National Parks on This Trip

Like most Americans, I love our national parks.  I grew up in an outdoorsy family, so it's no surprise that I always wanted to be a national park ranger.  In fact, when I was in college, I applied for a seasonal job with the National Park Service.  I didn't get the job (darn it!) so instead I "settled" for being a BLM ranger in the Colorado Rockies.  

Actually as things turned out, I'm really glad I became a BLM ranger instead of working for the National Park Service because I had a lot more freedom and independence, and yet I worked in an area, the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, that was, I thought, more beautiful than any national park in America.  I spent six seasons working as a BLM ranger and loved it.  It didn't pay much but it was the most enjoyable job I've ever had.

But I've always been fond of national parks, like I say, and during my lifetime I've visited about half of the 411 national park "units" in the country (i.e., national parks, national monuments, national historic sites, etc.).  Whenever I take a road trip, if there's a national park unit nearby, I usually make a detour to check it out, especially if I've never been there.  

I visited 36 national park sites on my road trip in 2016, the 100-year anniversary of the National Park Service, and described each visit in this website.  Here are the parks I visited:

Red text indicates my first visit to the park:

Washington

California

Arizona

Texas

Oklahoma

New Mexico

Colorado

Utah

Wyoming

South Dakota

Minnesota

New York

Maine

Maryland

Virginia

North Carolina

South Carolina

Georgia

Florida

 

 

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