A Quick View of My Favorite Parks

I realize that  I skipped a week ahead on my posts, with my PC  at the Geek Squad.  So here I am at my local library, quickly trying to make amends. .. I can’t seem to find a ‘reschedule’ option for my jump-ahead post. (If you Foxes of the Hound can do so, please help.)

I grew u p in the Washington D.C. Suburbs and we would go to the Chesapeake Bay  or the ocean and enjoyed the  parks there,, especailly when we lived in Mayland. I was small, but I do have striong memories. We went when I was older, as well, but more often than not, we went to the  Shenandoah Valley, Skyline Drive  and the Mannassas Battlefield for relaxation.

Of course, it was easy to visit Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, and Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s beautiful home and lands. He had an incredible view on  the water. Both parks have numerous gradens and support bulidingsm (kitchesn, forges, etc.).

There are many lesser-known treasures as well, such as Gunstan Hall, the home of George Mason. It has a great house and lovely grounds, outbuildings that include a school house and a lovely path trhough the woods that leads to their dock on the water.  Or  Woodlawn Plantation, the home of Martha Washington’s granddaughter.George built it for her as a dowery.It is very convenient, now , right on a major artery of the Virginia suburbs. We visited it often, in fact, we’d take our nieces there when they were little amd we’d stop to eat at a fast-food restaurant at the base of the property. Once, when one of my nieces was about four,she said to her sister, “This is a really old Gino’s; George Washington used to eat here.” No, he didn’t.

I moved to Idaho and I could see so far that I the Grand Tetons over the border  from my bedroom window. I spent little time there and didn’t travel much, but when I went to Colorado, it was another story.

We went to many, many national parks, traveled all over the state. There are too many stories to tell. We would get the kids in the car and go several times a month, even in the Winter, when there was a lull. The weather in Colorado is quite a roller-coaster.

One of our favorite places, easily accessable up the highway, straight up the montains from us was Mount Evans, which has the higest paved road in the world.

It tops out nearly as high as Pikes Peak, but it doesn’t have the  publicity. It has levels, with incredibly beautiful lakes, and the top has a view that is cold even when Denver hits over 100F.

We’d go every year on my birthday, June 20. Often  there would be some snow, sometimes quite a bit. Then we  would go on my husband’s birthday, on July 29th, a mere 39 days later…however, it would then be the middle of the Summer there.  Many types of low-to-the-ground alpine wildflowers would be in full bloom. Weasles would be frolicking and it was another world.The pass to it would close by Labor Day weekend…unless snows caused an earlier closing.

A shorter trip would take us to Lookout Mountain, a short jaunt up I-70.Buffalo Bill Cody is burried there; his lodge is a tourist shop.It has a nuseaum of barbed wire…you read that right. You would not beieve the incredible ideas and configurations that have been used  making twisted wire! In the Summer, there are so many hummingbirds, they hover like butterflies.

There are so many stories that I could tell, but I will quickly add that if you ever have a chance to visit Arizona, please allow yourself some time and a vehicle. I never saw Old Tucson, which I would have enjoyed because of all the many Westerns I have watched, but I saw so much else.

From cliff-dwellings to sacred wells, (deep into canyons, where you walk down hewn-rock steps), the Indian ruons are numerous, interesting and many have museums. Teh natural beauty of the place is varied and so worth seeing.I was in 97F in Scottsdale one day in February and there was snow on the  ground the next day in Flagstaff.

I’ve about used up my time on the library computer, so I will bid you goodbye until I get my PC back, hopefully, this weekend.Thanks for bearing with me.

Have  you visited any of the national parks I mentioned?

 

 

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