After finishing my quest to visit every craft brewery in the state almost a decade ago, I usually rush to stay “completed” when new ones open. But these two opened during the height of covid and we decided to stay away for a bit. They sorta just sat on the back burner for awhile after that, always mentioned as a weekend option, but never quite making the cut for some reason.

Anyway, it was time to get them done, especially since this was one of the few campgrounds with availability after we got back from our big 100-day adventure. And as an added bonus, Jen would mark off Dead Horse Ranch, and we’d both be able to mark off Rockin’ River Ranch, a recently-opened state park not far away.

I also picked up a culture pass¹ for Arcosanti and made a tour reservation for our drive home on Sunday. So we’d finally be able to get that done for Jen’s Culture Pass quest. So while it might not be the most exciting of weekend trips, it was shaping up to be a productive one.

Friday night

We headed north after work on Friday, arriving around sunset to set up camp², then drove a couple miles into Cottonwood to grab dinner at Belfry Brewing. We ordered the two IPAs on tap, which (as expected) weren’t very good. But dinner was surprisingly excellent. We split a Detroit-style pepperoni pizza, and I added a caesar side salad too. We thoroughly enjoyed both and decided we’d return the following night for more—and this time, arrive a bit earlier to enjoy the live music that ends at 7pm. It was back to the campsite after that to enjoy the campfire for a bit before heading to bed.

Saturday

The following morning, we grabbed a quick coffee and breakfast on our way to Rockin’ River Ranch State Park, Arizona’s newest state park which opened last year. It’s been quite some time since I’ve marked off a state park on my Arizona State Parks quest, so it’d be good to get this one done while we were in the area.

As expected, the park isn’t especially interesting. A former working ranch, the land was acquired almost two decades ago, languishing under budget constraints and awaiting a plan for park development (and hopefully, more restoration) for most of that time. And you can see that in the visitor experience today.

The park includes about a mile stretch of the Verde River, with a handful of short trails and an interior that very much feels like an exhausted old ranch. We wandered the two trails close to the river, then moved along, confident that we’d never need to return (especially considering the $20 entrance fee). It’s really unfortunate that Arizona hasn’t invested better in its state park system, relying instead on nearby federal lands to bring in the tourism dollars.

Back at the car, we considered hitting Fort Verde State Historic Park or Jerome State Park to mark off another park for Jen, but in looking at the time, decided that it was best to head back towards Cottonwood instead—we wanted to visit Smelter Town Brewing, drive back to our campsite and possibly walk 2 miles to Belfry to get a seat and enjoy the live music, which starts at 4pm.

Smelter Town wasn’t quite open yet, so we decided to stop by the Clarkdale Historical Society Museum, a small building that overlooked the smelter that gave rise to the town. The museum isn’t much, but was worth a quick visit (I’d recommend pairing it with a stop at Jerome State Park too, which recounts the copper mine that led to the smelter). As we departed, we mentioned that we were heading next to Smelter Town Brewing, to which the docent smiled and said, “oh yeah, that’s the best thing in Clarkdale.”

Smelter Town Brewing is on the ground floor of a small historic hotel building, which still rents out rooms. We parked down the block and enjoyed passing some interesting brickwork and signs on our way there.

We arrived less than 30 mins after they had opened for the day and found only two empty seats anywhere inside. Apparently the docent’s assessment was correct. We wedged our way into a corner of the bar, spilling out into the walkway, and enjoyed a couple of pints each while we strategized about our travel options if Jen’s work schedule changed substantially. Per our tradition, we swapped glasses halfway through so we could each try all four brews we ordered.

The beer was certainly better than Belfry, but didn’t quite live up to the surprisingly lofty Untappd ratings I had seen. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our time there and would return.

From there we made our way back to Belfry, grabbed a table, ordered another pizza and salad (and a lackluster mushroom risotto), listened to the music (bleh, which was mostly country as opposed to the rock that had been played the night before). We eventually made our way back to the campsite for the night, enjoying some campfire time before snuggling into our respective sleeping bags.

Sunday

Sunday’s drive home would feature a tour of Arcosanti, an “urban experiment in arcology³” that is probably best described as an ecotopian hippie commune.

If you live in Phoenix, you’ve undoubtedly driven past the turnoff sign on I-17, perhaps wondering what it was. Or you knew someone who had bought their (semi-famous? locally famous? I’m not sure) wind chimes. Anyway, it’s an interesting—if far-fetched—story and experiment in rethinking how we could design small communities, and worthy of a stop at some point. Preferably using a free Culture Pass.

The site is adjacent to Agua Fria National Monument, so I had collaborated with residents there on related public lands and water issues, visiting the site a number of times for meetings and such. But Jen hadn’t been there yet and needed it for her Culture Pass quest, and this was a great time to get it done.

We got an email alert on Saturday that high winds were expected during our 11am tour—look, it’s always windy out on those mesas—and that we could come earlier for the 9:30am tour instead, or risk the elements and possible cancellation. We opted to keep the original time, and the winds weren’t a problem. I was surprised at how well attended the tour was, though several people clearly showed up with big cameras just to take photos.

Because of the tour time, we arrived home a bit earlier than we normally would, which gave us a chance to organize an afternoon get together with friends at our local brewery, which had a new beer release we wanted to try.

A quality weekend away

All in all, it was a relaxing and productive weekend away. We felt a bit out of sorts camping for the first time since the fall (our various systems are still in a bit of disarray), but I’m sure that’ll change soon—we have long weekend trips planned for the next month or so.

I’m hoping to get back to more regularly posting about our adventures, both big and small—but no promises.

1. Culture Passes are free admission tickets for two people to select cultural attractions around the state that you “check out” from the local library. ︎
2. I somewhat infamously rarely get to camp before sundown, so Jen usually doesn’t see where we’re camping until the sun comes up the next morning. Well, this time, we arrived just in time to get the tent up before sunset. ︎
3. Arcology “is a field of creating architectural design principles for very densely populated and ecologically low-impact human habitats,” according to wikipedia. ︎

The post A questing weekend in Cottonwood appeared first on rscottjones.

Smallest Country on Each Continent (3/6)

It’s too bad that we had to cut out Maldives from our trip, as that would have been a nice objective to complete.

• Completed: Africa/Seychelles, Europe/Vatican City, North America/St Kitts & Nevis
• Remaining: Asia/Maldives, Oceania/Nauru, South America/Suriname

Touch every ocean (6/7)

For the purposes of this quest, I’m breaking both the Pacific and Atlantic into North and South components due to their size. So instead of five oceans, I’m counting seven.

• Completed: North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian, Arctic
• Remaining: Southern

24 Time Zones (23/24)

If each time zone was exactly one hour apart, then we’d have 24 total time zones. But due to a number of 30-minute and 45-minute offsets, plus the shenanigans of the International Date Line, there are actually a total of 38. My quest, however, only focuses on reaching a total of 24 of them.

• Completed: -11, -10, -9, -8, -7, -6, -5, -4, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3, +4, +5:30, +7, +8, +9, +9:30, +10, +12, +13

Australian States & Territories (5/8)

This joins the US and Canada as my third quest to visit all states and territories of a country.

• Completed: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Australian Capital Territory
• Remaining: Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory

Circumnavigate Australia

Eventually, at least…and in sections, not during a single trip. This one is a bit more difficult to gauge progress, as I have no requirement for the specific sections to be traversed or in what number; I just want to drive around the general perimeter of the country, plus across the interior in at least one direction. I imagine this could take up to 6 dedicated trips, so it’s something I expect to primarily tackle in retirement.

• Completed: Sydney to Mount Gambier
  

Other quests that I haven’t posted about yet

I’m waaaay behind on updating my personal travel quests on my website. Waaaay behind. That’s largely because we’ve aggregated a lot of quest objectives onto a single map in our travel dashboard, so my website hasn’t been where we primarily keep track of progress lately. I need to change that.

So here are some other quests I’ve adopted these last few years but that haven’t yet made it on my site yet:

US Counties (1978/3144)

Yes, somehow we’ve adopted a mega quest to visit each of the 3144 counties (and county-equivalents) in the United States. Here’s my current progress map.

45th Parallel (12/12)

I completed this quest two years ago, which involved crossing the 45th Parallel in the each of the 12 states in which it passes.

Drink a Guinness at an Irish Pub in 32 Countries (18/32)

A nod to the idea that there’s an Irish Pub everywhere, it involves exactly what it says—though we also include territories per the Travelers Century Club list. Why 32? Well, because that’s the number of counties in Ireland, of course.

Capitals of the United States and Colonies (14/15)

This involves visiting the site that served, however briefly, as the Capitol of the United States. That is, where Congress met, including during the Revolutionary War. I may have finished this one already, but a question arose and I’m not clear that I visited the right building; more research is required.

Alaska Highways (8/12)

This involves driving on at least a portion of each of the official 12 highways in Alaska.

State-Province Borders (12/17)

A similar idea to my State Border Crossings quest (which I completed last year), this one involves crossing each combination of US State and Canadian Province border.

Want to adopt your own quest?

Here’s a guide I wrote to help you get started.

The post I adopted some new quests during my big trip appeared first on rscottjones.

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.

Here are some of my own quests, here’s a guide for how to get started on your own, and here’s a directory of 1500 quests you might enjoy.

So it catches my attention when someone writes a book that, well, could be a quest.

Here are a bunch of ideas for any authors who are writing such a book:

• Include an actual checklist of all the sites, perhaps with a date field for when you’ve been there. You could also make this a downloadable file that readers could keep for themselves.
• Or expand the idea and include a journal-style page layout for each visit (perhaps with several related prompts or text fields to fill out). Again, this could be bonus material, or perhaps even a companion product.
• Suggest a hashtag that people can use to connect with others pursuing the same goal (here’s what I’ve done over at GoQuesting.com)
• Host an online community for questers around your topic
• Include a “finishers list” on your website (and perhaps even in future editions/updates of the book)
• Allow readers to show proof of purchase to get any future updates to the book (helpful if new objectives pop up after you’ve published)
• Offer stickers or other swag for both questers, and finishers
• Offer a contest with a prize for people who finish them all
• Make sure the quest appears in the GoQuesting directory and send me the link to the book when it’s released
• Allow readers to sign up as official participant/quester on your website. Perhaps even allow them to track their progress on your site, or submit photos or posts on their progress
• Include a scavenger hunt for photos of something specific at each place
• Offer “junior ranger” style workbooks that participants can complete at each location

What other ideas do you have? Tell me in the comments.

The post Writing a book about “all the [blank]?” 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.

We ended up staying in hotels more than usual on this trip, and given the shorter winter days, that meant more time in a hotel room. Luckily, we brought our laptops on this trip as part of a new travel journaling practice we are experimenting with.

I thought it would be fun to chart the roads I’ve driven in the US, but that seems like a nearly impossible task. That’s because I routinely veer off the obvious route to drive a road that might be more scenic, or detour for an inconsequential roadside oddity, or to “get lost and ask for directions,” or head off to an obscure campground for the night.

In short, I really don’t know where all I’ve been since I haven’t really tracked that over all my trips. But I could start doing that now, for this trip at least. So I brought along some AAA state maps and a sharpie to trace our route. And then I promptly forgot those in the car each night.

So, with my laptop in the room, I instead cracked open a website devoted to counting the counties you’ve visited. I could probably figure out the counties I’ve visited much more easily than the specific roads I’d traveled anyway. Over the next several nights, I charted out a somewhat complete map of my county visits.

Visiting all 3,143 counties in the US is a more popular quest than you’d imagine. Indeed, thousands and thousands of people are tracking their county visits, and at least 70 people have completed them all! I had no such quest goal. In fact, one of my friends has been working on this quest for two decades now and I’ve always thought it was a somewhat crazy one. Most counties aren’t very interesting. I wasn’t adopting the quest, I just wanted to see where I’ve been—or rather, where I still need to go. I wanted to see what “holes” I still had in my domestic travel.

But, of course, after filling out my county map and realizing that I was already past the 50% mark, I started wondering what a good county quest goal for myself might be. When would I feel like I’ve closed those holes? Was it 2000 total counties? Or maybe >50% in each state? Or both? Or just when I’d finished the whole damn thing? I’m still not sure, but I think it’s clear…I have some sort of county quest now.

And indeed, so does Jen, who filled out her own map during our hotel hours. So, for the last few days of the trip, we made sure to take the longer route to some of our destinations, bypassing the quicker route that we had already done in favor of driving through some new-to-us counties. Every time we passed a little green “Entering So-and-So County” sign along some rural highway, there was now reason to exclaim “YAAAAY!”

This is the main goal of questing—inspiring you to go to more places you haven’t yet been.

One of the other big (and unheralded) benefits of questing is that it can make “unfun travel” more…well, fun. Even if your quest objective is less enjoyable than you had anticipated, or maybe the weather was awful, or you broke your expensive new camera, or some other sucky thing happened…well, at least you marked the damn place off! Getting something done makes you feel a bit better about that trip than if you had the same bad experience but hadn’t simultaneously completed a goal. Put another way, if you mark off a quest item, you always have a bright spot on the trip. Or, on a smaller level, you have a bright spot in an otherwise lackluster vacation day.

And we re-discovered that on the drive home, when we were faced with driving across Texas. Because now we had a new purpose for the drive: we would mark off some random counties! Texas seems to have eleventy zillion of them, each of which is generally small and thoroughly unremarkable. If we took a slightly longer way home, we’d be able to cross off 15 of them on our drive, and thereby permanently remove them from our list of places we have any reason to visit. We were getting stuff done. And sometimes never having to return to a place is a pretty good travel outcome.

And that’s exactly what we did. We actually extended the drive we were dreading because of this new quest, converting a boring and unfun endeavor into a series of small “yays” and some new blue squares on our county map. We traveled through country we hadn’t seen before, which resulted in some interesting observations. It didn’t magically elevate the trip into one of my all-time favorites, but it did reduce the cost of that Price of Admission rather substantially.

Many people shy away from big quests that have what seems like an unreachable number of objectives. But the benefits of questing are all found in the journey, not in completion. Will I ever finish all the counties? Probably not. But sometimes having a huge quest—even one you don’t expect to ever finish—simply gives you more possible ways to make those long drives less boring.

→ Start your own US Counties quest (#GoQuesting1640)

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→ Check out #GoQuesting1006 for more information on this unusual travel quest ←

One of them is particularly sneaky—the tiny border shared by Kentucky and Missouri.

There are a number of border anomalies along the Mississippi River, as its course shifted after state boundaries were originally established. This has led some parts of states to suddenly find themselves disconnected from the rest of their state by the main channel of the river. The most famous cases of this are probably Carter Lake, Iowa and the “Kentucky Bend,” a finger of Kentucky that is now only accessible by road from Tennessee:

In a similarly odd fate, there is no bridge over the Mississippi between the states of Kentucky and Missouri. US Highways 51 and 62 nearly connect the two states, but happen to meet in a sliver of Illinois, a painfully short distance upstream of the Ohio and Mississippi confluence and the northern start of the KY-MO border. Both highway bridges cross less than a mile from the tri-point. Coincidentally, not too far upstream on the Mississippi from this point lies a bit of Illinois that shares a similar fate as the Kentucky Bend—you can only drive there from Missouri.

Ok, so there’s no bridge across the KY-MO border, but the small Dorena-Hickman Ferry does provide cross-boundary access. Many believe this is the only direct route between these two states. However, for the purposes of this quest, border crossings don’t count if you’re in a plane or on a boat.

So perhaps there are only 106 objectives in this quest instead of the original 107? Not so fast, my friend.

It turns out there is at least one road that does cross the KY-MO border. It’s on what’s known as “Wolf Island Number 5,” and was part of a lawsuit between the two states that was decided by the US Supreme Court back way back in 1870 in a case called Missouri v Kentucky.

This island stood in the middle of the Mississippi River when the two state boundaries were formalized. Eventually, however, the river shifted its course eastward. And sometime after that, as the river flowed further east, the old river bend was partially filled in, connecting the island to the riverbank on the Missouri side. Wolf Island is now a peninsula, consisting primarily of some farming fields, sandy areas, and what appears to be a single outbuilding for farming equipment. The Supreme Court case held that Kentucky should maintain control of the area, even though the Mississippi River was intended to be the dividing line between the states. And so the state boundary remains where it was prior.

A county-maintained dirt road—Wolf Island Road—now unceremoniously crosses the boundary onto the peninsula. As far as I can tell, it’s the only publicly accessible land crossing between the two states. The roadway is county-maintained and listed in the state’s database and GIS maps. In short, it looks like a legit border crossing for the purposes of this quest.

There is one additional roadway, according to Google Maps at least, that crosses the border a bit further upstream onto what is labeled “Island Nos 2 3 and 4.” But the roadway is not shown on the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s “Rural and Secondary Roads” or “Local Roads” GIS maps. Given this telling omission, plus a closed gate as seen on satellite imagery from Google Maps, leads me to believe it’s a private route.

Nonetheless, it appears that there is at least one legal land crossing from Kentucky to Missouri. I’m not the only one to discover this. Here’s what the crossing looked like in April 2014, courtesy of the Howder Family:

Tom and I are considering reserving this crossing to complete together as our last objective for our respective border quests. It seems like the most memorable one to finish on. 

I can’t wait to mark it off!

Some other state border oddities

There are three other state borders that you can’t cross in a vehicle: Illinois/Michigan, Michigan/Minnesota, and New York/Rhode Island.

The New York/Rhode Island one is especially interesting to me, as I hadn’t ever considered that Connecticut doesn’t share a border with international waters. But because of New York’s claims to Long Island and Fishers Island, and Rhode Island’s claim to Fort Mansfield, Connecticut only gets roughly half of the Long Island Sound. If you would have asked me if Connecticut was bordered on all sides by other states, I would not have answered yes. It seems like a great pub trivia question: “How many of the original 13 states are bordered on all sides by another state?”

This was also surprising to me: the Delaware/New Jersey border features only a singlebridge crossing—the Delaware Memorial Bridge that services I-295. Ok fine, it’s technically two one-way bridges, but the broader point stands.

However, due to an accident of history, there are now two Delaware exclaves on the wrong side of the Delaware River. This isn’t a case of a river changing course though. Instead, it’s a result of Delaware’s Twelve Mile Circle, the unusual way of defining a state border, and a dredging project. Here’s an explanation:

The definition of the northern boundary of the State is unusual. Most of the boundary between the States of Delaware and Pennsylvania was originally defined by an arc extending 12 miles, a.k.a. the Twelve-Mile Circle, from the cupola of the courthouse in the city of New Castle.

This border extends all the way east to the low-tide mark on the New Jersey shore of the Delaware River, then continues south along the shoreline until it again reaches the 12-mile arc in the south. Then the boundary continues in a more conventional way in the middle of the main channel of the river.

For this reason, from the Pennsylvania-Delaware line on south, the border between New Jersey and Delaware is not the middle of the River, but the edge of New Jersey’s shore.

Apparently, future dredging projects deposited their loads on the New Jersey side of the river, expanding the landmass there and exceeding the original boundary that was set at the low tide line. The result was Artificial Island, whose tip now extends into Delaware. Similarly, Finns Point also extends beyond the original border line. Neither of these land borders seems to have a road you can use to cross, but it appears you could do so on foot.

This was originally posted on Hey World.

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The most commonly followed list is probably the UN member states list, which is 193. Unless you count the observer countries—Palestine and Vatican City—in which case it’s 195. 

And because of some idiosyncrasies, some people follow the “UN+” list of 226, which includes some additional territories (Taiwan, for instance).

Others take the idea of counting territories as separate “countries” much further. For instance, the Travelers Century Club uses a list of 329. For their list, even smaller territories that are substantially disconnected from the main country by distance, governance, or dominant culture (such as American Samoa for the United States) are counted separately.

Still others follow an extended list of 949 locations published by Most Traveled People. NomadMania takes that idea even further with its own list, which divides the world into 1301 regions, based on cultural importance, economic significance, population, size, and tourist appeal.

But even if you’re sticking with just countries—as opposed to the regions or territories—there are still other ways of counting. For instance, many travelers count the 206 countries with a National Olympic Committee, which includes nations that are not part of the UN. Others only count the 211 countries that are members of FIFA, even if they’re not independent countries. 

And of course, some people have their own list, perhaps making their own assessment of which partially-recognized countries or territories “count” and which ones don’t.

Whew!

So which list is best? That depends on you, of course. Your quest, your rules. HYOH.

Me? Well, I think I’ll use three main lists to keep track of my international quests: the UN list, the TCC list, and the NM 1301 list. They each offer a different flavor that I think is useful.

This was originally posted on Hey World.

The post How many countries are there? 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.

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