Ever since I was a kid, I have wanted to go to Yellowstone National Park. Hearing about places like Old Faithful and mudpots as well as the wild animals really piqued my interest. However, I never made it until this year. As we searched for a place to travel to get some relief from the pandemic, we finally settled on Yellowstone. I was excited. I didn’t spend a lot of time planning for this trip. Most of the planning was…
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I hate to admit this, but I didn’t know where Grand Teton National Park was located. I thought it was more in the eastern part of the U.S. so I was surprised when I began researching a visit to Yellowstone to see Grand Teton National Park just south of Yellowstone. Obviously we needed to visit there as well. Since we flew into Bozeman, Montana, it was quite a trip down to Jackson Hole, which is at the southern end of…
There were thin, high clouds in the sky as we left our home to visit Mt. Rainier. It looked to be a perfect day for a return visit to Mt. Rainier National Park. It had been two years since our last visit. This time we were going to a part of the park we had never visited before, Sunrise. The Sunrise area is on the northeast side of the park. There are three main parts to the Sunrise region. First…
While the Space Needle is the iconic sight for Seattle, Mt. Rainier is the icon for the state of Washington. In fact, despite Washington having many mountains, locals often refer to it as simply, “the mountain.” If you can get the Space Needle and Mt. Rainier in the same picture, then you really have a classic Washington picture. Unfortunately Mt. Rainier is not always as visible as we would like. The areas infamous rainy days often hides it from view.…
One of our priorities when we visited Palm Springs, California over Christmas was a trip down to Joshua Tree National Park. With the nearest entrance only about an hour away, it makes for a great day trip to get you out in nature, nature that is quite unusual. Joshua Tree National Park is a large park in the desert. It actually covers two desert environments which have distinctive flora in them. The Joshua trees are not all over the park…
Pinnacles National Park is a newer national park. It only became a national park in 2013. Perhaps because it is newer explains the reason why many people aren’t even aware of it. While it is located just 80 miles south of San Jose, it is the 13th least visited national park in the United States. Only a little over 233 thousand people visit in a year. Compare that to the 4 million who visit the popular Yosemite National Park just…
If you have spent a day at the Grand Canyon, What do you do next? While the Grand Canyon is an amazing place to visit, the truth is unless you are going to hike in the park, it really only takes a day to see it. So what do you do with the rest of your vacation time? If Flagstaff is your home base, here are some day trips near Flagstaff that you can experience with your next day or…
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