Trip reports, national park guides, and van life stories from the open road.
18 posts
by sprintermom|Oct 19, 2025
Wupatki National Monument preserves 2,700+ ancestral Puebloan sites — including a natural blowhole that may have drawn ancient people here 900 years ago. Here's our adventure through the national parks of Sedona and northern Arizona.
by sprintermom|Aug 31, 2025
Jewel Cave is the third-longest cave in the world with 200+ miles of passageways — and less than 5% mapped. Here's our family journey through South Dakota's caves, monuments, and the sacred Black Hills of the Lakota.
by sprintermom|May 31, 2025
Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the U.S. and the only place alligators and crocodiles coexist. Here's our springtime Junior Ranger run through Florida's spectacular national parks.
by sprintermom|Aug 31, 2024
Indiana Dunes National Park is one of the most biodiverse parks in the system — glacial dunes up to 200 feet tall on Lake Michigan, 50 miles from Chicago. Here's our Junior Ranger run through the Great Lakes Four Sisters.
by sprintermom|Jul 31, 2024
Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area — holding 10% of Earth's surface fresh water. Here's our Junior Ranger adventure through the national parks of the Great Lakes Upper Midwest.
by sprintermom|Jun 30, 2024
John Day Fossil Beds preserves 50 million years of Earth's evolutionary story in Oregon's volcanic rock. Here's our journey from ancient fossils to fiery peaks across the Cascade Range.
by sprintermom|Mar 12, 2023
Yosemite was the first land the U.S. government set aside for public use in 1864 — home to El Capitan, the world's largest granite monolith. Here's our family comparison of Zion and Yosemite, the two grand rock giants of the West.
by sprintermom|Oct 23, 2022
Lassen Volcanic National Park is one of the only places on Earth where all four volcano types exist in one landscape. Here's why Northern California's national parks are the true enchanted forests of the American West.
by sprintermom|Jun 24, 2022
The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, one mile deep, and exposes nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history. Here's our family's journey through the Southwest's most spectacular natural wonders.
by sprintermom|May 24, 2022
Mesa Verde National Park protects 4,000+ Ancestral Puebloan sites including Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America. Here's our family journey through the Southwest's most remarkable historic ruins.
by sprintermom|Mar 31, 2022
We love our National Parks so much we fused our two favorite things into works of art: education and adventure. Our National Park Junior Ranger Adventure NFTs bring the best of both. Collect the Educa...
by sprintermom|Dec 1, 2021
After visiting 10 National Parks in 2019 and collecting Junior Ranger badges at each one, we have set some future real adventure goals. As there are hundreds of Junior Ranger programs in the National ...
by sprintermom|Mar 29, 2021
Bend, Oregon is great, be a tourist here. This post is all about how we lived the locals' life for a ski season, and our takeaways. Completely piggybacking the popular bumper sticker Bend Sucks, Don't...
by sprintermom|Aug 24, 2020
Olympic National Park protects the largest temperate rainforest in the contiguous U.S., where 12+ feet of annual rain creates ancient moss-draped forests found nowhere else in America. Here's the full magic of the Pacific Northwest.
by sprintermom|Aug 24, 2019
Pipestone National Monument is the only place in the U.S. where catlinite — the sacred red stone of Indigenous ceremonial pipes — is still quarried, a right reserved exclusively for Native people. Here's our journey through the Upper Midwest's living legends.
by sprintermom|Jul 14, 2019
Yellowstone is the world's first national park and sits atop one of Earth's largest active volcanoes, with more hydrothermal features than anywhere else on the planet. We found it by accident via Beartooth Pass — here's what happened.
by sprintermom|Jun 7, 2019
If every corner of the world is creating their own dream, then the dream of Ashland nestled in the Rogue Valley, is a pretty lovely one. Ashland is a peaceful town filled with nourishing food and gath...
by sprintermom|Apr 24, 2019
In November 2017 we rented an RV from Cruise America, and it was this experience that culminated into Van Life and beyond. Magic land at Emigrant Lake How the Van Life Adventure Began At the time, we ...
