Rate National Parks

I’ve often wondered where I will spend my retirement. The golden years that I sometimes dream of as days become stressed and the nights restless. I love spending time in the parks as they always help me keep my anxieties and thoughts in perspective.  This question may be moot if you already know where you like to live for other reasons.  Putting that aside for now, let’s say that your goal in life is to visit National Parks.  Unless you are one of those types that wants to do less of what you enjoy to keep it special then let’s assume you would want to be able to visit them as often and painlesly as possible. That is how I swing anyway.

One approach is to draw a compass circle from any given point on the map and see how many parks fall within.  Ah, but how large a circle…  Those of us without a personal jet will need to consider road trips as the most practical form of transport.  Let’s say a reasonable distance is a day’s drive. The distance that can be traveled in a day will vary by terrain and stamina.  But perhaps it is 600 miles or so. There are origin points in Utah for which a 600 mile circle will include Yellowstone, Gran Teton, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde, Arches, Bryce and Zion, Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelley, and Rocky Mountain.  This is a splendid mix of alpine, desert, and river oriented parks.  However, a spot in Northern California gets you Redwood, Lassen, Crater Lake, Olympic, Mt. Ranier, Yosemite, and Muir Woods.  Wow!  Forests, mountains, rivers, and even volcanic pleasures. Starting further south in California get you Yosemite, Sequoia KC, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Lassen, Redwood, and a few more.  Here you get desert, mountains, trees, rivers, and those volcanic delights I fantasized about earlier.

So which is best?  Of course the choce is yours.  And, we didn’t draw any other circles and I’d bet that there are others that have a number of unique favorites. To each his own. My only real advice is to not wait until retirement to start drawing your own circles.

What is your next special occassion?  April 2009 was my wife’s and my 20th wedding anniversary.  We dreamed of Greece but decided that staying in country was going to be easier on our finances and was a better fit for the time we had available.  But where to go?   We settled on the Yosemite Valley.  Why?  We had both been there before.  Both with our children and as children ourselves.  The reason was that we had always visited at the height of the summer season.  This meant crowds but above all else, a dry Yosemite Falls.  Here was a chance to be there with the plumbing leaking in all its glory and enjoy each other’s company without the weight of parents or kids. 

And so Yosemite it was.  Things didn’t start out perfectly however as we were summarily dropped from our original flight (first class level miles points down the drain) and then found that the sporty little car we rented had no trunk.  Not a small trunk, no trunk.  We arrived in compromised fashion but savored the spring air and bright sun as we rolled into the valley.  We settled nicely into the Ahwahnee hotel and were lucky enough to have a high floor room with an expansive, half dome facing balcony.  Things started looking up. 

We woke the next morning to gray skies.  It proceeded to rain for the next three days.  Before you go and weep for us, here is a run down of how we extracted chips from such a lousy hand. We hiked to the top of Yosemite Falls and while the views were obscured from the mist, we got to enjoy a water world that is not always there.  Rainwater joined with the big spring runoff giving us surprise tributaries that crossed the hiking trail and extra cascades popping seemingly out of nowhere which gave us something different.  What we didn’t have was a dry place to sit or dry feet.  So, we were tired.  But we did it anyway and are glad we did.  Further, the Ahwahnee bar was waiting for us with an El Capatini. 

The bar scene was a thrill.  We sat for hours trying different concoctions while watching the visitors come and go. We took most of our meals in the main dining room.  And took baths in the nice tub the recently refurbished room offered. Not too shabby, really.  On our departure day the sun shined once again.  We took plenty of morning photos and then off we went. 

 In a way, the trip was a metaphor for our marraige.  Not quite what either of us expected but definitely what we needed.  And, we returned to our lives without a complaint (until I wrote the first paragraph. of course).  Yosemite is simply a great place to make and share memories no matter what the circumstances.   

The downside to visiting our wonderful national parks is that, practically speaking, air travel is required for many of the parks no matter where you live.  Everyone knows that flying ain’t what she used to be and has become the dreaded unavoidable for many of us. 
 

One thing that can make flying time worthwhile is the chance at acquiring much needed sleep.  Of course, unless you are in First Class, sleeping in a cramped seat that does not seem to recline as far as it used to is an exercise in frustration.  Well, necessity is indeed the mother of invention and so to remedy this situation experimentation began for establishing techniques for getting the rejuvenating sleep we need.
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