In April of 2023, we embarked on a 38-day long trip from our home in Riner, VA, traveling to 11 National Parks and numerous other destinations. This was the trip of a lifetime!
We arrived home last Thursday and spent the past few days taking a vacation from our vacation! We are finally unpacked, have plenty of fresh food in the house, have a CLEAN house, and resumed our regular routine, not to mention sleeping in our own bed! I decided to analyze the numbers for our trip …
Our final National Park on our Western Adventure was Badlands National Park. We first entered the park to watch the sunset from the Pinnacles Overlook. We got there about one hour before sunset to see the area during the “golden hour”. We got to chat with some very nice people and watched Bighorn Sheep, including …
The Black Hills is a scenic mountainous region western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. We visited the area specifically to go to Wind Cave National Park, but found out there is so much more to see and explore in the Black Hills. Devil’s Tower Our first stop in the Black Hills region was Devil’s Tower …
The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, located near the border of Montana and South Dakota, is the site of the infamous “Custer’s Last Stand”. Indian leaders, including Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, rejected the concept of reservations. Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, under their leadership, fought the U.S. Army 7th Calvary, led by …
Almost everywhere you look, you can see evidence of an ancient volcano in Yellowstone National Park. At over 3500 square miles, Yellowstone is twice the size of Rhode Island and over 4 million people visit each year. We chose to go just before Memorial Day weekend, which is about the time that the park fully …
We spent the past two days at Grand Teton National Park. Because of the tremendous amount of snow that the area received over the winter, certain areas of the park were still not open. Still, we found plenty to do. Our first stop in the park was at Jenny Lake. We had hoped to take …
Yesterday, we visited Canyonlands National Park. This park has three major sections, the most popular being the Island in the Sky because of the many the hiking trails and spectacular viewpoints along the paved Island in the Sky Scenic Drive. The other two sections of the park are more suitable to backcountry hiking and/or off …
Today, we visited Arches. Arches National Park uses a timed entry system and you have to reserve your time slot in advance. Because we waited too late to reserve an early time, we ended up with noon on the date that we wanted to visit. You can circumvent that by showing up before seven AM, …
After visiting Monument Valley, we had some time left that day to do some exploring, so we visited the Bluff Fort Historic Site. In the late 1800’s Mormon’s were building missions throughout Utah to spread their religion. When the mission call went out to build a mission in remote San Juan area, 70 families signed …
We went to Monument Valley today, located in a Navajo Reservation in Arizona (just over the border from Utah). The valley features large sandstone formations and we learned the difference between mesas, buttes, and spires. In a nutshell, a mesa is a large, flat topped sandstone hill or mountain, a butte is an eroded mesa, …
