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
Battle Bunny 