I’ll never forget the first time I went to the Black Hills of South Dakota  and saw Mount Rushmore. I was on a quest to visit all 50 states and I had three left- South Dakota, North Dakota and Hawaii.

I’ve heard a saying that you go to some famous places three times in your life: As a child, with your children and on a senior bus trip.... Read More

From our Q&A mailbox:

Question: Do you recommend a road trip to Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon in late March (Spring Break) with a tent trailer? We are concerned about road conditions and enjoyment if weather is bad. We will be traveling with boys age 10 and 7 and we have a heater and generator.

Answer: Our AAA Arizona contacts say that March can be a heavy snow month, but the end of March may not be too bad. In the Zion area in March the temperatures at night are in the 30's and day time temps are upper 40's, lower... Read More

As a travel writer, I sometimes have to go the extra mile to find the good stuff, even if it is on a pair of snowshoes.  And that’s exactly what happened when I was on assignment at Rocky Mountain National Park, and it was snowing cats and dogs.

It was obvious that the knee-deep powder and hidden ice would make it a tad difficult to investigate the trails (I remember seeing some “tourists” trying to advance in tennis shoes and turning back after just a few yards).  Armed with... Read More

There is something otherworldly about Gettysburg National Military Park in the early morning - the mist creeping across grassy swales and over split rail fences, softening the harsh outlines of cannon and monuments to heroes and fallen. Morning doesn’t do justice to what happened there. You need to see the battlefield in full daylight to really appreciate what it must have been like those first three days of July 1863.

The best advice I got before I visited the park was to make the new Visitors Center my first stop and to purchase a... Read More

 
In the famed Lamar Valley … bison. In the middle of the two-lane road … bison. In the middle of the parking lot??? Yep, bison. Bison, buffalo … bah! Whatever you call them, they’re everywhere at Yellowstone National Park.

What a wondrous, diverse place – some parts composed of serene forest and lakes, other areas a roiling, boiling, bubbling muck of a landscape. 3,500 square miles teeming with animals and plants of all flavors, waterfalls that capture the imagination, a backcountry that’s larger than multiple U.S. states, and – oh yeah – the... Read More

Last night, the first episode of Ken Burns’ epic 12-hour, six-part documentary “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” aired on PBS. Twelve hours sounds like an eternity, and at times this past weekend, as I watched an advance DVD press copy, it certainly felt that way. By the eight-hour mark, I had fallen asleep at least twice, and lost count of how many times I’d rolled my eyes at yet another documentary talking-head reminding me our national parks are the ultimate living symbol of democracy.

At other times, I was... Read More

Before my recent trip to Cody, Wyoming and Yellowstone, I decided to “road trip it” and see a few other things on my way.  One of the places I decided to stop was a little roadside attraction called Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s never been on my priority list of national parks, but it provided an unrivaled opportunity to see the Rockies in their natural, unspoiled state and a few hard lessons on altitude sickness.

First thing first- the altitude! My hometown has an elevation of an entire 705 feet. The Alpine Visitor’s Center in the park is at 11,796 feet. I’ve... Read More

This is the fifth and final in a series of posts about visiting 12 national parks in Utah and Arizona over 9 days.

In the morning, I went out early with my camera. We’d found our cabin in the dark, not realizing it was only a few steps away from the edge. Violent winds had swept across the Arizona desert that week, kicking up a storm of red dust, so the canyon itself was hazy—still magnificent, but not as vivid as the postcards. For a lazy photographer like me, it was a fine excuse to put away the tripod. The... Read More

This is the fourth in a series of posts about visiting 12 national parks in Utah and Arizona over 9 days.

Our original plans called for a straight haul from Kayenta to the Grand Canyon, a 3-hour drive with nothing to see along the way. I pulled out the AAA maps and TourBook® guides, realizing we could add two national parks to our tally, plus an attraction I’d always wanted to see: Meteor Crater (from the movie “Starman”). The only hitch: adding 4 more hours to our drive time. And there’d be no speeding—the AAA TripTik warned... Read More

This is the third in a series of posts about visiting 12 national parks in Utah and Arizona over 9 days.

After a gourmet breakfast at Castle Valley Inn, we set off for the 32-mile drive to Canyonlands National Park. The vast preserve is divided into three regions. The Needles district is best explored by four-wheel drive or on foot; the Maze is even more remote. We visited... Read More