently and we’ve been like “tortugastortugastortugas,” it’s because visiting Dry Tortugas National Park is a big accomplishment. It’s one of the most inaccessible parks, requiring a 2.5hr ferry or (shorter) seaplane ride to get there. Now that we’ve gone halfway to Cuba and back, we feel like […]
everglades national park January 12, 2021 December 22, 2020 What is the most adventurous thing we could do with our 2-month old, we said to ourselves. Well, let’s do a whirlwind 8-day trip that will take us 70 miles into the Gulf of Mexico, deep into the heart of the Everglades, and across Biscayne Bay, involving 40 hours of driving, 3 […]
great smoky mountains national park November 12, 2020 August 27, 2020 After a great Bartos reunion in Tennessee (including our berries going horseback riding for the first time at Wildwood Stables), we visited our fifth national park, the Great Smoky Mountains. We’ve driven through this park on the NC/TN border many times but never stopped to explore it. Greg chose a place called […]
mammoth cave national park November 9, 2020 August 25, 2020 One of our annual trips is an easy drive out to Fairfield Glade, TN for a few days with Greg’s side of the family, and this year we combined it with a visit to Mammoth Cave National Park in KY. Our 4th national park, in case anyone else is counting. Our time […]
shenandoah national park September 5, 2020 August 9-11, 2020 Our national park challenge barely had a chance to get off the ground before everything shut down for COVID in March 2020. In August, we jumped at the chance to spend a weekend in our third national park, Shenandoah. Shenandoah is about 5 hours north of Charlotte, in northern Virginia. We booked […]
congaree national park July 20, 2020 July 19, 2020 First National Park of the year!! As places start to reopen, we finally had the chance to visit a national park this past weekend. The closest one to Charlotte is Congaree National Park in Columbia SC, about 2 hours south of us. At this point we have a little over 9 weeks […]
cuyahoga valley national park November 19, 2019 November 11-12, 2019 With the North Carolina state park challenge over, it seems that we need a new project. Should it be national parks? There are 61 official “national parks” in the United States (although there is a movement in the park community to disregard the 61st park, established by President Obama, as it is […]