By traveler I’m not sure exactly when I became a fan of national parks, but I am one. I couldn’t wait to be able to get my senior pass, but now I have it I want to put it to good use.
I had visited both Rocky Mountain NP and Zion NP with my mother in 2012, but I knew I’d missed four parks in Utah. What I didn’t know was that I’d missed three parks in Colorado, too.
My original plan was to visit the Utah parks, the Four Corners Monument, which is on Native territory and had been closed due to COVID until recently, and the Glass Skywalk at the Grand Canyon. However, in the development of the trip, I discovered that the distance to the Skywalk is far greater than I had originally thought. With the current gas prices (average $4.50/gal. as I write this, I have to take that into consideration. Once I realized that I have a very good opportunity to add the three Colorado parks and reminded myself that I have already visited the Grand Canyon–just not the Skywalk, it seems a great idea to adjust my plans.
So, I want to see if I can visit seven national parks in ten days! Mapquest estimates the most direct route to be 3,074 miles with a 49-hour drive time.
These are the parks I’m hoping to visit: Great Sand Dunes, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches. I didn’t think any of the parks were in the top 10 most popular, but apparently Arches is so active already, it now requires reservations during the day. This CBS Sunday Morning story explains what’s going on.
Wonder how many times I’d cross the Continental Divide?
On the music front, I updated the new playlist I named D’Lair’s Replays. It’s a list of approximately 50 songs I tend to play multiple times when I hear them in my Mixed Nuts list of nearly 3700 tracks. It’s still being updated, so I don’t know what the final list will be, yet. Looking forward to being able to shake SB’s windows with it during the trip.