The Beginning: Conception of the National Parks Plan

New experiences can be exciting, delightful, enriching, and just plain fun. They can also be challenging or even cause feelings of apprehension. In December 2022, my husband and I took advantage of his business trip to Alberta to spend a short weekend in Banff for our anniversary. If you’ve never heard of Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, you’re welcome. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth I have ever experienced! I’ve been three times and don’t think I could tire of the place! Lake Louise is beautiful whether it is frozen over in winter, slushy in spring, or traversable by canoe in the summer, but I digress. That cold winter visit for our anniversary, we had beer and pizza at our favorite pizza spot in all of North America, Bear Street Tavern. Over a Big Bird pizza and a can of Power Up Porter, I mentioned to my husband that I had wanted to see Yellowstone National Park since I was in fifth grade, watching “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” and thinking that if I could commit enough geography to memory, maybe I could get on the show and win a trip to wherever I wanted to go in the USA. 


Big Bird Pizza at Bear Street Tavern


My husband, who spent the better part of a year in his late teens on a boat trip to Tahiti and back with his Dad, has always had a travel bug. The idea of traveling as a couple/family/retiree/any stage of life holds non-stop appeal to him. But particularly now when our kids are in the elementary and middle school stage, we feel we can get away with a break from sports and extracurriculars and take a solid year off from commitments to see the country (and maybe a little more) and build memories that will be valuable to us as a family and to our kids for some life perspective and hands-on historical context as citizens of the great United States of America. Plus, taking the opportunity to visit our neighboring countries as well is just icing on the cake!

And so, that cold December evening in Banff, we conceived the beginnings of a plan to set out to explore ALL our US National Parks, and hopefully instill a lifelong desire in our children to explore God’s creation.




Our View Halfway Across the Frozen Lake Louise


So it began. We realized after we arrived home that this undertaking would be either very expensive, or we would have to go all-in with being flexible enough to make it happen. Long story short, we purchased a 29 ft. travel trailer and have been working on details of planning multiple nine day to seven week trips to strategically visit all 63 US National Parks along with a few other National sites while road-schooling our four children. Here on this blog, I plan to chronicle our journey. 

Comments

  1. TheresaMay 18, 2025 at 8:14 AM

    Very cool 😎 Safe travels and I look forward to reading your blog. And, seeing pictures, of course. Love pictures. 🥰👍😉 Have fun!!

    ReplyDelete

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