Posts
grand teton national park June 25, 2025 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 park lodging, debated […]
badlands national park May 12, 2025 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 […]
theodore roosevelt national park January 18, 2025 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 […]
mesa verde national park December 2, 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 still seem pretty […]
great sand dunes national park September 20, 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 Mountain for a […]
voyageurs national park June 24, 2024 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 […]
wind cave national park January 29, 2024 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 […]
yellowstone national park November 21, 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 we planned out […]
isle royale national park July 12, 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 come and go […]
gateway arch national park June 6, 2023 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 […]
indiana dunes national park November 8, 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 trips). This was […]
new river gorge national park August 28, 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) and by all reports, a lovely natural area featuring one of the world’s oldest […]
grand canyon national park August 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 […]
petrified forest national park July 14, 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 arrived at the […]
saguaro national park July 7, 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 x Parks Project […]
carlsbad caverns national park February 14, 2022 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, in order to […]
guadalupe mountains national park February 11, 2022 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 retreated to our […]
white sands national park February 9, 2022 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 groceries and dinner […]
big bend national park February 7, 2022 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 few too many […]
hot springs national park October 24, 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 -> Atlanta -> Birmingham […]