It was a clear morning in the height of summer travel season when the kids and I pulled up to the entrance booth at Petroglyph National Monument
in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The ranger asked us not to disturb the millipedes we’d see on the trail as we hunted for thousand-year-old
rock art, then said, “Thanks for thinking of us.”
We had the beauty of Boca Negra Canyon, a 70-acre section of the larger Petroglyph site, almost to ourselves. As we hiked around
a cliffside punctuated by dramatic outcroppings, we played a game, seeing who could find the most glyphs, drawings etched into boulders
by the area’s early native inhabitants. “There’s a face on that rock!” “I found a mouse!” “Handprints under that bush!” And so it went
as we explored this ancient place, nearly alone. Save for a few other hikers, the only beings about were quail families, darting lizards
and quick cottontails, and armies of amazing millipedes, chief food source for the canyon’s birds.
The big stars in the U.S. National Park System, places like Grand Teton, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite,
deserve their storied reputations. Mind-blowingly beautiful, they should be on everyone’s must-see list. The problem is they are, and
everyone decides they must see them in summer, so their majesty is often tempered by crowds, traffic and booked-solid lodges and
campsites.
Not so the park system’s smaller, less-heralded places. The National Park Service (NPS),
created to preserve America’s natural and cultural resources, boasts nearly 400 diverse sites comprising over 84 million acres in all
states but Delaware and includes parks, monuments, memorials, forts, battlefields, historic buildings, lighthouses, scenic rivers, seashores and other types of areas.
These places belong to us and are literally all around us. Visit www.nps.gov to find
educational and inspirational gems within a few hours of your home and learn about the Junior Ranger program, which lets kids earn
badges and certificates for completing activities and sharing their findings with a park ranger.
An annual pass to these great places costs $80. The Interagency Recreation Pass covers park entrance fees for passholder and passengers
and also covers areas operated by agencies like the U.S. Forest Service. Pass in hand, you can plan a year’s worth of day trips and
longer journeys.
Some examples of the many outstanding, less crowded National Park areas awaiting your visit:
Devils Tower, Wyoming
Called Bear Lodge by the Lakota and sacred to many Native American tribes, this astonishing flat-topped monolith
rises above a forest of Ponderosa pine. As you make the mile-and-change hike around the tower’s base, note the trees hung with Indian
prayer cloths and prayer bundles filled with offerings of sweet grasses and cedar. Don’t miss the nearby prairie dog colonies.
Wupatki/Sunset Crater, Arizona
This dual-monument site lies close to Flagstaff, a Grand Canyon gateway. About a thousand years ago a peak in northern
Arizona’s volcanic San Francisco chain erupted. The people living in the area fled, then returned after the mountain
had quieted and the lava had cooled. Designated stops on a 35-mile loop road let you view the crater, called Sunset for the
fields of red rock-embers that cover the cinder cone, walk on lava flows, and explore the ruins of Anasazi kivas and pueblos.
Civil War Military Parks, Eastern and Southern U.S.
While on a cross-country road trip with my kids a few years back, we visited Shiloh, Tennessee and Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the
hushed hours we spent contemplating the battles that took place and the men who died on that ground were among our journey’s most
moving. We used free self-guiding pamphlets to drive the battlefield roads. Lisa Dempsey, a Maine mom who’s toured Virginia’s Manassas
and Gettysburg sites with her teenage sons, recommends buying an audio tour, so you can “take time to listen and gain an appreciation
for what went on, then family members can share feelings and thoughts.”
Craters of the Moon, Idaho
So few people were at this otherworldly landscape of lava, basalt and sagebrush when we arrived that I snared the campsite (#30) my
guidebook declared the best. It sat empty, waiting for us. The ranger at the entrance directed me to it, then later checked to make sure I’d found it.
I watched the sun set and moon rise from my camp chair in this pumice paradise and thought of visitors to Grand Teton and
Yellowstone, a hundred miles away, who were likely hearing “Sorry, no vacancy.”
About The Author:
Lori Hein is an author, a traveling mom and a freelancer specializing in travel writing. Her book,
Ribbons of Highway: A Mother-Child Journey Across America ,
takes you around the U.S., and her blog, Ribbons of Highway,
takes you around the world. Visit her professional site at at LoriHein.com.
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