Goal: Visit a U.S. National Park Yearly

I’ve talked a bit about priorities and achieving goals and I think I’ll start to share mine every once in a while. One of my goals is to visit a U.S. National Park that I have never seen before, every year.

There are currently 58 parks spanning 84.6 million acres. Yellowstone was the first national park, established in 1872, however the National Park Service wasn’t officially established until 1916. In June of 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt (oh how I love that man!) signed executive orders which consolidated the various National Parks and Monuments and placed them under one federal umbrella. He vastly expanded their numbers and highly publicized his vacations to the parks, encouraging others to visit them as well.

I found this mammoth map identifying all of the National Parks Systems areas. And here is a list of the parks, their locations and the year they were established.

Right now I think my top 3 choices are the Olympic, Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Parks both because they look incredible and because they’re relatively close.

Sol Duc Falls, Olympic National Park

Grand Canyon

Yosemite National Park

Idaho Falls

Last weekend we caravanned up to Idaho Falls for the 15th Annual Mountain Brewers Fest. Oh sure, it sounds like a semi-sophisticated alcohol tasting extravaganza. But really it was more like going to Mardi Gras with a bunch of frat guys. Dudes with blood-shot eyes were running around, slapping five and yelling at girls to show their boobs.

Baby birdies being fed

Apparently they were very coercive and periodically the crowd would erupt in cheers and a girl would walk away with her new, priceless plastic beads. The worst part of the whole experience was the nest of 3 baby birds in a tree, about eye-level. Momma bird probably thought she’d scored big when she found this perfect, secluded spot, but then tents went up and thousands of people surrounded her nest. I’m insane so I just ended up guarding them from rowdiness until the end of the festival. It stressed me out.

My superpower: tossing fireballs from a gigantic skateboard

Later that night we went to a fantastic dinner where our friend Amanda ran into an old friend. He said that he’d take us to a bar where we’d find the crowd amusing and then we’d go somewhere cool. He was right about the crowd being amusing, but wrong about it not being cool. It was so entertaining that we stayed there the entire time. The bar held a dozen different genres of people who I’ve never seen so close in a social situation. Ancient cowboys sitting next to young pierced goths sitting next to a girl in scrubs sitting next to a rocker chick in a belly shirt sitting next to some sweet bros. It was truly amazing.

The next day we drove home and stopped for a little local history at the Idaho Potato Museum. I have a thing for getting my picture taking riding inanimate objects like a bucking bronco. There was a giant potato that I wanted to conquer but it looked as though it would crumble under me, so I had to settle for the sign in front of it.

Super fun trip…

Kelbot and me

Jenny and Robert

Beerhat!

Kel and Jenny really wanted to take this back to the hotel

Friendsies

Kel and Dave, proud Idahoans

Kel swinging from the train

Work'n a potato plow (that's my old guy face)