The Peace Garden straddles the international boundary between North Dakota, US and Manitoba, Canada, with the entrance located in between the customs/border patrol stations of each country. That means that you can visit without officially “entering” into a new country.

I needed to visit as part of my Affiliated Areas of the NPS quest, and my buddy from back in my days on twitter, Todd Scott, could make the drive down to meet up in person for the first time. I’m a big proponent of turning online relationships into offline friendships (hey, you can even add yourself to my database of people to meet up with during my travels).

Todd is an eclectic guy. For a number of years, he was a duct tape artist for Duck brand duct tape. No, I’m serious. Here’s an article in The Washington Post about one of his creations. These days, he’s a CPR/First Aid/AED¹ instructor, who at the time was filming short CPR videos².

We thought it’d be fun to have a handshake across the international boundary. You know, for the sake of international relations and all.

Knowing that I was a big craft beer fan—and as a super nice Canadian—he also came prepared with some gifts. A nondrinker, he polled his friends on what the absolute worst Canadian beers were…and then picked up several of them for us. Uhhh, thanks Todd (well played my friend). He also brought a couple decent ones, and some Canadian snacks he thought we should try.

Funny enough, there prior day we had been at our favorite brewery in the country, Drekker Brewing in Fargo. And we had STOCKED UP. Awkwardly, Todd’s gift now put us over the limit of what you can bring back into the United States without paying an (expensive) import tax. Gah! We’d have to kill a few of these before heading back, and hope that we weren’t asked about anything in the car.

We enjoyed a few hours wandering around the garden, having lunch, and visiting with Todd. It’s not the most interesting destination, but I really like the premise. Besides the gardens, there are some more natural areas; camping, cabins, and a lodge; an interpretative center (sorry, “centre”); auditorium, and a bunch of other stuff, too. We primarily stuck to the gardens area.

A few shots:

Here’s a final shot of Jen and I with the worst beer Todd had gifted us, a few days later at the end of the trip. Perhaps amongst the very, very worst I’ve ever had (I didn’t drink beer until my thirties, so I jumped right to craft beer). Again, well played, Todd.

1. Here’s a TED Talk he did entitled: An intergalactic guide to using a defibrillator ︎
2. We filmed one of them at the Peace Garden, near where we shook hands. The “plot” was that we were both doing CPR in our respective countries, but I wasn’t using proper technique and bending my arms, so I got tired too soon and keeled over. He dragged me across the border to ensure that I had access to free health care. ︎

The post Visiting the International Peace Garden on the US-Canada border appeared first on rscottjones.

I’m believed to be the first person to do such a thing. But I did it for myself, not some fleeting celebrity, or as a hook for a career in “ content creation ”.

I didn’t make a big deal around it, beyond posting to my own network of friends on social media. But word got around, and I started to get calls and messages from various outlets, from network morning shows to travel magazine writers. I wasn’t looking for celebrity, and I didn’t trust the outlets to not make this about me (as opposed to my message that nearly anyone could do it, if they wanted to). So I decided to only grant interviews to people I had existing relationships with—something I would have done whether or won’t I had completed the quest.

Anyway, it’s been five years. I’m still proud of the effort and focus it took to complete the quest. But hey, I’m focused on a bunch of new quests these days. Not because they’ll earn me some minor celebrity, but because I love the new experiences they help inspire me to have.

Here are some photos from my last objective, Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Montana. I had intentionally saved it for the last one, but couldn’t quite pull off the rafting trip that I had hoped (and will definitely do in the coming years). So I did a “travel camping” trip and flew up there for a few days. I got a cheap flight on a regional airline, brought only a few select items in a daypack that counted as my “personal item,” and then bought some supplies and a cheap $15 sleeping bag at Walmart, sleeping in my rental SUV for a few nights. I celebrated at a local brewery before flying home.

The post Five years after completing my Treasured Places quest appeared first on rscottjones.

Well, some argument had obviously broken out between the guy and one of the women; I had apparently missed the original cause. But they kept making loud, lightly-veiled snide remarks about each other “to themselves.”

The guy was facing away from the table, but would say something like “man, I smell something nasty, seems like it’s coming from the other side of the room.” And the woman would continue talking to her friend, then occasionally ramp up the volume for the last few words of her sentence: “that bitch ass child, he know who he is.” And so forth.

I usually enjoy interacting with locals while traveling—it’s why I often eat at the bar instead of a table—but decided to mind my own business in this case. The bartender seemed to be avoiding the conflict as best she could, too.

Things continue for a while, and now they’ve both turned to face each other more easily, so the insults are coming much faster and the situation is heating up. The bartender leaves to go to the back, presumably to find some muscle to help deal with these now unruly customers. She’s gone for quite some time, which I found frustrating, as I just wanted to pay my bill and move on quickly. No need to get wrapped up in this and have to spend my vacation time giving police statements and such. I glance towards the backroom every 10 seconds, waiting for staff to remerge, then swivel to see what’s happening with the troublemakers. I stop eating because I don’t want to be here anymore (also, the wings were “meh.”)

The bartender finally returns, but there’s no one else to help. She apparently just went to get cleaning supplies or something. She tells the two to either quiet down or leave, but it seems clear she does not want to intervene beyond this. In support, I lodge a couple of my own loud complaints to the two, but they just blame each other and continue to escalate things.

I request my check and quietly ask her if she’s going to do something about it. She says something like “well, I told them to quiet down” and “I do not want to call the police.” She walked away before I could inquire why she refused to; it seemed like the obvious course of action, as this was trending towards a physical altercation.

So now I’m left wondering if I should leave right now since the restaurant isn’t going to head this off, or if I have a duty to stay and make sure the bartender stays safe, and likely cause myself unnecessary problems. By this point, the woman’s friend has seen the writing on the wall and quickly gets her purse and bolts, saying she’ll pay her back for the meal while she races towards the door. Not exactly a great sign; she was probably the only person who could calm the woman down.

The yelling intensifies. The woman has now stood up at her table, furiously gesticulating with her hands. And they are now arguing about something specific that had happened somewhere elsewhere. It’s a bit hard to follow what the issue was—they’re both mostly yelling over each other—but it sounds like this conflict started elsewhere, but in the recent past. I get the impression that they just accidentally found themselves in the same empty bar not long after this other unresolved conflict, and well, here we are.

While both are now standing a few yards from each other, angrily yelling at each other, I’m more worried about the woman attacking the guy. She seems far more violent and irate, and has been openly threatening him. The bartender has retreated to the back, again.

I’m now mentally considering what to do when violence breaks out. There’s still a table in between them, and I think I can push that chair over to block one path around it, and still have time to maybe do the same with an adjoining table to block the other? But what happens then? I’m the smallest of the three of us, but maybe I should just tackle one of them? Go low, wrap up the knees? Should I just call the cops right now? What does the bartender know about this that I don’t? Shit man, I just came here to say I had buffalo wings from the place that popularized them. This was not the experience I was looking for. I’ve got tourist stuff to be doing.

While I’m formulating and reformulating plans in my head, something happens. The woman mentions the name of someone during the argument, and the other guy dismisses it and calls it bullshit. They start arguing about whomever that person is, and…

…and…

…and…

I have no fucking idea how, but they simply SUDDENLY REALIZE that, well…

…that…

…they…

…are…

COUSINS.

Actual, blood relatives. First cousins. They start naming off their various family members to confirm.

Wait, wut. WTF just happened?

Big smiles immediately replace gnashed teeth and clenched fists. They finally take those three steps closer to each other and—in the most surprising twist I’ve ever experienced in person—they hug. They fucking hug!! And keep hugging, now slowly rotating back and forth like you might with your cherished spouse.

Now they’re asking about which picnics and family get-togethers each had attended, to see if they had both been there together. Oh, what about so-and-so’s wedding? And graduation last year? How’s your sister doing, I always liked her. Stuff like that.

It is just remarkable. The anger had vanished in an instant.

But I couldn’t help but forcibly and loudly interject: “YOU TWO ARE COUSINS?! ALL THAT AND YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE FUCKING COUSINS??? WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS!”

They start laughing, and while I continue my exasperated diatribe, they’re apparently just now realizing how crazy the whole thing was. They’re deeply laughing now, doubled over with an arm wrapped over each other’s shoulder. The woman is snorting and struggling to breathe.

Still dumbfounded, I wasn’t sure what to do. So I just…left. I went and sat quietly in my rental car in the parking lot for quite some time. I posted a short snapchat about what had happened. I wondered if I should go back in there and record a proper video, interview style with both of them, to mark this crazy occasion.

But…things had changed on a dime, so perhaps I don’t give them a chance to revert back just as quickly. So instead I drove off, en route to the site of President McKinley’s assassination, and then on to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

I remained flabbergasted by the whole thing for the remainder of the day, even telling an abbreviated version of the story to the hotel desk clerk when I checked in that night. And I’m still flabbergasted while typing this, eight years later.

Webnotes

Lou’s post on Linkage finally prompted me to get around to posting this story.

The post Flabbergasted at Anchor Bar appeared first on rscottjones.

But we had a blast on the whole roadtrip and decided that we should, eventually, visit each of the losing entries, too. One of those entries was some place (or was it a thing?) called “Cabinetlandia” in southwestern New Mexico. Later that year, I found myself passing through the area, remembered the entry, and decided to stop by and check it out.

Atlas Obscura offers some quick background

THERE’S AN ODD “LIBRARY” PLOPPED in the desert of New Mexico. Inspired by American artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s site-specific work from 1973 “Fake Estates,” it was meant to poke fun at those businesses and individuals who were at the time buying up acres of land on Mars for their own utopian desert plots.

The strange sight is the work of Cabinet, a New York-based magazine of art and culture that was founded in 2000. In 2003, the nonprofit announced it had acquired of a plot of land in Luna County. The magazine dubbed the turf, over 2,000 miles from its offices in Brooklyn, “Cabinetlandia.”

The library was added in 2004. Essentially, it’s a file cabinet cemented into a concrete arch on the rectangular bit of land. According to its creator, Matthew Passmore, the idea was to “make it look like the cabinet grew naturally out of the landscape; as if, in Cabinetlandia, cabinets are naturally occurring elements of the ecosystem.”

So that description, along with its GPS coordinates, was all I knew about this place upon arrival. I hadn’t really had time to adequately research any of this and didn’t know what to expect when I arrived here, as I just happened to recall the entry during a stop to gas up in nearby Deming, while en route from Phoenix to Las Cruces.

The very first order of business was to pee—finally—which I had wanted to do at the gas station but the restrooms were closed for cleaning. So I parked and wandered a bit out of the “site” to do so, discovering a very unexpected (and conveniently located!) biodegradable toilet in the last place I’d expect one. After that was done, I grabbed my phone and headphones, and investigated the site live on camera.

Here’s what I found:

But wait…there’s a lot more to this story.

And I only learned about it when I started to type this post, five years after my visit.

After that visit, I did a quick google search hoping to find out a bit more, preferably from the official source: Cabinet Magazine. Instead, my results were littered with various travel blogs and such, who had apparently out-SEO’d the magazine company on its own project. And not too surprisingly, the results I clicked on just seemed to regurgitate the same info from Atlas Obscura. Perhaps that’s about all there was to the story? I didn’t investigate further.

When I started writing this post, I did another quick google search to help remind me of some of the details. And this time, I found the project page on Cabinet. And boy oh boy, I fell down the Cabinetlandia rabbit hole.

Man, what a fun project! I love how this all came together and I will definitely be back to investigate a bit further (I’ll make sure to provide an update here, preferably within five years this time).

A short history of how this came to be

Essentially, Cabinet Magazine had an idea for their “Property” issue in 2003, which results in the purchase of Cabinetlandia in the New Mexico desert (for $325 on eBay), a lease request in Brooklyn, and another purchase on…wait for it…Mars (a steal at only $34!).

The announcement of the project, which is a fun read (and includes a reference to being “un-Donald Trumpable”), elicits two proposals from readers.

One proposal is to allow readers to get in on the land grab action. So Cabinet obliges and offers to license 6700 little sections of it—each literally the physical size of a Cabinet magazine (200mm by 250mm)—to any reader for use through December 31, 2099 at the smoking hot deal of one penny¹. Here are the permitted activities, according to the contract:

The Licensee will be permitted to make the following uses of the Property: a) stand upon it on both legs, b) stand upon it on one leg, c) conduct outdated science experiments, d) have sexually innocent fantasies involving cellotape and marshmallows e) think of the color ultramarine, f) write letters to the President of the United States, g) dream of animals that can only be painted with a thin brush, h) erect signs as long as none of the words used contains a “w,” and i) carry out site-unspecific art projects, so long as all applicable laws and regulations are followed.

The other proposal is from a reader who offers to establish a “Cabinet National Library” on the land. Cabinet publishes his proposal, along with his site plan, in a subsequent update on the project (which also includes a fun origin story for the original parcel partitions: a 1960s-era land scam aimed at Northerners). Well, guess what, the guy actually goes out and builds the damn thing! That is what the file cabinet is: a reader-inspired project.

Of course, Mother Nature soon intervenes, dealing a devastating blow to the young country of Cabinetlandia. That prompted a subsequent invasion in October 2006 by the Land Arts of the American West, some sort of field study program for college students, who saw an opportunity to strike while the country was still in tatters. After successfully repelling the invasion with the (likely, but also unlikely) help of Mother Nature, Cabinetlandia’s National Library was later heroically rebuilt and still stands in a defiant state of only-partial disrepair—or, at least it did when I visited in 2019.

Man, I just love shit like this. If you want to fall down the same rabbit hole I did, see the links below:

The Official History of Cabinetlandia

• The Initial Land Acquisition Project Proposal (Spring 2003)
• New Mexico Land Grab: The Partitioning and Sale of “Readerland” (Spring 2003)
• Update No. 1 – Notes from Luna County (Fall/Winter 2003)
• Update No. 2 – Building the Cabinet National Library (Winter 2004-05)
• Update No. 3 – The fall of a DIY empire (Winter 2005-06)
• Update No. 4 – Rebuilding the Cabinet National Library (Fall 2009)

There was also a call for Time Capsule for two rather specific items to be interned in the Cabinetlandia graveyard in 2004 and retrieved a decade later, but I didn’t see any sort of follow up.

1. As soon as I discovered this, I immediately printed out the contract and filled it out to participate. Unfortunately, the offer (of course) expired long ago—but shit, I’m still sending in the damn penny anyway. ︎

The post A visit to Cabinetlandia appeared first on rscottjones.

The interstate climbs uphill for a dozen miles, generating a steady stream of sedans, pickups and SUVs jockeying for position in the passing lone, intent on overtaking the slower-moving traffic.

Frustrated drivers are racing to get to the top of the plateau where the congestion will even out and they’ll finally regain the speed limit. Their passengers, meanwhile, are hoping for a stop at the upcoming rest area after a nervewracking ride.

As a child in the backseat, I was interested in neither. Each time we finally crested the mesa top, I’d immediately look east, across the grassy plateau to a small, unassuming knoll. A watchful eye would notice that the knoll, listed on maps as Joe’s Hill, was actually on an adjacent mesa, with the top edge of a gorge that divided the two occasionally peeking into view as our minivan sped past. To my eyes, that sliver of cliff face was visual confirmation that there was something interesting over there.

Unfortunately, it would take nearly two decades for me to finally peer into the river gorge and explore what was on the other side. By that time, those mesas and canyons had been protected as Agua Fria National Monument.

Ask anyone in Phoenix where the Sunset Point Rest Area is and they’ll answer without hesitation. But ask them where Agua Fria National Monument is and you’ll receive many confused looks. In spite of being located conveniently along one of the most popular roadways in Arizona and directly across the interstate from the state’s best known rest stop, relatively few people know much about the national monument.

Amid the grassland mesas and the river canyon I saw as a child lies the remains of a fascinating prehistoric people known today as the Perry Mesa Tradition. There are hundreds upon hundreds of pueblo ruins, rock art panels, and other archaeological resources to be found here. But you need to be willing to investigate the area in order to see any of them. I’ve brought a dozen friends with me to Agua Fria over the years and each one is immediately stunned. “I never knew this was here,” is a confession repeated by most first-time visitors.

Agua Fria National Monument was designated in 2000 by President Clinton, who called it “one of the most significant systems of later prehistoric sites in the American Southwest.” Managed as part of the Bureau of Land Management’s National Conservation Lands, these national monuments differ from those managed by the National Park Service. While the national parks are known for their interpretative visitor centers, ranger talks, and famous lodges, these new national monuments feature none of those.

Agua Fria National Monument has no official visitor center, no paved roads, and just two short trails. What it might lack in visitor amenities, however, it more than makes up for by offering an unusually unconfined adventure. Here, the experience really is what you, the visitor, make of it. There are no roped off areas, no manicured trails, no entrance fees and—thank goodness—no crowds, either. You’ll need some curiosity and imagination to enjoy your time here, as you won’t find any interpretative walks or detailed trail guides, either. While it may not seem particularly visitor-friendly at first blush, this model often provides a far more personal and meaningful experience.

It’s probably not a surprise that my first foray into the backcountry of Agua Fria led me towards the place I’d always examined from afar. A bumpy truck ride and a short offtrail hike later, I found myself at the edge of the river canyon. In front of me lay the ruins of an ancient settlement, nearly 300 rooms in total, perched at the edge of a deep side canyon emptying into the main gorge. On the other side of the gorge was Black Mesa, the plateau bisected by the busy interstate.

I bent down to inspect some painted pottery sherds, which littered the ground all around the structure. Unlike many famous ruins, these have not been partially reconstructed. You find them as they are: worn down, overgrown with vegetation and deserted for centuries. Piles of partially toppled walls provide a mere hint of the ruin’s former glory.

I spent some time reconstructing them in my mind before scrambling down the edge of the cliff a bit to inspect a rock face filled with ancient art. I studied the images, pondering the interplay between the various depictions. As I turned to scout further down, I couldn’t help but look back across the canyon towards the semis and sedans barreling down the highway just two short miles away. Was anyone staring back, probing the horizon for future places to explore as l once had?

I think that’s why I treasure this place so much. Every time I visit, I can relive that childhood sense of wonder at what might lie over there—whether “over there” refers to a cluster of ruins at the canyon’s edge, or just a mundane pile of rocks in the distance. Like most of the National Conservation Lands, Agua Fria National Monument is a place that’s meant to be explored and investigated, not a place to blandly stroll from interpretative marker to interpretative marker. The excitement of discovering something on your own, whether a solitary petroglyph or an unexpected ruin, creates a visceral and intimate memory that’s hard to replicate in more developed parks. Once you spend some time enthusiastically inventorying the land, inspecting that rock face or traipsing down the hillside just to see if there’s anything there, you’ll understand why I cherish a national monument like Agua Fria so much. As I approach 40 years old, it’s where I go to explore like a kid again.

The post Where I Go To Explore Like a Kid Again: Agua Fria National Monument appeared first on rscottjones.

To the uninitiated, Sonoran Desert National Monument stands primarily as an unfamiliar blob of color on the state map, sandwiched between two Indian reservations, a bombing range, and a generally blank space on the map. Cleaved into thirds by both an interstate and a state highway, and situated near the sprawling edge of the nation’s fifth largest city, a would-be visitor might imagine this to be a busy urban playground. A place to arrive early in order to find an open parking spot.

Instead, it’s nearly half a million acres of classic Sonoran Desert habitat: forests of iconic saguaro, veins of usually dry washes punctuated by mesquite, ironwood and palo verde trees, and basalt-strewn slopes that lead up to craggy high points, sometimes separated from one another by a flat valley occupied by a creosote army.

A place without a visitor center, only a handful of signed access points, and few obvious tourist destinations. A place large enough to contain within it three separate designated Wilderness Areas. A place where it’s not hard to find some solitude, especially when you get out on foot and follow your own path.

While I’ve traveled to many of our nation’s most cherished places—from Acadia to the Everglades, Yosemite to Denali—I feel most at home in the diverse Sonoran Desert, a land of specialized plants and animals each remarkably adapted to thrive in an arid climate. One of the best places I’ve found to explore this special ecosystem is Sonoran Desert National Monument.

This is classic wandering territory. It’s cresting a rocky ridge line to see the desert unfold in front of you towards the morning sun. It’s finding a small tinaja during an otherwise dry month. It’s passing the remains of a prehistoric toolmaking site, not far from a historic trail through the low mountain pass. It’s unintentionally startling a coyote who was eyeing lunch. It’s spinning in a circle and not seeing a single building. It’s stillness and quiet as you turn to face a cool breeze.

There are no crowded parking lots here, but a few rough dirt roads penetrate inwards from nearly every edge, allowing deeper explorations into this unique national monument. But do not enter if you’re unprepared. There are hazards and dangers here, along with occasional natural resource damage, and of course, harsh elements that can ruin more than just your day.

While you can see a lot of this place through a truck window, you can’t experience its soul without getting your feet dusty. One thing I love about the desert is that it requires you to look down, often, to place your next step. This has always helped ground me more closely to the land. I notice more: the path a lizard made in the soft soil, a wildflower searching for sunlight from under the edge of a bush, an occasional pot sherd, a rusty pop top from a previous era, a glistening rock trying hard to be noticed in the late morning sun, a small piece of cholla looking for its next free ride.

I wasn’t there when the Butterfield Overland Stage passed through, nor when Juan Bautista de Anza or the Mormon Battalion did. And certainly not when the descendants of today’s indigenous tribes did. But I’ve walked these same paths too, stopping often to smell the creosote, survey a hillside crowded with saguaros, listen to the desert birds make themselves known, trudge through sandy washes, and inspect a peculiar variety of cactus I hadn’t noticed before—just as all those before me might have. Walking here feels like my own personal connection to the past.

Perhaps the biggest threat to this national monument is that it’s too often overlooked, by visitors and advocates alike. In a state blessed with iconic parks and uber-famous public lands, it’s sometimes easy to disregard the places you don’t see in every traveler’s social media feed.

For many though, places like this offer the real magic of our treasured public lands. Because it’s in these places—large, protected, mostly undeveloped landscapes like Sonoran Desert National Monument, where you can explore largely on your own terms—that you discover truly intimate and unforgettable experiences. There are important personal treasures to be found here, and it’s our collective responsibility to ensure future generations have the same opportunity to find them, too.

The post A short ode to Sonoran Desert National Monument appeared first on rscottjones.

Four out of five

When most people think of Phoenix, they think of endless suburban sprawl. And, certainly, that’s part of the story. But here’s something that many are surprised to learn:

Four of the five largest city parks are located in metro Phoenix.

As in, municipal parks that are located entirely within city boundaries and are managed by city parks department staff¹.

But that’s not all…

The Phoenix metro area is also encircled by the nation’s largest county park system², which includes 12 regional county parks comprising about 120,000 acres. The 315-mile Maricopa Trail (and its sister 120-mile Sun Circle Trail) also encircles the metro area by connecting many of these county parks.

And of course, metro Phoenix also borders the famed Tonto National Forest (the ninth largest in the country at over 2.9 million acres), the nearly 500,000-acre Sonoran Desert National Monument, and several million acres of BLM public lands.

You may only think sprawl when you think of Phoenix, but you should probably also think parks, public lands, and preserves, too.

Sprawling cities = sprawling parks and preserves?

As you can see, the Phoenix and Houston areas absolutely dominate the listings.

That’s interesting, as those two cities (along with Los Angeles) are probably the poster children for “urban sprawl” in the US. But the ability to expand outward also provides an interesting opportunity to protect undeveloped land in a way that more dense and established cities like New York, Boston, or even Chicago, would struggle to do.

At the same time, Phoenix was a bit of an outlier. It purchased South Mountain Park from the federal government way back in 1924, just a dozen years after statehood and while the city was still quite small—about 5.1 square miles with a population of 38,500, though growing as fast as ever. Even with the property still 7.5 miles away from city limits, city leaders feared that this was their only opportunity to preserve the best nearby recreational areas. They ended up purchasing an area about 5 times larger than the city itself.

Houston’s largest parks, on the other hand, are derived from lands enclosed by federal reservoirs, presumably for flood control and drainage, as the city is located in bayou country. I don’t know the specific history at play, but surmise that its large parks were created because the reservoir land would otherwise be “unused” for commercial purposes; whereas in Phoenix’s case, it was a very concerted effort to proactively protect prime locations from development.

Note: while I’ve done my best to be accurate in this post (I’ve even contacted several cities above for accurate numbers, though I never seem to get a reply), it’s surprisingly difficult to find simple, accurate answers. Part of that is because land acquisitions continue (yay!), and older information isn’t always updated. But my main purpose in this post is pointing out how many large parks and preserves metro Phoenix has, so even if a few numbers have changed, you still get the picture. If you find an error, please send it to me so I can update this!

Last updated: May 23, 2024

1. Wikipedia unfortunately redirects a search for largest city parks to an incomplete and misleading entry of the largest “urban” parks, which conflates city, state, and federal ownership and management. Sadly—but not unexpectedly—many other publications have assumed this entry was accurate enough to repackage it as crap content with the same obvious errors, such as calling Chugash State Park as the largest city park, which by it’s own name makes no sense. At some point, I’ll spend the time to create a more accurate largest city parks page on wikipedia, but I’m starting with this post here. ︎
2. The East Bay Regional Park System in California is larger, but is spread across more than one county, which I wanted to mention only because several websites mislabel it as a county park system. ︎
3. Please note that these dates are a bit fuzzy, as it depends on exactly what you consider an establishment date. Is that the day that, say, voters approve a bond to make the purchase, or the date the land transfer is completed, or the date that it is officially “opened” to the public as a park even if it was lease rather than ownership, and so forth. The histories I perused were long and detailed and required substantial parsing, so I went with a reasonable date mentioned. I don’t have full confidence in each year being consistently applied between entries, but wanted to post the dates anyway to provide a general view of how old or recent each park was. ︎
4. Unlike the other parks listed here, Cullen Park is not owned by the city, but is leased from US Army Corps of Engineers, so you could make an argument that it shouldn’t be listed here. ︎
5. The park is located within the Barker Reservoir, which was completed in 1945, but it’s unclear when a “park” opened there, but it was known as Cullen–Barker Park. The park was renamed George Bush Park in 1997. ︎
6. I also see vague references to “over 8000 acres” but haven’t tracked down any solid numbers; notably, this park acreage also seems to include non-contiguous parcels, so I’m not sure what the total “intact” acreage is. ︎
7. These lands were originally transferred to Maricopa County, and leased by the City of Phoenix, which purchased them later in the 1970s. ︎
8. I also did not include two additional municipal holdings: Lake Stanley Draper (6,190 acres) in Oklahoma City, and Shooting Range Park (4596 acres) in Albuquerque.
   
   Lake Stanley Draper is a municipal reservoir managed by the Oklahoma City Water Trust Authority—aka, not the parks department—but offers recreational activities, primarily boating and fishing (stocked). This one is a bit tricky, but I don’t think that quite qualifies as a municipal park, as its primary use is storing water for the city. While it definitely also offers recreational activities (mostly boating and fishing), it’s not managed by the parks department and recreation seems to be an ancillary purpose.
   
   While Shooting Range Park seems to technically include a large acreage, the facility map seems to indicate that only the shooting facility (naturally) is publicly accessible. So the vast majority of the acreage is either the “range” or off-limits to recreation. ︎

The post The Largest City Parks in the United States appeared first on rscottjones.

Here’s the story of my epic quest to visit all 419 National Park units.

• how this huge endeavor actually unfolded
• the twists and turns of the journey—and why I nearly abandoned it halfway thru
• the surprising lesson I learned at the end

Get comfortable, because this is going to be a long-ass thread. But it’s required for the story of how this all progressed from its inception to the finish line.

When you’re done reading, you’ll have a better insight into what a big quest like this really looks like.

The idea for a parks quest probably got started in 1998 after a backpacking trip to Sequoia/Kings Canyon.

My girlfriend Kim and I were in college at the time, so a national park camping trip was really the only vacation we could afford. We already enjoyed hiking & camping…

…so visiting a famous national park—or many of them—seemed like a great idea.

After a Yosemite trip in 1999, we sorta adopted the quest, limiting it to the “named” National Parks (was it 54?) at the time.

By then, I had been to 16 park units, nearly all of which were in AZ.

The Yosemite trip was our anniversary gift to each other. We wanted a trip but couldn’t afford both that + gifts.

This started a sacred annual tradition—national park trips for our anniversary—that continued thru out our relationship, and became an important aspect of the quest.

We did a cheap road trip in 2001 to Petrified Forest and added on some nearby park units—El Morro & El Malpais—in large part because we could camp there.

It was the first trip I took to national park units I hadn’t heard of before. It’d end up being the first of many such trips.

My initial progress was pretty slow, and by 2003, my total stood at only 43. But I had already visited some notable parks, like Yosemite, Zion, Bryce, Rainier, Olympic, Death Valley & J-Tree, along with other park units in adjacent states.

They were all cheap camping road trips.

It was sometime around this period that the quest goal changed.

Originally, it was all the named National Parks. Then I added National Monuments. A little while later, it became ALL the NPS units, except for NRAs—which I considered “just damned rivers” (sic).

2004 was my first big parks year, hitting 16 units. It was punctuated by an anniversary road trip to Yellowstone (where I proposed to Kim), which got us 14 units alone.

We also did an Arches trip with friends that fall, and hit White Sands in conjunction with an ASU bowl game.

I hit another dozen or so units in 2005, mostly because I added on some vacation time to a work trip I took to DC.

If you visit DC and don’t come away with far more park unit visits than seems possible, you’re doing something wrong—the city is simply littered with them!

2006 was another solid year of park questing, though this time, I didn’t get ANY new DC units.

But we organized trips up the CA/OR coast and one following several NPS Historic Trails that marked off a lot. By this point, every family visit included a park visit along the way.

By the end of 2006, we were at 84, which seemed damn impressive to us. All of our out-of-state trips were national park trips. We didn’t have any specific completion goals, but just kept trying to see more and more parks. We figured we’d finish at some point in retirement, maybe.

2007 featured 2 big parks trips. First was Kim’s 30th bday, which was a surprise trip to DC. We did all the things. More importantly we did a 10-year anniversary road trip, which is among my best trips ever. It was 8700 miles & 36 parks!

Our final tally: a whopping 45(!!) parks.

We got married in Yosemite, but our honeymoon plans in Canadian Rockies got crunked last minute. So instead we drove east to hit parks in AR, MS, AL, GA, SC, NC, KY, MO—planning as we went. Here’s the 1st digital map of my progress, updated after the 2008 “post-wedding roadtrip.”

Prior to this, we had just kept a text list of completed parks. We didn’t even list the ones we still needed; that was too long of a list. But after marking off 45 parks in 2007 and another 45 in 2008…well, things had shifted. We were—somehow—nearing halfway done. Holy shit!

Our map was looking impressive.

And now, we started circling possible trips in the blank spots of the map.

And started considering trips without a big “anchor” park—the must-see park unit that we centered our excitement around.

And strategized about how to “finish” regions.

Funny side note: because I had specifically NOT included NRAs in my quest (damned river), we drove to—but skipped—Bighorn Canyon in WY/MT, orphaning the unit.

I’d later very much regret that, as it took a “cannonball run” road trip from PHX a decade later to finally mark it off.

The quest became an increasingly important & central thing to us around this time. We were already known as the couple who had this big goal to visit all the parks, and it was how people introduced us to new people.

Sharing this quest was an important part of our relationship.

And then, the unimaginable happened: we split up the next year.

It nearly ended my national parks quest.

I mean, how could I continue on by myself? It seemed unthinkable. No way. It would never be the same. Game over.

I started dating someone the next year, and we took a road trip to some national parks—not for my quest, but because we wanted to hike there together. To the chagrin of both her and my ex-wife, I weaseled in some new park units.

Hmm. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it either.

The next year, I decided to reclaim the quest as solely my own. I scheduled my first significant solo national parks trip, flying into Charleston and working my way down to Florida. I was apprehensive about whether it’d ever really be *mine* or not.

But the trip was a blast.

So it WAS mine!

The next few yrs were a mix of solo national park trips and ones I’d take with a girlfriend. In 2012, I flew into KC for a family reunion in CO so I could drive across KS for parks, and later tackled MI/MN/WI with a gf. In 2013, I did the VA/SC/NC + OH parks solo

On that Ohio trip, I arrived before First Ladies NHS opened, and decided to count up all the park units I had visited thus far.

I decided to hold up a sign indicating which park number I was on—a tradition I’d continue at each subsequent park.

Wish I’d started prior to 268!

At this point, my parks quest was something I was going to actually complete! I wasn’t sure when that would be, but finishing was no longer a distant “maybe.”

But, I got heavily involved in a local backpacking group—and suddenly all my time off went towards that, not new parks.

That was an amazing time for me, and I wouldn’t trade those trips or friends for anything. I was also in midst of a big stressful transition in my career that required me to radically cut expenses & forgo a salary for 9 mos.

Which meant an incredible drought for my parks quest.

TWO parks?!! That’s it? Just two? Two new parks in two full years?! WTF…

And the start of 2016 wasn’t looking any better.

In March I decided to take a bad-for-the-checkbook trip to the Deep South so I could visit at least SOME parks that year. Broke, I slept in my rental car.

Jen and I had been dating for three months now. She posed a question to me: would I go on a surprise trip, where I didn’t know the destination? I said sure.

This is a GREAT story, but I’ll skip retelling it here. But we ended up in Puerto Rico & USVI, marking off more parks.

And then, we got word that Jen would have a month-long work detail in DC. We hadn’t been dating long, so she offered to come back to visit me. But I had a better idea: why don’t I go with you instead?

We scheduled a weekend in Boston to do some parks before her detail started…

…with the idea that I’d join her in DC and start looking for a (much needed) new job while there, taking advantage of the free hotel room. When I needed to interview, I’d simply call the trip done and fly home. And we’d do some fun East coast city stuff on weekends until then.

Well, I applied for a job or two—and waited perhaps a day—before bailing to rent a car and do a few days away hitting some parks in western PA

I quickly landed an intriguing consulting job (no interview needed) that week, but told them I needed some time before I started.

So, for her entire work detail, I spent the weekends hitting parks with her in Boston, NYC, & Philly—and spending the weekdays camping in a rental car, voraciously visiting parks on my own.

I was planning each day as I went, and started calling it #MyNationalParksMonth.

I did stay in town on her bday week, meeting her at a new brewery after each workday and enjoying the weekend together in Shenandoah & Harpers Ferry.

But for a trip that was originally supposed to be about not being apart too long, that was all we saw of each other. Whoopsie!

We joke about that now, but Jen was tremendously supportive throughout this epic trip.

As someone with her own big quest, she also understood this unique moment: how often would the stars in my life align like this again?

The opportunity was just too good to pass up. Carpe diem!

Her detail was ending, but…I decided I wasn’t done yet. She flew home, and I postponed that new gig even longer so I could stay 3 more weeks to finish all the Eastern parks

It was a terrible financial decision, but a great life decision! A bold move, but one I’m grateful for.

On the flight home, I added up all the new parks. I was at 94 for the year—a year I had originally worried might be zero.

And it was the 100th anniversary of the NPS. I needed to visit only a handful of more parks to have visited 100 parks in 100 days to celebrate 100 years!

And so I made return visits that week to the AZ parks that had helped inspire my quest, completing #100parksin100days!

I was on the home stretch. Sure, I had some REALLY expensive and difficult parks left—but I was now marking the *few* areas of the map I still needed.

Wow!

It was at this point that Jen—who had insisted that she would NOT adopt the quest—decided to count up her own visits. She was at 101.

Ok, well, maaaybe she should at least start keeping track…

Ok, fine, she wants in! But her first quest goal was just reaching 200 total parks.

Part of the reason she adopted it was because we already had a number of other trips planned that year, which often included park units she hadn’t been to that I wanted her to see.

“Oh, you haven’t been to Arches? Well, let’s go there on that long weekend we’ll have in October.”

So she upped the anty: her goal was now >200 parks, incl everything west of the Mississippi.

We also started sketching out trips to the harder parks: Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Alaska. And took trips back to completed areas where a new park unit had just been designated.

With me nearing the finish line, it was clear that she was going to tag along to the most difficult parks to visit. And many other parks would naturally be on our itinerary for other trips.

So, like myself, she eventually expanded the quest to include all of the park units.

A little bit surprisingly, most of our travel now shifted to visiting parks for HER. Sure, we did a trip to Guam, one to WA, and another to FL so I could #Finishthe48.

But for every new park I visited, she marked off at least FOUR. Jen was—very quickly—a highly motivated quester

Completing the Contiguous US seemed like an important milestone, and we expected it to take years and years to finish the remote parks in Alaska & American Samoa, plus any unexpected new ones.

So I had a little celebration with friends, not knowing how many more years I had left

Of course, one sign stuck out…

Our initial plan was hoping to tackle Alaska in 3 summer trips. If we got lucky on good weather for the required bush flights, we could finish the state in 3 yrs.

We’d need another year for American Samoa, and who-knows-what for any new ones.

We got **very lucky** on our first Alaska trip in 2018, and were able to do ALL of flights into the Western Arctic parks on schedule—which meant we were suddenly half done!

We managed to sneak in an American Samoa trip that winter, putting us waaay over our annual travel budget.

I also did that cannonball run up to Bighorn Canyon to mark off that orphaned unit.

Looking at the map now, I pushed for us to shoot for completing Alaska in just one more trip, not the two we had planned. We’d need more good luck, but it seemed well worth the attempt in my mind

I didn’t know, but Jen had already been working with a number of friends (and even my ex-wife Kim!) to surprise me at my last park unit in Alaska. #shesakeeper

The problem was she had given them 3 yrs to plan, not the 2 that I was now pushing. So accelerating it mucked things up

But with Aniakchak—the hardest park unit to visit—still on our itinerary, it might take a third trip. I won’t recount the story of how we *finally* made it there, but the short of it is: we did. Barely.

Which meant I’d finish the quest on the trip. Which is *A BIG FUCKING DEAL*

Some friends were able to make the trip anyway and joined me at my last park unit: Glacier Bay National Park. With shirts!

What a journey, right?! It’s not every day that you accomplish such a major life goal, one that defined so much of your life.

Holy shit, I ACTUALLY DID IT!

So you’d think I’d be on top of the world. And in many ways, I was!

But it’s also weird to “finish” something like this.

It’s more interesting to be doing something, than it is to have done something. Being 36% done can be better than 100%. The fun really is in the journey. Huh

That was one of the big lessons for me. And it’s why I encourage people to adopt the BIG quest, the one that seems too daunting.

Because it doesn’t actually matter if you ever finish or not. The benefits are nearly all in the process of working towards the goal, not finishing it

What do you do when you’ve finished a big quest like going to all the National Park units?

Well, you start a new quest, of course. And so that’s what I did, several times over, many of which I began years before finishing the parks.

Because it’s all about the journey.

My parks journey did a few things for me:

• Helped shape my priorities in life
• Inspired countless adventures + memories
• Made me focus on prioritizing experiences over things
• Provided structure + motivation to see new places
• Gave me an interesting education on America

Choosing to adopt and pursue this crazy quest has been one of the best decisions of my life, and it’s of course been one of the most treasured and impactful endeavors of my life, too.

I’ll write more about these things in the future. And maybe add more to this thread later.

If you’ve somehow made it this far in the thread, you’re 100% remarkable. So go adopt a remarkable quest!

• Check out http://GoQuesting.com for ideas
• Connect with fellow questers
• Ping me if I can be helpful
• Inspire others with your adventures
• Enjoy the journey

The post The story of my epic quest to visit all 419 National Park units appeared first on rscottjones.

The national monument—which is best described as a national memorial—is the only one managed by the Department of Defense (in conjunction with the Airmen Heritage Foundation) and one of only two Treasured Places that are located on an active military installation (the other is Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial).

While the national monument was designated as a rider in the FY2008 Defense appropriations bill, it wasn’t opened to the public until late 2013. Well, open to the members of the public that can pass a background check and obtain a visitor pass from the military base, at least. Luckily, there’s a law that allows for reasonable public access for visitors—and their dogs—to the national monument. That said, you’ll want to give yourself some extra time to wait for the required background check before you can gain access to the site.

A “daytrip” to San Antonio

As one of the most obscure national monuments in the country—and with my travel focused on completing my National Parks quest—I didn’t have it on my radar until I decided to tackle the Treasured Places list. So I really kicked myself for not having included it the last three times we were recently in the San Antonio area.

As the second-from-last Treasured Place I needed to visit to finish, and with a deadline to finish approaching, I needed to get there soon. After weighing the options of driving versus flying, it become obvious that it would be a lot cheaper, and much quicker, to fly. So I booked the cheapest ticket I could find to fly from Phoenix to San Antonio, along with the cheapest return ticket I could find for later the same day. I would be taking a “daytrip” to San Antonio, just to finish this one weird little national monument.

Visiting the National Monument

This is definitely one of the more unusual national monuments you’ll visit. While it’s less than a mile to the memorial site from the Valley Hi entrance to Lackland AFB, you’ll need to spend some time in the “Visitor Center” to receive your visitor pass. Make sure you bring your drivers license and don’t have any warrants. Once through the front gate, it’s a quick drive to the parking area and an equally short walk to the site itself. And, truth be told, it’s also a relatively quick site to visit. You’ll need just a few minutes to experience everything this national monument has to offer.

The main bronze sculptures are on a granite platform showcasing a soldier flanked by four different breeds of military dogs, which is shadowed by a large granite wall. On one side of the wall is some descriptive text, while the backside features photos of military dogs in combat action. But the highlight of the site is tucked into a corner of the 3000-square foot plaza. Named the Not Forgotten Fountain, it depicts a Vietnam soldier pouring water from his canteen into his helmet to create a water dish for his dog—a moving tribute.

While the Military Working Dog Teams National Monument isn’t likely to top anyone’s “Must Visit” list, it’s still a simple but well done memorial to an interesting subject. I hadn’t really considered the role that dogs had played in military actions. And if you love dogs, you’ll have a hard time not spending a few contemplative moments at the fountain.

A quick video tour

A few final thoughts

First, it’s a bit weird to fly to another city only to return a few hours later. I’m used to only having carry-ons for most of my trips, but it’s weird when you bring the smallest backpack you own and it’s still essentially empty. I could have literally just carried everything I brought with me in my hands.

Similarly, I was asked several times by random strangers what brought me to San Antonio. I can’t imagine what went through their heads when I answered that I had flown in specifically to see the Military Working Dog Teams National Monument. I am 100% certain that no one besides the guards at Lackland had ever heard of it before, but I got absolutely zero follow up questions. Answering that question was a total conversation killer.

I would have been pretty disappointed had this been the last site I needed to visit to complete the Treasured Places list. No offense, but yeah…it’s just a memorial. But luckily, I had saved one spot I had been wanting to visit for well over a decade—a place I’ll visit next week!

Having already visited San Antonio a number of times, and without much time to explore beyond the city, I made just a few stops. After lunch and beverages at Blue Star Brewing, I visited Menger Bar (one of the oldest bars in Texas—and where Teddy Roosevelt recruited Rough Riders). I then made a quick stop at San Pedro Springs Park, the second oldest park in the US and the origin site for the settlement that became San Antonio. From there it was back to the airport to fly home!

If you missed the short video of the National Monument above, scroll back up and check it out.

The post Visiting America’s most obscure National Monument appeared first on rscottjones.

The rules are simple. For the last 10 days of the year, post a photo on twitter related to the topic of the day. Tagging the tweet with #findyourpark #parkchat and #publiclands will help others find your posts easier. Be sure to tag @naturetechfam in the tweet as well.

Here are the topics:

• Day 1 – Dec. 22: Top Family/Friends Moment
• Day 2 – Dec. 23: Top Wildlife or Animal Encounter
• Day 3 – Dec. 24: Top “Took My Breath Away” Moment
• Day 4 – Dec. 25: Top Moment On “Holiday” (interpret as you will)
• Day 5 – Dec. 26: Top #BucketList Moment
• Day 6 – Dec. 27: Top Extreme Moment (temp, location, ability, etc.)
• Day 7 – Dec. 28: Top Most Peaceful Moment
• Day 8 – Dec. 29: Top Water/Cave/Unique Feature Moment
• Day 9 – Dec. 30: Top Landscape Moment
• Day 10: Dec. 31: Your Ultimate #PublicLands Moment of 2018

I’m posting each of my submissions here, in addition to twitter.

Day 1 Top Family/Friends Moment:
Roadtrip to Utah with my Dad

My dad and I hadn’t taken a trip together in a very long time—about 16 years, if I recall correctly. This seemed like a great year to change that. So I took him and his girlfriend Carol to a state they knew little about: Utah.

We managed to fit in quite a few stops, showing them the big popular sites like Arches, Canyonlands, and Dead Horse Point, plus lesser known spots like Montezuma Canyon, Muley Point, and Coal Mine Canyon. Here’s the full itinerary

They were simply astounded at the landscapes and the archaeology we saw. They had no idea places like that existed, and certainly not within driving distance of Phoenix. It was a really special opportunity to spend some time with my dad.

Here’s the list of places we visited:

• Sand Island petroglyphs
• Montezuma Canyon ruins & rock art sites
• Newspaper Rock SHP
• Arches National Park
• Canyonlands National Park
• Dead Horse Point State Park
• Rock art sites around Moab
• Edge of the Cedars State Park
• Natural Bridges National Monument
• Bears Ears National Monument
• Moki Dugway & Muley Point
• Valley of the Gods
• Goosenecks State Park
• Coal Mine Canyon

Day 2 Top Wildlife Encounter:
Snorkeling with Manatees in Florida

For some reason, swimming with manatees has always been on my wildlife bucket list, so I had a blast—in spite of the nasty cold I had picked up. If you’re ever in the Crystal Springs region of Florida, I definitely recommend a quick trip out to snorkel with manatees, even if it is a bit touristy.

Day 3 Top “Took My Breath Away” moment: Denali, The Great One

My top “take my breath” moment was earlier this summer in Denali. We had heard so much about how rare it was to get a clear view of the mountain, and our visit to Denali State Park the evening before our shuttle dampened our already low expectations.

But the next day, we were treated to nearly an entire day’s worth of clear views. There wasn’t just one moment of the mountain that left you speechless—we were fortunate enough to get many.

One of those moments that stood out, however, was late in the day when this family, enjoying a paddle across the lake right as we passed by. It’s almost like I had photoshopped them in.

Day 4 – Top “holiday” moment: Finishing our US Territories quest during our Anniversary trip

My top “holiday” moment this year was 3 weeks ago when Jen & I finished our quest to visit all 50 states and all 5 major US territories.

It was our 1st “big” trip for our anniversary—which I consider my favorite holiday! Previously, we had always taken our larger “holiday” trip between Christmas and New Years, and instead done a shorter, less desirable road trip for our anniversary. This year, we decided that to make sure that the anniversary got top billing, and I’m really glad we did.

This is also the biggest travel quest I’ve completed to date, though the National Parks quest will jump to the top when I complete it this coming summer.

Day 5 Top #Bucketlist moment: Calving Glaciers in Kenai Fjords NP

One of my top #bucketlist moments of 2018 was definitely witnessing glaciers calving into the sea in Kenai Fjords this summer. This has long been a life travel goal for me, so it was pretty great to finally experience it—even though we were so cold standing out on the boat in the rain and wind to watch it.

Day 6 – Top Extreme Moment: Landing a bush plane between 3 wildfires in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve

Smoke filled every valley as our bush plane neared the landing strip at Coal Creek in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, the result of three active wildfires forming a triangle around our destination. It didn’t look good for landing in this national park unit.

But our pilot impulsively pushed forward, breaking through the layer of smoke, and landed alongside firefighting helicopters and other equipment. We hopped out, took some quick photos, and beelined it for the historic mining camp a mile up the valley. We only had an hour on the ground. The camp had been commandeered by the interagency fire crew attempting to preserve park buildings from the fire, but it was also the site of passport stamps. And given our time crunch, it would be the only historic buildings we’d get to see here.

We wandered into a cabin, which was serving as the office for the fire crew.

“Who are you, and where did you come from?” one of them asked us, stunned that any tourists had shown up. Apparently, even their own fire crew pilots had refused to land that day.

We explained our national parks quest and why we had arrived amidst active wildfires. Impressed with our dedication, someone located the park stamps and we chatted a bit about our trip. When they found out that we didn’t have time to hike the 8-mile roundtrip to Slaven’s Roadhouse and to see the Yukon River, the incident commander piped up.

“You can’t get this close and not see it. I’ll drive you down there right now, and get you back in time,” she said.

It was an offer that we couldn’t refuse. She delegated wildfire responsibilities to two of the other staff members, and we quickly jumped in her side-by-side. Barreling down the rough gravel road, we passed the dredge and made it to the river. We explored the roadhouse—and collected another park stamp—before turning around and returning to the landing strip.

We took off without incident, but halfway through our flight back to Fairbanks, we encountered a gnarly storm. It was a rather tense hour as the pilot attempted to find a way around the worst of it, finally settling on a long circuitous route over some mountains and up a river valley. No one said a word until we landed.

As the pilot turned off the engine—his nervous wife already waiting for him on the tarmac—he let out a big sigh of relief and broke the silence.

“Well, I bet you are all happy to be back on the ground.”

Yes…
Yes, we were.

Day 7 – Top most peaceful moment: The backroads of the North Rim

My most peaceful moments on public lands this year happened here, along the backroads of the Kaibab National Forest at the edge of the Grand Canyon—far from the crowds on the South Rim. Getting off the beaten path may take some additional time and effort, but it’s usually well worth it.

Day 8 – Top water/cave/unique feature moment: Swimming Across Samoa

My top “water/cave/unique feature” moment of the year comes from our all-day swimming tour across Samoa—which included swims at secluded waterfalls, half submerged caves, ocean trenches, & coral reefs. Lots of photos at the link above!

Day 9 – Top Landscape Moment: the National Parks of the Western Arctic

I’ve spent many days out exploring our national parks and public lands, but it’s hard to top the day I spent exploring the National Parks of the Western Arctic by bush plane. Staggeringly large and desolate, there’s no better way to tour these places than from the air. And while it was the most expensive flight I’ve ever booked, it was completely worth the unforgettable experience.

Day 10 – My Ultimate #PublicLands Moment of 2018: ALL of them!

As always—there’s simply no way to choose from the amazing adventures I enjoyed on our public lands this year.

Each is special and I treasure them all.

The post My Submissions for the 2018 #FindYourPark Photo Challenge appeared first on rscottjones.