Why parks? Why a blog?

Last summer I took a trip. Before then I don't think I had ever been West of Colorado. In my experience, living in the midwest means that traveling anywhere interesting often costs too much time and money. But last summer, for whatever reason, I was determined to see a part of the country that I hadn't seen. I had my heart set on Arches National Park.

I'm a huge fan of Pinterest. It's easy for me to fall down the rabbit hole of scrolling through images and daydreaming about clothes I would wear, recipes I would cook, and, most frequently for me, places I would go. I saw a few posts on Arches, and I knew I wanted to see it.

So I planned a trip with my family. And by "planned," I mean threw together at the last minute. Actually, after the last minute. We still didn't really know where all we were going by the second hotel night. We just knew we were driving West. That was hands down the most spontaneous trip I have experienced thus far in my life. And, much to the shock of this very type-A person, it actually turned out well.

I got to see three national parks and even more in a week of travel. I got to explore the city of Denver for the first time in my adult life, walk through century old homes of the Ancestral Pueblo people in Mesa Verde National Park, hike into the Grand Canyon, and, yes, I finally got to see Arches. It was only a week long trip, but I fell in love with the U.S. National Park Service and  the landscape of this country. I knew that I wanted to see as much of it as I could.

The goal of seeing all of the National Parks came pretty naturally after that trip. The actual execution is not quite as simple. Since then, I have only been to one other park, Hot Springs National Park, which was the only one close enough from home to take on over my short fall break from university. Clearly, I am no expert traveler, but that's part of the reason why I wanted to start this blog. I wanted to record my journeys, mistakes and all. And maybe someone reading this can learn from those mistakes (and the triumphs, which will hopefully come as well) when they travel the parks.

​Wish me luck!

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