No matter where you live, there’s probably a park of some sort near you. Perhaps it’s even a national park, there are 63 in the U.S. alone (with legislation in the Senate creating a 64th having passed in 2022)! The picture above is from a waterfall in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, where I had the good fortune to travel to in 2022 and as I’ve considered over the last few years all the majestic natural beauty our planet has to offer, I’ve made it a part of my life’s adventures to travel to as many of the national parks that exist in the U.S.
To add even more fun to this exploration, America’s National Parks offers a passport book that I purchased when I was visiting the New River Gorge National Park which enables me to “stamp off” each park as I visit… and I have to say, while I’ve known about the passport book for many years (it was first published in 1986 and boy, if I had purchased it when it first came out I would’ve gotten at least a dozen stamps already!), having it just wasn’t very high on my list of travel items to have all those years ago.
But, as I’ve aged and seen just how big the world is and come to realize I’m NOT going to get to everywhere I’d like to get to, I found myself considering in the last year or so where it would be possible to travel to and the national parks naturally came to mind….and I was pleasantly surprised (if not slightly overwhelmed!) to find that there are still so many parks I’ve yet to experience.
*If you haven’t been able to figure out where this is headed, I’m guessing it may be a bit clearer now!
Ok, so maybe you don’t have a national park right in your backyard, or any park at all. Well, here’s your process for today. Visit one online. Or, if you have the means then plan a trip to the one closest to you. Let your imagination run wild if all you’re able to do is visit an online site for one of them. The point is, that thanks to all that’s alive on the planet today, we can all be thankful for the technology that’s been developed that allows us to visit anywhere (virtually) thanks to the good ‘ole internet!
TimeSpaceOne 