Tag Archives: National Parks

NEW items crossed off my bucket lists

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Happy Thursday! It’s time to update my bucket lists – my National Parks list and my Trolls list. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve visited two more national parks and found one more Dambo troll.

The photo above is of Bear Gulch Reservoir in Pinnacles National Park. It was a fun hike getting to the reservoir. We hiked through the Bear Gulch Caves, which is a giant fissure or canyon in the earth where huge boulders have fallen in to make the narrow canyon look like caves. This national park wasn’t filled with tourists, like many national parks are. It’s kind of a hidden gem!

We also visited Channel Islands National Park. On the boat ride over to Santa Cruz Island, we saw humpback whales. They were really close to our boat! The boat captain said they were as close as he’s ever seen them. So cool!

Once on the island, we hiked up to Cavern Point, which had great views. We really appreciated having a volunteer with the National Park Service hike with us and relay interesting information about the island. We’ve now visited 43 of the 64 parks. The NPS recently added another national park – the Chiricahua National Monument is now Chiricahua National Park! I guess we’ll be traveling back to Arizona at some point!

And lastly, we made a stop in Solvang, California, to add another troll to our list. Lulu is the only troll to be found indoors. I love how she was built right up to the ceiling!

Here’s her story:

That’s it for the update. I hope you have a great day and get to learn or do something NEW today! Take care!

a couple of NEW list updates

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Happy Monday! We recently traveled through South Dakota, so, of course, we visited Badlands National Park and Wind Cave National Park. And we couldn’t leave without visiting Mount Rushmore. I’ve updated my National Parks bucket list and my movie location list.

Here are a couple of interesting NEW tidbits I learned while in South Dakota:

The soft rock in Badlands National Park is eroding at about one inch per year. So all of the formations could disappear in about 500,000 years.

Wind Cave holds about 95% of all known boxwork on Earth. Boxwork is a rare, honeycomb-like network of thin mineral blades that stick out from cave walls and ceilings. Local explorers and geologists used the term “boxwork” simply because the intersecting blades of calcite resembled a maze of old post office boxes.

The name Mount Rushmore initially started as a joke. Mount Rushmore is named after Charles E. Rushmore, a New York City lawyer who visited the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1885 on mining business. While inspecting tin mining claims, Rushmore asked a local guide or companion what the unnamed granite peak was called. A member of the group joked that they would name it after him, and the name stuck. Before it was named after Charles E. Rushmore, the mountain was known to the Lakota people as Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe, or the “Six Grandfathers,” holding deep spiritual significance.

We’re slowly checking off the national parks from our list. We’re at 41 out of 63. It’s always fun to travel somewhere NEW and learn NEW things! I hope you have a great day and get to do or learn something NEW today too!

Miscellaneous Monday…NEW stuff i gotta share

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Happy Monday! I’m updating my National Parks bucket list. We’re at 38 out of 63. We visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota recently. Also, North Dakota is a NEW state for us… another state, another sticker on the side of our RV!

We saw wild horses, bison, and prairie dogs. I didn’t even notice this little prairie dog (front and center) until I uploaded this photo.

In other NEWs, we visited the world’s shortest river. The Roe River in Great Falls, Montana, is said to be the world’s shortest river. We were riding our bikes on the River’s Edge trail, and while we were stopped at Giant Springs, we chatted with a gentleman who told us that his brother had to get lawyers involved to have the Roe River designated as the shortest river. Giant Springs flows 201 feet and then joins the Missouri River. That’s pretty short! The Giant Springs State Park is very near the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center that we also visited (on a different day). It was great to learn NEW things!

Also, I’m updating my waterfalls bucket list. While up visiting Banff, Canada, we hiked the Johnston Canyon trail. It was great! It has an upper falls and a lower falls, but there were a few more unnamed falls along the trail too.

We’ve been keeping our retirement active. Our favorites are playing pickleball, riding our bikes, and hiking to waterfalls. We’re blessed to have our RV to travel to NEW and very beautiful places!

I hope you have a great day and get to learn or do something NEW today! Take care!

more NEW updates to my bucket lists

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Happy Friday! I just have a couple of updates today. One to my Lighthouses List and one to my National Parks List. We recently visited Robinson Point Lighthouse in Washington and Olympic National Park. I thought the wildflowers in Olympic were beautiful! What do you think?

Let’s see…my lighthouse collection is at 32, and we’re at 36 out of 63 for National Parks.

Progress! :o)

Have a great day, and I hope you do or learn or experience something NEW today!

Miscellaneous Monday – NEW stuff i gotta share

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Happy Monday! We’ve been seeing and doing so many NEW things lately, I almost forgot to update my lists with these items. Ha! We’ve visited 3 NEW lighthouses: Cape Mears Lighthouse in Oregon, Cape Disappointment Lighthouse, and North Head Lighthouse in Washington. (The full collection is HERE).

We’ve added another park to our National Parks Bucket List. We visited Mount Rainier National Park.

We’ve added another movie location to my list. I confess I previously hadn’t watched the movie, Goonies, so the night before we were to explore Astoria, Oregon, we watched this classic movie. Someone mentioned that last year was its 50th anniversary. How did I not watch it before now?!? We saw the courthouse (which is now a museum), the house, and, of course, Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, which were all filming locations in the movie.

And TA-DA! I made it past 100 waterfalls! I originally thought I’d keep track of waterfalls until I hit 100, but why quit now, huh? I filled the bucket, but we’re far from being done!

We hiked to three waterfalls in Mt. Rainier National Park and 8 of the 10 waterfalls in Silver Falls State Park in Oregon. They were all wonderful, but some had more water than others. I confess I didn’t snap photos of all of them at Silver Falls State Park.

And that’s about it for this week. I hope you all have an excellent week ahead and get to learn or do something NEW this week.

a few NEW updates to my various lists

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Happy Tuesday! We’re on the road again in our RV, so we’re seeing and doing lots of NEW things. It’s time to update a few of my lists.

First of all, we’ve been to 3 NEW lighthouses (and are scheduled to visit many more in the coming days). We recently visited Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, and Heceta Head Lighthouse in Oregon.

As for my National Parks list, we visited Crater Lake National Park. It was a clear day and very beautiful!

Next, I’ll update my waterfalls list. We went on a nice, short (3 miles round-trip) hike to Drift Creek Falls, near Lincoln, Oregon. It features a suspension bridge, as well as a waterfall! Can you see our tiny shadows on the bridge as we took the first photo? And the next photo is of the falls together with the bridge.

I love me a good list! Haha! Even more, I love learning, doing, seeing, and experiencing NEW things! I hope you get to learn or do something NEW today too! Have a wonderful day!

four NEW national park visits

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Happy Monday! I’ve finally updated my National Parks Bucket List. In the last few weeks, we’ve visited 4 more parks. We’re up to 33 with only 30 more parks to go. The photo above is the New River Bridge in New River National Park in West Virginia.

This is Mammoth Cave National Park. We visited during the government shutdown, so we were unable to take a cave tour, but we were able to go down into the historic entrance to the cave, and we also enjoyed bike riding through the park – so I’m counting it, haha! If we’re ever in the area again, we’ll be sure to take a cave tour.

This is, of course, is Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis, Missouri. Even though the government was still shut down, they were still allowing people to take the tram to the top of the arch. It was a clear day, so we were able to see quite far.

Lastly, this is Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. We drove the Skyline Drive. Beautiful! It was a bit nippy for hiking (in the 30’s), so if we come this way again, we’ll try to make it in warmer weather!

Our travels next spring will include the next batch of parks. Little by little, we’re crossing them off our bucket list!

Have a terrific day. I hope you do or learn something NEW today!

more NEW bucket list updates

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Happy Monday! In my book, it’s a pretty great week when I can mark off items from two different bucket lists. Today I’m updating my National Parks bucket list and my 100 Waterfalls bucket list! Woohoo!

Recently, we visited Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. What a unique national park! It’s basically in the middle of some towns and very close to a large city – Cleveland, Ohio. It was made a national park because the beauty of the area was being threatened by development. We rode our bikes on the Erie-Ohio tow path, then made our way to this awesome waterfall. I’ve wanted to go here ever since Nancy at Two Trails One Road recommended it! It did not disappoint! Thanks, Nancy! We rode further on the tow path and saw this awesome bridge. I believe it’s called Station Road Bridge:

After lunch, we hiked to Blue Hen Falls. However, after visiting Brandywine Falls, these falls were a bit underwhelming (especially after a semi-difficult hike), but hey, any waterfall is worth it in my opinion! I’m thinking perhaps there might be more water in the spring rather than the hot days of August!

On the drive back to our campground, we stopped in the cute little town of Chagrin Falls. We bought an ice cream cone and enjoyed their falls right in their downtown.

Toward the end of the week, we hiked the short distance to Minnehaha Falls and Cascade Falls in Nelson-Kennedy Ledges State Park. The Minnehaha Falls has a glass bridge that you can walk over the large gorge that the waterfall flows through. Again, I’m thinking there would likely be more water in the springtime than there was in August. But I’m counting them both toward my 100 waterfalls!

So, the bucket list stats are at 29 out of 63 national parks and 68 out of 100 waterfalls. We’re getting there. Being retired will likely speed up the progress!

Have a great day! I hope you learn or do something NEW today!

a NEW National Park checked off my bucket list

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Happy Wednesday!

We recently visited our 28th (out of 63) National Park. We explored Indiana Dunes National Park. The weather was perfect. The crowds were small. Yay!

I’m not sure if drones are permitted at this national park (probably not), but there are some impressive photos posted online which were taken from above at some point. Here are a few of mine taken from ground-level. Maybe I should look into getting a drone, haha! (????)

35 more parks to go!

I hope you have a lovely day and learn or do something NEW today!

a NEW National Parks Bucket List

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I’ve organized my National Parks list and added links for the parks where I’ve posted photos. Here’s the updated list of parks we’ve visited:

LIST OF US NATIONAL PARKS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER (64 total)

We’re at 43 out of 64. :o)