My passion for travel started when I was very young with the classic all American road trip that probably resembled National Lampoon’s Vacation. My parents would spend a couple weeks each summer piling me, my brother, and sometimes even my grandparents into an RV and hitting the road to different regions of the US. While it wasn’t always pretty (searching for an ER in the middle of the desert after my brother smashed his eye on the dresser while we bounced on the bed comes to mind), some of my favorite memories with my family were on those trips.
The black eye incident…oh, did I mention he had chicken pox?
This is where my obsession with our national parks began. Standing in front of the rainbow colored springs and geysers of Yellowstone while being inundated with the sulfur smell of rotten eggs feels like being on another planet. On these trips, we hiked to delicate arches in Utah that could collapse at any moment, crystal clear lakes, mountains, canyons, and glaciers that are retreating at an alarming rate. I was fortunate enough to witness bears tend to their cubs and wolves carrying their recent kill to their dens. I became aware of how beautiful but unfortunately fragile this planet is. I have visited all 50 states, touched 4 continents, and 16 countries (I have so much more to see!).
This year we were supposed to visit a couple of parks in Alaska, but like everyone else’s plans, Covid 19 had other ideas. I decided to really take advantage of this time to explore places closer to home, and in my research I found gems that I had never heard of within a couple hours of my door. My eagerness to share these places with others who also might not have known about them inspired my development of this page. My hope is that by sharing my photos and stories I can help you get to new places, to share my appreciation and respect for them, and with that, hopefully inspire all of us to help protect them.