Hello and welcome to the new National Parks blog on RV.net!
My plan for this blog is to discuss national parks, state/provincial parks, and any large municipal parks that may be of interest to RVers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. In each post, I’ll choose one park and go over the park highlights (natural features, recreation opportunities, history, etc.), park hours and fees, as well as campsite information and general driving directions. I’ll post new state/provincial park reviews every Monday and national park reviews every Saturday.
Since I haven’t been to every park in North America, I’d like to get comments from those of you who have been to the park, have heard about the park, or who have plans to go to the park. I welcome feedback as a way to inspire everyone with great trip ideas.
Now then, I suppose I’ll tell you how I first came to appreciate national/regional/local parks [for the sake of brevity, I’ll use the term “nature park(s)” interchangeably].
As far as I can remember, I first learned about these parks from watching Hanna Barbera’s Yogi Bear cartoon show. Jellystone Park seemed like a great place to have fun with Yogi, Boo Boo and Ranger Smith. Another early memory is of watching the Disney cartoon shorts of bumbling Humphrey the Bear and Ranger Woodlore in Brownstone Park.
Like many families, mine went on vacations and weekend trips to these nature parks to marvel at the natural beauty of our nation. I would pretend I was Laura Ingalls Wilder playing in the Big Woods, looking around at the plants and animals we didn’t have back home in the suburbs.
This brings me to an important point: nature parks are significant because they maintain a connection with the past for the sake of future generations. With all this “green” talk about conservation and sustainability, each of us needs to see firsthand what the land looked like centuries ago before people came and built homes and towns and roads. Children especially need to understand what it is people are working to preserve.
Nature parks make great vacation spots because there are so many of them. No matter where you live, there’s bound to be some sort of park relatively close to you. Oftentimes entrance fees are minimal and there are many things to see and do to interest everyone (even teenagers).
All in all, there’s no reason not to go! The main problem may be deciding which park to visit next. So grab a map and a notebook and join me next week when I start our blog journey with overviews of select California Gold Country state parks and Yellowstone National Park.