National Parks

We live in a big country. Really big. I suppose I always knew that, but I never really appreciated it until trying to plan a trip around it.

Not only is this country big, but there is a lot to do. A whole lot.

To plan a trip like this and not be completely overwhelmed by the options, it helps to work around a theme. Our theme is National Parks. With that theme in mind, we're planning the trip in such a way that we can hit as many of the National Parks as possible.

As of this writing, there are 63 National Parks. I say "as of this writing" because the list is not static. In fact, our newest National Park was created a mere 6 months prior to this writing. By the time you are reading this, there may be 64 or more.

Of the 63, the majority of them are west of the Mississippi. And some of them aren't even within the 50 states (I see you, American Samoa!). Of those that are within the 50 states, some are very hard to reach (we'll try again later, Dry Tortugas). We may never get to all of them, but we're going to do our best.

The first park was an easy one. Congaree National Park was a mere 2 hours south of our starting point back in Kannapolis. We headed there first.

It was still a bit chilly when we hit Congaree

Congaree is basically a big swamp. That's about it. But it apparently has "the largest intact expanse of old growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the southeastern United States," so there's that. There wasn't a whole lot going on there when we visited in March. We didn't see much flora or fauna, but there was a nice boardwalk through the swamp on which we took a leisurely stroll. And one benefit of going early in the year was a complete lack of mosquitoes!

We visited the Everglades on our way through Florida.

The Everglades is — wait for it — a big swamp. But at least there was stuff going on in this swamp. Stuff with big teeth and leathery skin. The guides will tell you that the Everglades is the only place on earth where crocodiles and alligators live together, though "together" is a bit misleading. Crocodiles need saltwater, and alligators need freshwater. The Everglades is technically a very shallow, very slow moving river, not a swamp. At the point where this river meets the Gulf of Mexico, freshwater and saltwater exist in close proximity, and therefore alligators and crocodiles do too. We saw both, though never together, though it can technically happen. And if you're wondering, they generally leave each other alone, but a crocodile would likely win in a fight.

We camped inside the park for two nights. The campsite was remote, which was great (we planned it for a weekend to not worry about internet for work). We were able to attend a ranger talk on alligators one night. We took a narrated boat ride down one of the canals, which was cut way back in the day in an attempt to drain the Everglades for farmland. Spoiler: it didn't work. In fact, it did just the opposite. Once the cancel reached the Gulf of Mexico, the saltwater flowed in as opposed to the freshwater flowing out. This screwed things up big time, so they poured a concrete dam to cut it off.

Note: trying to drain a swamp which is actually a river that covers ~1.5 million acres that are roughly 2 inches above sea level probably isn't a great idea.

The Everglades is one of three National Parks in Florida, but the other two are in the ocean. Dry Tortugas offers a ferry for access, but it's booked months in advance. By the time we realized we needed reservations, there were none left. The ticket office said people start lining up at 1 AM to try to secure standby seats when they open. While there are likely some interesting things to experience in Key West at 1 AM, we passed. Biscayne Bay is about 95% in the water. You can take your own boats out there, but as it turns out, we don't own a boat. Call that a critical oversight for our swing through Florida. We'll head back some day and see if we can hit those two.

A few weeks later we were in Tennessee where we were able to visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

By number of visitors, this is the most popular national park in the country. It's a little different than some of the others in that it's quite sprawling. So much so that there are multiple entrances. We have been to the Gatlinburg entrance before, so we chose to enter via the Cades Cove entrance this time. We had read that there was nice scenic drive in this entrance. And it's true, there is. There was also a few thousand other people who had apparently heard about it as well. There were also people that had clearly never seen a bear.

Now is a good time to mention that this scenic drive was a one lane, one way road. And it was legitimately one lane. Not a lane and a half and not a lane with a shoulder. One lane. That means when someone who doesn't get outside very much sees a bear for the very first time, stops their car, and gets out to take 293 pictures, everyone else has to stop too. Multiply that by dozens of people who find black bears novel, and you have a recipe for a very big traffic jam.

Fortunately the weather was nice!

Two girls decided that they'd wander out into the field to see how close they could get to a pair of bears. I may or may not have said out loud that I hoped "they get mauled but survive." It wasn't recorded, and the oral record is unclear. They did not get mauled. Maybe next time.

Midway through the drive was a trailhead for a hike to a waterfall. We took the opportunity, hoping traffic would clear while we hiked. Turns out the trail didn't allow pets, so Julie took one for the team and stayed behind with Fiji. (She said she gets to hang out with the kids all the time, whatever that means.) The kids and I enjoyed our hike to the falls. The falls were nice, but the kids far more enjoyed playing in the shallow waters downstream.

Upon our return to the car we were relieved to see that traffic had cleared because everyone had gotten their fill of bears. Ha, just kidding! There was a bear, and it was a baby, which made it a million times more photo worthy. We hopped right back into traffic. It took a few hours to do an 11 mile scenic drive, but let's be honest, we weren't in a hurry. Did I mention that we saw some bears?

After Tennessee we headed north to Kentucky. The central part of Kentucky is composed of a thick layer of limestone covered by a thick layer of sandstone. Despite its name, sandstone isn't prone to washing away, but limestone is. So after enough rain, what you end up with is a hole where the limestone used to be and a sandstone ceiling. In other words, a cave. And if it happens in a big enough area, you end up with a really big cave. Some may call it a mammoth cave.

Incidentally, Florida has a similar situation without the sandstone. So when their limestone washes away, they end up with roofless caves, otherwise known as sinkholes.

Mammoth Cave National Park sits atop the world's longest cave system. Not largest, mind you. There are larger caves. But Mammoth Cave is the longest, at roughly 450 miles discovered and counting. Yes. they are still finding more.

We had been blessed with great weather at the other parks, but it poured while we were at Mammoth Cave. You know what? We were a few hundred feet underground, so it didn't matter! There are around 14 miles of cave open to the public via various tours. In non-pandemic times, that is. In pandemic times, there is around 1.5 miles of cave open via exactly one tour: a self-guided one. They left the large part of the cave open (the rotunda) along with a small portion of each spur. They posted guides every few hundred yards to tell stories and answer questions. It wasn't ideal, and it would've been great do have been able to do one of the tours into the bowels of the cave, but such is life. We were able to get a feel for the scale of the thing.

You could feel a blast of cool air once you got near the entrance

The rotunda

Mammoth cave is huge, but it lacks formations, at least in the part we visited

The rain cleared shortly after we emerged from underground, and we hiked a few of the surface trails. It was quite pleasant.

A few weeks later found us in West Virginia at our nation's newest national park (no pun intended), New River Gorge National Park. The park is mostly water, covering 53 miles of the New River.

The park is so new that the sign is just a piece of vinyl over the visitor center's old sign

We figured the best way to experience a park like this was to get out on the water! This part of West Virginia has some of the country's best whitewater rafting. We booked a family duckie trip (a duckie is an inflatable kayak) on the upper New River. The lower New River has some more serious rapids, and younger kids aren't allowed.

Duckies are either solo or double, and because we have an odd number, someone had to go solo. Only kids 12 and up are allowed to go solo. Fortunately, Asher turned 12 two days before our trip. He theorized that he was one of the youngest ever to do the trip solo, at least through the outfitters that we used. The guide expressed a little concern about him, but I figured his kayaking in the pond back home would help him out. Because that was totally like whitewater, right? Her concerns turns out to be misplaced. He spent the whole trip at the front of the pack while the rest of us brought up the rear. He lost his paddle in one of the rapids, but that's the extent of the drama he experienced.

Whitewater rapids are classified from 1-5, and the upper New has three class 3 rapids. Julie and Caleb did not navigate the first set successfully, so they went for an involuntary swim. Jordan and I swam as well but never involuntarily!

The very next day we took a quick trip down highway 64 to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

We hiked to a waterfall where the kids summoned their inner engineer to alter the flow of the stream.

Caleb was not happy with where nature had placed this large rock

We were at the Big Meadow area of the park, which contains a big meadow. Go figure. There are no human-made trails or attractions in the meadow. People are encouraged to wander around as they desire. We explored the meadow for an hour or so. Dusk was falling by the end, and we saw a number of deer come out to graze. Jordan chased one around for about 15 minutes. She'd get within 30 feet or so before it decided she was a little too close and moved away. Now imagine that scene repeating half a dozen times.

We won't be at our next park for a few more weeks until we get to Acadia National Park in Maine. Then we'll swing around the Great Lakes, hitting Cuyahoga Valley, Indiana Dunes, Isle Royale,  and Voyageurs over the next month. Then we head west!