The Pursuit of 59 Parks

The goal of seeing all of America’s 59 National Parks is not a new one. Many people have seen them all, and some have done it in extremely short times. I decided this was a goal after a few events:

Growing up in Iowa, I didn’t think about the National Parks much. I had no idea how many there were, but I did know I wanted to see the Grand Canyon at some point in my life. (Who doesn’t?)

During a college design studies class, I learned about how the WPA established government-funded programs to support artists. From this project, the “See America” posters were born. These beautiful illustrative posters advertise the National Parks. I bought two of them to prominently hang in my house.

After college, my first “real” job was making graphics for news channels in Colorado. While most of the subjects weren’t especially interesting I did get to design the graphics for a program that showcased Colorado’s National Parks. I didn’t know there were 4 National Parks right here in the state I lived in...

About a year after that aired, I drove down to the Grand Canyon with a friend. We started in Denver, headed down to the Sand Dunes, visited the 4 corners, headed over to the Grand Canyon, then back up through Santa Fe and Taos. In hindsight, starting your several-day-road-trip with a stop that has A LOT of sand was not the best idea...

On that drive, I saw a sign that “Petrified Forest National Park” was not too far away. However, because we had already planned for where we were going and the amount of time it would take, it didn’t make sense to take a detour. Seeing that sign though, made me wonder what other National Parks were within driving distance, and how many there were total.

After the trip I looked it up. 59. 59 National Parks, and quite a few of them were only a long road trip’s distance away from where I lived.

Why not? There’s so much of the United States that I hadn’t seen yet, so why not “See America” when I can?

I’ll make a post for each park visited. At this point in time, I have been to 15/59.