Post 500

Blogger has kindly informed me that this will be my 500^th blog post, so I thought I'd commemorate the occasion with a different type of post.

My goal for the blog is twofold. First, I want to provide information that will encourage and motivate people to seek out places they would like to visit and then to go. Second, I want to provide a sense of what it's like to be there, especially for people like my parents who can no longer travel. 

Some of the many legacies my parents have provided for me include a love of reading, a love of travel, and a sense of place. I grew up and still live near Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some of my earliest recollections are of camping in Cades Cove in the Smokies and later at Myrtle Beach, SC. When I was a kid, my parents took the family on four road trips across the country to visit family on the west coast. In those days before the Interstate Highway System was essentially completed, imagine two adults and four children in a sedan pulling a travel trailer on a two lane road. I'm sure it wasn't a vacation for my mom, but I loved it. Along the way, we visited several of the western national parks. Including other trips over the years, they have taken me to all 50 states. I am so blessed that they have provided me with so many wonderful memories in childhood and beyond.

While I've been taking photographs for many years, I only started documenting our travels on a blog after my wife set a "bucket list" goal for us to visit all the then 58, now 59, national parks in the United States. I've been posting about our travels across America since May 2012 or 50 months. In that time, we've been able to visit 24 national parks, 41 other National Park Service units, 3 national forests, 3 national wild & scenic rivers, 1 national conservation area, and numerous state, county, and city parks in 24 states.

I'm often asked to identify my favorite national park. Probably the best response is "the next one." However, I'm very partial to Great Smoky Mountains, most likely because it is the park of my youth and is still the nearest park. Others high on my list include Acadia, Bryce Canyon, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Lassen Volcanic, Olympic, and Yellowstone. With the National Park Service centennial this year, I hope you will heed their slogan and Find Your Park.

Oh, the Places You'll Go! - Dr. Seuss

The National Park Service website is https://www.nps.gov/index.htm.