Theodore Roosevelt National Park Photo Credit: NPS
“There is nothing so American as our national parks…. The fundamental idea behind the parks…is that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Childhood trips
When I was growing up, both my parents were teachers. My dad usually worked a short-term job in the summer, and my mom was often taking classes but the teacher’s schedule meant that it was relatively easy for us to find a chunk of time in the middle of the summer to go on vacation. This often meant long road trips to visit family in other parts of the country, sometimes with grandparents in tow.
The first one of these trips I remember clearly took place in the summer of 1987 when I was almost six years old. My parents, my sister (age two), and my grandma piled into a 1986 Chevy Nova and set off for California to visit my great-grandmother. The other grandparents followed behind in their Thunderbird. Dad likes to be economical, so most of our lunches were peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches eaten roadside in rest stops or picnic areas; I remember marveling at the fact that the dry air in Arizona turned our bread to toast as soon as we took it out of the bag.
We stopped at the Petrified Forest, where we gazed in wonder at trees turned to stone. At the Grand Canyon, we peered into its depths and climbed the Desert View Watchtower. After a stop in Los Angeles to visit great-grandma and the House of Mouse, we headed north to Yosemite. The road into Yosemite Valley is winding and steep, and my two-year-old sister – who gets carsick to this day – barfed all over me on that road.
Despite that (disgusting) setback, our visit to Yosemite was enjoyable. We picnicked at the car on the valley floor, watched the waterfall cascade over the granite walls, and I think we even saw a bear.
When I was a teenager, we took another road trip; this time, we drove the northern loop, visiting Glacier, Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, and the Badlands. Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park made me hold my breath (although there was no barfing this time); we got surrounded by a herd of bison in Yellowstone, and all of us had a good time climbing the weird rock formations in the Badlands.
My memories of those trips are warm; we spent time as a family, dug in the dirt, splashed in the rivers, and saw things that were new and wonderful. What I didn’t realize at the time was that my parents were passing on the legacy of the parks to me and my sisters, just as their parents had done for them when they were children.
Solo Adult
Time rolled on, as it is wont to do, and it was several years before I made it back to a park. In the spring of 2005, I was finishing graduate school and simultaneously going through a divorce. The confluence of those events had left me exhausted and burned out. The idea of jumping into a full-time career made me nauseated. On a whim, I applied to work for Xanterra Parks & Resorts, the concessionaire that runs the food & lodging service in Yellowstone National Park. A few weeks later, I put all my stuff in storage and set off for Wyoming.
Summer in the wilderness proved to be what I needed. I worked a job that required little thought or planning, and on days off we went hiking and backpacking in one of the most gorgeous places on earth. We camped one night by the edge of Shoshone Lake, the water so calm it was like a mirror. On another hike, we fell asleep to the sound of the Yellowstone River gurgling by our campsite. One of the last backpacking trips we did included a climb up Electric Peak, the fourth-highest mountain in the park, topping out at nearly 12,000 feet.
Summer came to end, and I found a full-time job; not long after that, I became a mom. That kid (who turns 16 next week!) is named for two of the towns closest to Yellowstone; without my summer in the park, the kiddo wouldn’t be here. It may come as no surprise that Yellowstone remains one of the most special places to me.
My own family
A year later, we took that kid on an epic National Parks road trip. Three weeks, many parks, and camping with a one-year-old; we may have been slightly crazy, but we had an amazing trip. We slept under the stars in the red rocks of Arches National Park, visited the pueblos of Mesa Verde, and spent five days on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Our trip took us north through the canyons and hoodoos of Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park before we arrived back at Yellowstone. In Yellowstone, the one-year-old rode on my back up the Mt. Washburn trail and completed the first hike under his own power at Tower Fall.
Since that trip, I’ve moved to Florida, (re)met & married my husband, changed jobs a few times, and added another kid to the mix. One of our first vacations as a family of four was a spring break trip to Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It snowed part of the time, but we hiked to Abrams Falls (with Luke in the backpack on my back!) and spent hours throwing rocks in the water at the Chimneys Picnic Area.
We’ve taken several national parks trips since then, including a trip to Acadia in 2018. Our family has visited national parks sites whenever we can, even the obscure ones: the William Howard Taft House in Cincinnati, Congaree National Park in South Carolina, Fort Matanzas and Timacuan here in Florida. We’ve paid our respects at Gettysburg, Antietam, and Vicksburg; we’ve honored our nation’s history at the National Parks & Monuments in Washington, DC.
Summer 2020 gave us another reason to go back to the parks; Covid was raging, and everyone was antsy. The great outdoors and wide-open spaces seemed to be just the thing for a covid-era trip. We rented a house just north of Gardiner, Montana and spent a week exploring Yellowstone National Park with the kids. We hiked, threw rocks in the water, saw bears and bison, went fishing, climbed rock formations, and ate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in the back of the car by the side of the road. Things have a way of coming full circle.
Our national parks are a treasure, not just for the wilderness they protect and the stories they tell. They are loved by so many because of the memories we create with our families. We pass down the family stories of our experiences in these places and help to create a love of country from one generation to the next. They’re yours, these parks, and gosh are we lucky to have them.
