Kenji Fjords National Park

Denali National Park

Saugus Iron works

In Saugus, Massachusetts. this is the first successful ironworks in the new world.


these area the giant bellows for the furnace.

The Saugus ironworks is also home to the first garbage landfill in the new world...

Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park, Maine



view from the top of Cadillac mountain.



Sand Beach.



Fall color


This is #10 of 10 NPS locations I have visited before the end of October.

Charlestown Navy Yard

In Boston, this is the home of "Old Ironsides," and the first U.S. Dry dock.




This is #9 of 10 NPS locations I'm hoping to visit before the end of October.

Muir Woods

I visited Muir Woods National Park, which is near Mill Valley, CA in the north SF Bay Area, with a couple of friends on a day when 2.55" of rain fell.


One of the great things about Muir woods is looking up at the tall redwoods, unfortunately, the rain was coming down so hard that if you looked up, you'd get a stinging rain drop in your eyeball...


I wish I had been able to take more pictures, but the lens kept fogging up on my camera, and it was getting so wet I thought it might stop working.



This is #8 of 10 NPS locations I'm hoping to visit before the end of October.

Kings Canyon National Park

Park Sign

Kings River

Canyon view


Roaring River Falls


This is #7 of 10 NPS locations I'm hoping to visit before the end of October.

Sequoia National Park

Entrance to the park

Black Bear eating pine cones

General Sherman Tree - biggest tree by trunk mass, and some random park visitors


View from beetle rock, looks like the blue ridge mountains...

This is #6 of 10 NPS locations I'm hoping to visit before October.

Alcatraz

Today I went to Alcatraz Island in the SF Bay. It is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It's a pretty quick ferry ride out to the island from pier 33 in SF, and there is an audio tour of the prison included in the price of the ferry ride. Because of this, everyone does the audio tour, and if you take your headphones off for a little but, you will experience something rarely found in society today, a totally quiet environment with just the sound of the shuffling feet of all the visitors. I found it a little surreal.

This is #5 of 10 NPS locations I'm hoping to visit before October




I'm pretty sure I went here in Grammer school, but I didn't remember anything about it, and decided anything I did before I was about 15 could be redone and called "new."

Pony Express Trail

A group of friends and I and our dogs hiked a bit of the pony express trail today. We started off of Sierra-at-Tahoe Road, off highway 50 in California. Part of it goes through a popular snowsporting area (called Sierra-at-Tahoe), it was funny to see the building and runs in the summer.

This is #4 of 10 NPS locations I'm hoping to visit before October

Rosie the Riveter Park in Richmond, CA.

I went to #3 of 10 National Parks Service sites today - This must be a newly acquired National Park, because it is not listed on my 2000 version of the NPS Map, but it is listed on the 2006 version.

I sure hope it is new, because this location does not live up to the standard of the NPS, it looks more like a city park. also, I was unable to find the red oak victory ship which also houses the NPS passport stamp that I was looking for. The signage at this park is terrible.

Eugene O'Neill National Park

Today I visited #2 of the 10 national parks before fall goal... Eugene O'Neill National Park. Normally, you have to make reservations to visit this location, but this summer, they are doing no reservation Saturdays, so You can just show up to Danville and get on a bus at some specific times of the day to go up there.

Basically this is the home of Eugene O'Neill American playwright who is the only American to win the Pulitzer prize, which is why the home is a national park.

John Muir National Historic Site

In Martinez, CA, right smack dab in the middle of the town, is the John Muir House and orchards (well what's left of them anyway). The house itself is pretty impressive, you can explore all the floors on your own or there are tours you can take of the first floor.

There are lots of fruit trees, pears, apricots, etc...I found one on the groun that had just fallen, and it was tasty. Also, part of the property is the oldest structure in Martinez - a two story adobe home.

This is #1 of 10 NPS locations I'm hoping to visit before October

National Parks

Every national park has a little brochure for the park, I've picked on of these up every visit I've made to a national park and keep them in a map holder. Today I was reviewing these brochures and marking on a NPS map all of the parks I've visited... as I finished this task, I realized that I have not been to many of the National Parks that are right in my own state, and in fact, many of those were right here in my backyard. I've decided to try to visit 10 National Parks Service Locations before the end of October.

Crater Lake

View from the Watchtower

Crater Lake National park is on the east side of Oregon near Klamath Falls.

White Sands National Monument

This place is neat.

On a road trip across the country, I stopped here on recommendation from someone at the event I was attending (the reason for the road trip) It wasn't on my planned route, and was a little out of the way, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip.

There was a highway closure over the white plains bombing site which surrounds the white plains national monument I made it through the road block (can you check ahead of time?) and was able to spend sometime on the drive in the park while I also waited for the highway to re-open.

The drive cost $3 per person (good for 7 days) and is a 8-mile loop that takes you into and through the pasty dunes. There are many places to stop and picnic and you may want to make sure there is some cardboard in your car that you can use to slide down a hot sand dune.

The White Gypsum that the dunes are made of is very unique. Gypsum is usually water soluable and so it doesn't generaly form dune, but because the valley contains the gypsum, and the water sits, the gypsum does not dissolve. Also, only the top few inches of the gypsum dunes are made of loose sand. Rainwater falling on the dunes dissolves some of the gypsum and cements the sand grains together, creating a crude form of plaster of Paris. This makes the white sand dunes easy to walk on.

Amazing transformation as you begin your drive the desert you are already in is pretty desolate and tan, but then it gets even more desolate and bright white from the sandy gypsum

Plant
animals
history
nearby attractions

Arches National Park & Moab, UT

This is quite a neat little town out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by beautiful scenery. It's a mecca for mountain bikers. If you go, DO NOT miss a visit to Arches National Park. It's gorgeous. Also, bring a convertible so you can really look at all the scenery as you drive up to the arches.

Pinnacles National Monument

This weekend, I went somewhere I have wanted to go for a very long time. Pinnacles National Monument is probably best known as a rock climbers paradise, but it is also home of very interesting rock formations, and the recently re-introduced to the wild California Condor.

I've been trying to plan a trip here for a number of years, and It just has always fallen through. So when I saw a photography group on http://www.meetup.com was making a trip out there I decided to go.

Darla was into the trip as well, so we planned to drive there together eliminating the need to wake up at the crack of dawn to arrive with the group. We ended up on the opposite side of the park from where the group was meeting anyway(you can't drive through the park, you have to drive around it).

When we got to the ranger station, we got some good tips on where to go to view the condors, and also a warning on the strenuousness of the hike (with an overly concerned look on the rnagers face, like we looked like we might have heart attacks or something on the trail).

It is a strenous hike, but it's not that bad...we took it slow and stopped to take a lot of photos. The hike up was in full sun and was suprisingly hot for the middle of winter on a cloudy day with spotty sun. Around 2 or 3 p.m. we started spotting a lot of turkey vultures. Darla had her binoculars with her otherwise we never would have been able to tell the difference, as turkey vultures are similar is appearance to California Condors from far away.

It's a beautiful hike even if you are not into condors or climbing, but there are some rock-climing like areas where they have carved out steps in the rocks, and installed handrails.

we took a long rest at the top of the ridge, and I spotted a nest, it turned out to be a turkey vulture nest, but it was really cool to see it(hint look for bird poop running down the rocks, it indicated a place they hang out a lot).

We got about 3/4 through the trail and were feeling a little down since it wasn't looking like we'd see a condor that day, when Darla looked at what I was sure were more turkey vultures, when she said "these are different." then she said "they're condors!" and practically ripped herbinoculars off to hand them to me since the birds were flying behind a large rock formation. I caught a good look at a condor and then handed them back to her so she could look a tht elast of the three before it flew behind the rock formation and so I could get a photo. Unfortunatly, the battery in my camera decided to die at that moment when I turned the camera on.

Oh well, no photo, but it was really cool to see the condor!