We’ll Be Back

Or, a list of all our “failed” National Park Trips

Dear Friend,

As I plan our Summer excursions, I’m excited to say that we plan to check off at least a few new-to-us National Parks. I’m having a fun time picking out where we will camp and what roads we will drive and trails we might hike. The first time driving into a new National Park is nearly always a little magical. Except Cuyahoga. Ohio is beautiful, but I don’t get that park. Maybe we need to go back and explore a different part.

It’s really the second and subsequent visits where I often fall in love with a park. It takes time. And as much as I try to avoid it, I tend to go in with a checklist of things to do the first time. All the must-see’s and Instagram photo ops. The second time, you do what you missed the first time and what looks interesting and what feels right. It’s almost always more fun.

The first time we went to Joshua Tree, I had kind of a bad time. Our campsite was so unlevel we re-parked no less than four times. We got snowed on and ran out of propane. It rained and snowed so we didn’t get to climb like I had hoped. The climbing we did try felt super hard. It was fun but felt unnecessarily hard. I’d built it up to be this magical place and was disappointed when it wasn’t what I thought. Looking back at pictures, though, it sure looks magical. I’m not sure I appreciated what we had.

In our visits to Joshua Tree since then, I have fallen for the desert lands, gray rock, and pink skies. I’ve seen bats circling around Cottonwood Spring at sunset and taken in the views at Keys View (also at sunset). This is a sunset park. I didn’t know that at first and tried to push too much into too short a time.

So when I go to a new park, now, I think to myself “we’ll be back.” We won’t see it all and we might miss things some might consider must-do’s. But we enjoy ourselves more knowing we can leave something for next time. It takes the pressure off.

The first time we went to Glacier, Going to the Sun Road was not open. It was early May. We barely went past Lake Macdonald and we had an amazing week exploring that area. We drove the road the next time.

When we went to Yosemite in April, there was snow everywhere and a huge chunk of the park was closed. We still explored the valley and did one of our favorite hikes ever in Hetch Hetchy. We didn’t hike Half Dome or Vernal Falls. We just basked in the beauty as we road our bikes around. I still feel like it was worth it.

We didn’t get a lot of hiking in at Grand Canyon because it was February and super windy and cold, but our snowy campsite in the neighboring National Forest is one of my favorite we have had.

We only got to drive through Yellowstone once because our visit didn’t pan out due to a campground snafu. We saw Old Faithful, had a lovely drive, and ended up going to Bozeman Hot Springs to relax for the weekend. That ended up being just what we needed.

The first time we went to Redwoods, we couldn’t hike Fern Canyon because of road closures. We pivoted to a different hike that ended up being one of my favorite of the trip. We got to do Fern Canyon next time. It was great, too.

This sounds like a lot of our trips have been failures, that we never really get to see these National Parks as we should. But that’s kind of the point. You never get to see it all and that’s why it’s so amazing. There are always more things to discover. I used to feel sad about missing things. Now I just say “next time” and enjoy what I do get to do, which is a lot.

So this summer as we venture into some new parks, I’m trying not to get hung up on doing it all. And, I’m already looking forward to our second visits. It’s so fun to know there’s always more adventure out there if we want it.

See you down the road,

Jamie