Announcing the North American National Parks Project!

Announcing the North American National Parks Project!

I love and loathe lists/goals like this. They put good and vile ideas in my head. After all, I have this thing about completing them. So far, I have completed travel tasks such as seeing all 50 states, touching all five Great Lakes, seeing all 30 MLB teams play a home game, and then seeing all current MLB ballparks. I'm also well underway to doing the same for NFL stadiums. Next, I already have an idea about trying to see a sporting event in all 50 states; I'm at 27 at the moment. I'm not really committed to that last one, but there are about a half dozen states--those which I've only previously driven through, e.g.--where I am planning on spending a bit more travel time.

Anyway, travel king Everything Everywhere wants to see all of the National Parks. I've seen a bunch. He posted this list, which I trust is accurate, and I've made bold those I've visited:

Acadia, Maine
American Samoa, American Samoa
Arches, Utah
Badlands, South Dakota
Big Bend, Texas
Biscayne, Florida
Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado
Bryce Canyon, Utah
Canyonlands, Utah
Capitol Reef Utah
Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
Channel Islands, California
Congaree, South Carolina
Crater Lake, Oregon
Cuyahoga Valley, Ohio
Death Valley, California
Denali, Alaska
Dry Tortugas, Florida
Everglades, Florida
Gates of the Arctic, Alaska
Glacier, Montana
Glacier Bay, Alaska
Grand Canyon, Arizona
Grand Teton, Wyoming
Great Basin, Nevada
Great Sand Dunes, Colorado
Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina and Tennessee
Guadalupe Mountains, Texas
Haleakala, Hawaii
Hawaii Volcanoes, Hawaii
Hot Springs, Arkansas
Isle Royale, Michigan
Joshua Tree, California
Katmai, Alaska
Kenai Fjords, Alaska
Kings Canyon, California
Kobuk Valley, Alaska
Lake Clark, Alaska
Lassen Volcanic Park, California
Mammoth Cave Park, Kentucky
Mesa Verde, Colorado
Mount Rainier, Washington
North Cascades, Washington
Olympic, Washington
Petrified Forest, Arizona
Redwood, California
Rocky Mountain, Colorado
Saguaro, Arizona
Sequoia, California
Shenandoah, Virginia
Theodore Roosevelt, North Dakota
Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands
Voyageurs, Minnesota
Wind Cave, South Dakota
Wrangell-St. Elias, Alaska
Yellowstone, Wyoming
Yosemite, California
Zion, Utah

That's 28 out of 59. Not too shabby, but it's not 50% either.

I can't help noticing that I've been to Howe Caverns, the Ohio Caverns, Luray Caverrns, and the Shasta Caverns, but neither of the two caverns in the National Park System. Interesting--I'll have to correct that. Seeing all 59 NPs though? Hmmm. Maybe not. There are easily a dozen more I want to visit, but I realize some of them simply may be out of reach for me. We shall see.

Civil War Battlefields (not to mention Monuments, Forests, Recreation Areas, etc.) within the National Park system are excluded from EE's mission. Fair enough. I'm on the East Coast, so it's been somewhat easier for me to get to many of the Battlefields. Here is what my list looks like:

Andersonville National Historic Site
Antietam National Battlefield
Appomattox Court House National Historical Park
Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial
Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site
Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park
Ford's Theatre National Historic Site
Fort Donelson National Battlefield
Fort Pulaski National Monument
Fort Sumter National Monument
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National
Gettysburg National Military Park
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park
Manassas National Battlefield
Monocacy National Battlefield
Olustee Battlefield State Historic Site
Pea Ridge National Military Park
Petersburg National Battlefield
Richmond National Battlefield Park
Shiloh National Military Park
Stones River National Battlefield
Tupelo National Battlefield
Vicksburg National Military Park

That's 15 out of 24. Not bad. Not bad at all. While there are a few that I'm missing that I'd like to see, I can't say the desire to get to the nine I'm missing is strong.

Finally, I will not get into how much it pains me to have never picked up a National Park Passport. Social media check-ins are nice, but I simply didn't bother with the passport my first few years of serious National Park Travel, which started over 20 years ago. I guess just having seen them, and having photographed them, will have to suffice. It's interesting to me, though, that I don't believe I've done a social media check in at a single National Park. Battlefields, yes, but not the Parks. The last two I went to were in May 2009, which I suppose barely predates my entry into the travel check-in world...

Comments

  1. tthrashSeptember 19, 2013 at 10:17 AM

    Ya know, I really struggled when posting the Civil War list. My gut was telling me the list is far from complete (I even added one that didn't come up in my search for a listing). Anyway the NPS posts a list that is considerably longer, though not all of them are battlefields: http://www.nps.gov/hps/abpp/civil.htm#trails . So, there are many more Civil War sites one can visit than are given in my list. Guess, I should have trusted my instincts...Shame on you, HKHWR...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Krista MuscarellaFebruary 21, 2021 at 12:01 AM

    I must keep reading to see if you gave in and purchased a National Park Passport after all :-) !

    ReplyDelete

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