Recap: National Parks Trips #1, #2 & #3

Most of the photos in this post are from previous stops along the way during our West Coast National Parks trip of 2017.  In trying to figure out exactly where I was in my documentation of the trip, I looked back at our itinerary and our photos.  It’s hard to believe how many intriguing places we visited as we worked our way west toward the coast.  It would seem appropriate to queue up Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” because it sure does feel like it!

I just checked, and it has been nearly 11 months since my last post documenting our 2017 West Coast National Parks trip.  (Yikes!  Time flies when you’re having fun.)  Alan and I first drafted our bucket list of National Parks more than 45 years ago when we were planning our honeymoon.  We spent a full month tent camping across the country to visit a number of iconic National Parks in the American West.  After the kids came along, we vowed to re-create that National Parks honeymoon trip with them and continue working our way through the list of National Parks we planned to visit.

What our family calls “National Parks Trip #1” was, in fact, the re-creation of our honeymoon.  That first National Parks trip with the kids was back in 2007, one year after we bought our first travel trailer – a Jayco Jay Flight 30’ bunkhouse model.  At the time, Ryan was 13 and Kyra was 8.  The month-long trip included stops at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Badlands National Park, Devil’s Tower National Monument, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.  We even dragged the kids through the tiny town of West Yellowstone, Montana, searching for the small café that provided salvation and sustenance decades ago during our first visit to Yellowstone National Park.  One morning during our honeymoon, we woke up in the West Yellowstone KOA with our two-person mountain tent covered in ice.  We had the tent and our gear packed up before dawn, and immediately sought out warmth and breakfast in town.  The small café was the only restaurant open at 6:00 a.m., and I can still remember the scrumptious blueberry muffins.  Did we find the café when we returned with our kids in tow?  We did, indeed, although it had new owners and a different ambience.  But it was magical to revisit the scene of one of our most distinctive memories from nearly 30 years prior.  That 2007 expedition was not the kids’ first big travel adventure.  It was, however, their first extended camping experience.  Fortunately for Alan and me, they took to the road as well and happily as their parents.

Ryan and Kyra meeting the Mighty Mississippi for the first time

We followed up with “National Parks Trip #2” in 2010, another month-long expedition when the kids were 16 and 11.  That one included Mammoth Cave National Park, Gateway Arch National Park, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Capitol Reef National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.  The kids proved to be road warriors on both trips, putting in long days and logging hundreds of miles in our quest to see and do as much as possible while working within the parameters of Alan’s ample, but limited, vacation time.

The Blue Whale of Catoosa - one of our Route 66 stops in Oklahoma

“National Parks Trip #3” eluded us for seven long years after that.  When you live on the east coast and want to take time to explore the west coast, you have to factor in, at the very least, two weeks just for travel time to get there and back.  It wasn’t until 2017 that we were able to block off nearly six weeks on our summer calendar.  By then, Ryan was 23 years old and working full time.   That he had aged out of our last cross-country National Parks Trip broke my heart.  Our family is close, and we all enjoy the great outdoors.  We were fortunate that Kyra had just graduated from high school and still had the flexibility to travel with us.  But I missed Ryan every single day we were on the road.

The Blue Swallow Motel on Route 66 in Tucumcari, New Mexico

The itinerary for our National Parks Trip #3 included nine National Parks – Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Redwoods, Crater Lake, Mount Rainier, Olympic, North Cascades, & Theodore Roosevelt.  It also included a number of iconic landmarks along Historic Route 66 and quick tours of Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Yup, we know how to pack it in.

Sequoia National Park, California

With a trip of that length, you have to know there would be a little drama thrown in for good measure.  We were (fortunately) only about an hour from home on our initial day of departure when Kyra announced she had forgotten her extra contacts.  Okay, then, time to turn the rig around.  Back on the road after that minor setback, it was only about five hours later that the transmission on the truck decided it didn’t want to make the journey, and we limped into a GM dealership in Pennsylvania.  That little incident required another quick trip home to buy a new truck - after leaving the travel trailer in a campground outside of Dubois, Pennsylvania, for the night.  Luckily, and I do mean luckily, the old truck was still under warranty; our small, local GMC dealer back home had a new Sierra 2500 on the lot; and the staff there moved mountains to complete all of the paperwork and register the new truck for us in less than 24 hours.  The following morning, Alan was at the dealership at 8:00 a.m. to sign on the dotted line, and we were back on the road.  Again.  Because it’s always memorable when you bookend your trip with catastrophes, we waited until the end of the trip for the next memorable debacle.  (See?  There’s more excitement in store.)

El Capitan - Yosemite National Park, California

When I put a temporary pause on the documentation of our third National Parks trip last May due to our Alaska expedition, Alan, Kyra and I were just finishing up our adventures along the Oregon coast.  Base camp was Fort Stevens State Park in the northwestern corner of Oregon, right on the ocean.  The beach was gorgeous and we’d definitely visit the park again.  The campground, however, was big and busy – and the sites were way too close to each other for our liking.  While a visit to this park will likely be on the itinerary when we return to the Oregon coast, I’m pretty sure we’ll camp elsewhere.  I don’t know how you can be claustrophobic in the great outdoors, but that’s exactly how I felt at Fort Stevens, despite the fact that it’s a large and lovely State Park.

The wreck of the Peter Iredale - on the beach at Fort Stevens State Park

That’s it for the recap bringing us up-to-date on our West Coast National Parks trip.  Coming up next, our final day of exploration along the coast of Oregon, then it’s on to Washington and Mount Rainier National Park.