Hi friends, I have exciting news to share about my pilgrimage. I just crossed a huge milestone in my journey. After visiting the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, I’ve now explored every single National Park in the contiguous 48. I feel both joy and pride thinking about the decisions and adventures that have brought me to this moment.

While I haven’t quite yet reached my aim of visiting every US National Park (I still have a handful of faraway parks to go to that are currently inaccessible) it feels like a good moment to step back and take stock in a bigger way: both of all that’s happened and the intentions I want to bring into whatever lies ahead.

To help me do this, I have an idea, and I want to invite you do it with me. 

Inspired by the old growth forests in our National Parks; I’ve written a series of short, thematically related posts to help guide us. Topics are all related to trees, including roots, bark, and leaves. In each, after a brief introduction based on an experience I had with a tree, I will share a photograph, and a reflection prompt. New posts will come out on Monday (starting tomorrow) and will only take a few minutes to read. 

After you read, I hope you will take some time to both reflect alone and discuss with someone you care about. I’d also invite you to share with this community (anonymously or not). At the bottom of each post, I’ll include a link where you can do so. The following Monday, in addition to a new post, I will include both my own and some your responses to the prior week’s inquiry. 

I will send the first prompt tomorrow. Until then, I hope you enjoy a single image from each of the parks I visited on my most recent journey through the Midwest, Southeast, and Deep South below.

Blessings to each of you. I hope that both you and the ones you love stay healthy and safe in these times.

—-

Flight 93 National Memorial (Stoystown, PA)

In a field in far western Pennsylvania is a memorial to the victims and heroes of Flight 93, who perished on September 11, 2001 after rushing the cockpit of their hijacked plane to prevent terrorists from crashing it into the US Congress.

I don’t know if it was because I actually lived through 9/11 or because of its design, but I found this site to be one of the most moving memorials to a tragedy I’d ever been to.

Each part of the memorial’s design was carefully constructed with an eye to its symbolism, from the flight line being the path you walk in on your approach, to the subtle markings in the concrete to match the scars that the plane’s explosion had on the nearby forest. I also appreciated the meaningful amount of space given to every single victim, helping me to see and imagine each one as a person, not just one of a crowd.

Gettysburg National Battlefield

Visiting Gettysburg was surprisingly powerful for me.

One reason is that I recently learned that one of my direct ancestors fought in the battle. More than half of his company died that day. I’d never heard the story of how they died until we were there. Apparently, they were ordered to rush into an advancing line of Confederate soldiers even though they were out of bullets. With only bayonets they were able to hold the line until reinforcements came, but at a horrible cost. As I walked the now peaceful field I wondered what was he thinking as he ran into the fray with no gun to shoot? What did he feel when his brothers were mowed down beside him? How close was I to never having been born?

I felt quite somber being there as well as I reflected on the ever more violent rhetoric is being increasingly normalized by our media and elected leaders. I understand the fear that is driving the rhetoric, but I wonder if the people spreading it really understand what demons they are unleashing. Standing in a field where 3,100 men and boys brutally killed each other in pools of blood, often with their hands, brought the seriousness of such rhetoric home.

Below I’ve included a single image of a locust tree from the cemetery. It was one of the last “witness trees” that was standing on the date of the battle.

Indiana Sand Dunes National Park
Among National Park enthusiasts, many of eastern parks are controversial, and none more so than Indiana Sand Dunes, which became a park only after some stranger than fiction political backroom horse trading at the end of 2019 federal government shutdown. It’s a strange place, with a lot of beauty, but with a strange layout and underfunded facilities and trails. The land was set aside for preservation before it became an official national park due to the encroaching reach of heavy polluting industries that were building out large facilities along the shore. Today, you can see those signs of industry as you walk many of the beaches. There is mammoth industrial steel plant in the middle, along with large powers plants flanking the edges of the park.

Today, most visitors seem to be locals coming for the beaches, but there are some nice trails to explore and a great campground as well. If you have time, I’d recommend you check out the state park (which is entirely inside the national park) for the best hiking.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Ohio)

Like Indiana Sand Dunes, Cuyahoga is one of the most controversial National Parks, with many park lovers adamant that it should never have been given the designation. They’d have support from an old park service director who angrily declared once that Cuyahoga will only be a National Park “over my dead body.”

Setting aside the question of whether the park should be a national park, it is a triumph story for urban conservation and regeneration. As recently as the 1970s the namesake river that runs through the park was so polluted it set on fire, not just once, but many times. Today, it’s a bucolic reserve of pretty wooded trails, bike paths, meandering streams, small waterfalls, and a number of independent, environmentally minded small businesses. It even has a large outdoor music amphitheater that is used as the Cleveland orchestra’s summer home.

If you are from the area, I’m sure it’s a wonderful place to go back to repeatedly. If you’re on a long road trip, it’s a nice place to stop and explore for a day or two before heading back on the road.

Shenandoah National Park (Virginia)

Home to the iconic 105 mile skyline drive that runs along the tops of a section of the blue ridge mountains, Shenandoah was a great place to enjoy the fall colors and go on a number of fairly strenuous hikes. My favorite hike was Old Rag, which included a serious set of rock scrambles near the top. skills. The other highlight of time there was flying down a natural water slide on nothing more than the seat of my pants.

Mammoth Cave National Park (Kentucky)

Due to Covid much the cave was closed when I visited. However, you could still tour the main section near the cave entrance. While this part of the cave didn’t have the incredible stalagmite formations like Carlsbad Caverns, the sheer size of the chambers in caverns were extraordinary.

Great Smokey Mountain National Park (Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina)

This is the most visited National Park in the US. That was a shock to me.

Sure, it’s a beautiful park, but by no means the most beautiful park in America. The reason for its popularity I think its regional. It’s within driving distance to a significant portion of America, and a number of regional tourist hotspots have sprung up near the its western entrance in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. It doesn’t hurt that unlike the park’s out west, there’s also no entrance fee.

Unfortunately, taken together this made the park one of my least favorite to visit despite its many beautiful areas. Everywhere I went it was overrun with people, and traffic jams were as bad as any traffic I ever had to deal with Boston.

That said, I did have a few special moments there, especially while hiking sections of the AT, and when I spent an hour watching a large herd of elk near the park’s eastern entrance.

My moment with the elk was especially amusing. While I was setting up to take some shots of a big bull elk (the male with the large antlers), I noticed he started to lick a nearby cow’s (a female elk) back. Before I knew it, things began to happen anatomically that were shocking. To widespread gasps, I heard a man in a hunting jacket near me whisper excitedly to his girl friend: “I’ve seen everything in nature, but not this. Come on buddy you can do it!” A moment later, a group of five white haired women came into view, seeing what was about to happen, they simultaneously shrieked “Oh my god!” right as the bull tried to mount the cow. I have pictures of that too, but they are… a bit graphic. Maybe in a future post…

Congaree National Park (South Carolina)

Only 35 square miles, Congaree is one of the smallest parks and is relative unknown. I loved it there. I found the park beautiful, peaceful, and inspiring. Paddling on the river through half submerge tupelo and bald cypress trees was a magical experience. Going on a series of long walks through the wilderness areas was equally rewarding.

One of the unique aspects of the park is that it protects a large forest (much of its within swampy areas) that as never been cut by human loggers. That is extremely rare in America, and especially the eastern half of America. As a consequence, the park is home to over a dozen “Champion Trees” (a designation given to the tallest in the world of a given species), as well as near champions in another dozen more.

National Memorial For Peace and Justice (Montgomery, Alabama)

Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative (made famous by his 2014 book Just Mercy, which was turned into a movie with Michael Jordan and Jamiee Foxx) created a museum and memorial in Montgomery Alabama to educate America’s about the history of slavery, racial terror, and mass incarceration in America. I’ve written about my experiences at this museum in a separate essay.

National Civil Rights Musuem (Memphis)

The wreath is placed in the exact spot Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. The museum, which is an arm of the Smithsonian, preserved both the exterior of the Loraine Motel, and also brings visitors through a series of exhibits on the history of the civil rights movement in the United States. I spent two days in the museum and still felt like I was just scratching the surface.

Hot Springs National Park

One of the more peculiar things about this park is that the public can come and take as much spring fed drinking water as they please. While I was there, I saw a number of town residents drive up to this spot and fill up HUGE jugs of water from this fountain. The man in this photo literally had an entire truck full of gallon jugs that he methodologically filled up one by one.

Little Rock High School National Historic Site

Still a functioning school, on weekends you can tour inside the historic school at the center of the 1957 desegregation effort in Arkansas.

The park service also has built a museum across the street that is open every day. While small, the exhibits in the museum were engaging, painting a vivid and complex picture of the events that happened on the spot not so very long ago. In learning more about the history it wasn’t hard to see how far we’ve come as a country since then, but also how entrenched some of the racial issues we are still dealing with today.

Gateway Arch National Park (St. Louis, MO)

The Gateway Arch is by far the smallest National Park in the US. In this, and in so many other ways, it is unlike any of the other parks. Moreover, it doesn’t even protect any sensitive ecosystems or sublime natural views. All the same, I loved visiting it. Maybe it’s the audacity of the thing, or the absurdity of it. But it’s a trip to stand beneath it and look up 630 feet to its center. The four minute elevator ride up to the top in a tiny capsule also filled me with both terror and delight. Until you are there, it’s hard to believe just how big, bizarre, and beautiful it truly is.