National Parks

Today is our last day in southern Florida. We are driving to the southern most part of the Everglades this morning. On our way, we stopped at the Pa-hay-okee Trail. It is a boardwalk through some wooded areas that open up into a broad grassland. The trail is short. There is a very nice covered […]

It was quite dark when we woke up this morning. We have a 6 am deadline for getting to the pier. Fortunately, we will get breakfast on the boat. We did not see much except water during the two and a half hour ride to Dry Tortugas. When we finally entered the national park, we

Biscayne Bay National Park is almost entirely in the ocean. So today we will be riding a boat and snorkeling. Before we could go out on the boat, we had to listen to a safety instruction talk. The guide joked that he was paid by how many people he took out, not how many he

Our tour of the Everglades began on the Gulf of Mexico side of Florida. We drove to the Smallwood Store. It is now a museum that shows what small town life was like in the Everglades. Our main purpose for going here was to get a boat tour of the Everglades. We were told we

We spent our day at New River Gorge hiking near the Grandview Visitor Center. We arrived at the Grand View to see early morning fog blanketing the valley. Since our hikes would return us here later, we decided to see the Grandview again in the afternoon. Our first hike took us on the Tunnel Trail.

Today we did a lot of hiking and a lot of driving between hikes. Our first hike was a three mile hike that took us to Long Point. In addition to being a long narrow point, Long Point also gives you long views in several directions. When we arrived, we saw about a dozen people

We began our second day at New River Gorge with a hike along the Endless Wall. If you wonder why it is called Endless wall, look at the pictures. In the first one you can see the wall. In the second one, you can see two parts of the wall. Further into the hike, the

Today we begin a four day visit to New River Gorge. It is the most recent addition to the National Parks. New River Gorge is a four hour drive from our home. On the way, we passed Pilot Mountain in North Carolina. We also got to drive through a tunnel. We stopped for lunch at

Acadia Mountain Trail was an interesting hike. It had a good balance of hiking in the woods, some rock scrambling, and great views from the mountain top to the lake side. The hike began with a rocky trail leading up a winding path to the top. Part way up the mountain, there was an opening

When we arrived at the bus stop today, we found a National Park entrance sign. This simple task is complex at some parks because they have multiple locations and no particular main entrance. Acadia National Park is a small park with lots of visitors so they provide free bus transportation to many parts of the