Welcome to Big Blend Radio's Parks and Travel podcast covering parks, public lands and historic landmarks across America and around the world. So in celebration of our National Park Service, being established August 25th, 1916, we have some epic guests joining us today. You know them all from Big Blend Radio and also a lot of them are travel writers. We have a musician, we've got photographers, but one thing in common is we all love our national parks. So we're having a little chit-chat today talking about some of our favorite places that are all managed and run by the National Park Service. One thing I always want to say is that there are different kinds of parks within the National Park Service. So you can have like a national scenic trail, a national seashore, a national monument, a national heritage area, all kinds of historical parks, battlefields. So today you know in this whole show showcases all the different kinds of parks that you can find. There are over 400 parks within the National Park Service. They also help to overlook or manage overseas, I should say, not overlook, oversee historic homes and historic landmarks as well. Some of our parks are national, our world biospheres and UNESCO world heritage sites. There's just so much to it and they are really important in our lives. And the National Park Service started in America and then also helped other countries take a look and say, "Oh, we need to do this too." And they did. And you'll hear more of that on the show today. So let's bring some of our friends on the show. I'm going to start with Johnny. Oh, he is brave. He's got the rest of the guests are all women, but Johnny Shafer is based out of Pasadena in Southern California, but raised in Porterville, which is the gateway to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, as well as Giant Sequoia National Monument and Sequoia National Forest, which kind of interweave themselves in between the two national parks. So I encourage you to go to Johnny's website. He's an incredible singer. He's an incredible composer. Go to here Johnny.com and you can hear him on Big Blend Radio every first Sunday on our Big Daily Blend show. So welcome back, Johnny. How are you? I'm doing great. Lisa, I'm very excited to talk about national parks. I love my dad instilled in me a love for the national parks and just be outdoors in general. He was a real outdoors guy and loved the fish and swim and hike and all that. And growing up in Porterville, as you said, it was great. We went up to the Sequoia constantly all year-round. And when I was five, I actually wrote a letter just looking to bear. And he wrote back and sent me a book in a junior ranger badge. And I was really excited about that. I've always loved the junior ranger program is excellent in national parks. And Priscilla, our pink sock monkey, is our travel mascot on our Levier Parks tour has many badges. We even have videos of her being sworn in as a junior ranger. But as adults, I think we should all become junior rangers and they allow it because it gives you this really interesting way of looking at the parks and experiencing them, puzzles, little fun facts that we all like to have at cocktail parties. So anyway, I encourage us all to become junior rangers and also be stewards of our land. But yeah, Johnny, you were raised in like the most incredible backyard with those giant sequoia trees. We do a show covering a Sequoia country. Every first Thursday, we work with the National Park Service over there and the Sequoia Tourism Council. And it's so cool to hear. We've been covering that region for years and there's always something new to learn about the parks. Last episode, Johnny, we found out that you don't need to actually tarp your cars at Mineral King like you used to. Did you know that about tarping your car in Mineral King because the marmets will eat your car wires and things? Yeah, when I was young, my dad did that a couple of times. He didn't usually, but there were a couple of times. Well, apparently, when the baby marmets are out, which they are right now, you don't have to. Scientists have discovered that. So I have no idea what's going on. But yeah, but baby marmets are out and that's exciting. So let's go from California over to South Carolina. And we're going to end up in California again. We're going to go to Joe Clark and I know that she loves National Park. She's talked about a number of them on shows, even Gettysburg, which has some of her family history. Joe is a travel writer and photographer. You may know her for Have Glass Will Travel. That's her website, Have Glass Will Travel.com is her site. But she also has a podcast here with us. Joe goes everywhere because she does. It is every second Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern time. So welcome back, Joe. How are you? I'm doing great. Now that the tropical storm slash hurricane has finally left my area. That's good. Yeah. Seven, seven days of rain was enough. Yeah, I would say. Oh, do we sound much better? You have a whole thing again? I do. I do. I didn't do camp. I was going to say campground karaoke, car karaoke at full blast. But I felt like it because we drove across the panhandle of Texas during a heat wave. And that was fun. Ish. Anyway, just saying, but you know, it's interesting. Your last podcast that aired, you know, is this airs on the 25th of the actual park service birthday, which we all means we get to have cake, right? I just want to say, Joe, the last podcast you did is on Natasha Pan National Park, which is out in Namibia in southern Africa, southwest Africa. So that is a spotlight on just how far our national park service has traveled, right? It wouldn't think about it, Tasha. Yeah. It's six different animals, but you know, it's still a long drive. Hmm. You know, it's funny because I think we're going to be talking about your state today, but you're not the one talking about it yet. Well, this is my state. I was born there. I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Oh, so I'm sure we're going to hear about that. And she's got some moonshine in her history, right? To share. Oh, that's the wrong show. Sorry. But I can look it up in the line. I'm telling you, Mammoth Cave and a lot of these park sites have some history of moonshiners, rum runners, you name it. There is some fascinating human history in our parks. Right now, today as we record this, we are outside Hot Springs National Park. And you're going to hear about Hot Springs on the show today. But I will tell you, it has the only brewery within a national park. And it's in a bath house. And it is delicious beer, and it is made from the thermal waters of the Hot Springs of what is Hot Springs National Park. So that is fun. So you could get moonshine. I don't know about moonshine in parks yet. I haven't discovered it, but we're going to go to Pennsylvania now to chat with another travel writer and photographer Rose Palmer. She loves nature. Just like everybody on the show today, you can follow her on her site quilttripping.com. And she just came back from an awesome park experience. But you know what Rose likes to do? She likes to float like literally. She wants to do slow boat rides around the world. And that's what she does. The last time she was on the show, she talked about her slow cruise on a small she likes small ships cruising Japan. But I think you've seen a lot of national parks around the world through these small cruises, right Rose? And welcome back. Well, thank you. Yes, I've seen a lot of parks around the world. And actually, my travel bug and my travels did start with visiting the national parks in the U.S. When we were first married, my husband and I are, even before we were married, some of the first trips we took were down to the Smoky Mountains. And then when the kids were a little bit older, those were our family vacations. Once a year, just before school started, we would head out to one of the national parks with them for our vacation. So I got my itch for travel satisfied with the U.S. national parks. And like a lot of people, one of my life goals is to eventually try and get to all of our, well, the 63 major national parks. And then as many of all the other 400 plus as I can when I'm in the area. Well, you're in Pennsylvania and you have some wonderful park units there and Gettysburg being one of the most iconic, but a lot of battlefields which yes are sobering, really sobering. But you've got some presidential history. You've got Benjamin Franklin history. You've got a lot of historic sites in Pennsylvania. But what's interesting that they're all in this, you know, beautiful, pastoral setting. Pennsylvania is a spectacular state to explore. It's very diverse. You've got forests, you've got lakes. You've got breweries. In fact, a friend of ours been on the show, Tomat Moonshine. His family owns the oldest brewery in Pennsylvania. I don't know why this show is going this way. I think it's Joe's fault. But I'm always blind. Yeah, but you've got, is it the Allegheny forest? I know that's not necessary in National Park, but am I pronouncing it right? Yes, Allegheny forest. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful state. I love, I love your state. I really do. And also you have gorgeous botanical gardens. That's another thing. Anyway, let's go to Florida, which is where our tour and Nancy and I love your parks tour started in a, in a visit to Everglades National Park. And so many reasons of why this was a park that we started with on the tour, even though we didn't know we were going to start the tour, but we kind of deep down both knew what was going to happen. Went to Everglades. We did this epic road trip from Tucson to the Everglades and back. Saw a lot of things that made us really realize we need to do it and also share light on the National Parks, but also the issues they face, the environmental issues, the lack of funding issues, a lot of issues, right? But Florida has some epic parks and that's where Kathleen Wallace is based out of North Central Florida, beautiful area. I know you're not going to talk about that, but Katie is an author. She's written a number of nonfiction and fiction books. She's got her novels, but a lot of her nonfiction are real travel guides that will help you through the state of Florida and other places. You can go to americanroads.net to keep up with her travel writing and also katwalls.com. That's K-A-T-Y for katwalls.com for her books. But welcome back, Katie. How are you? I'm doing fine and you all are renovating. When Johnny mentioned about bears, that's the first thing I thought in my life, I've only seen three bears in the wild, and two of them were in National Parks. One of them was here in Florida, Kallen National Park, National Forest actually. I was driving and he crossed the street right in front of me and I didn't have time to get my camera out and didn't get a picture of him, but the other one I got a picture of him was in Cadescope, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Love Cadescope. We're driving around today if we stop and we're walking. Of course, when they have a bear run, everybody stops and we get out. I had my old camera and you had to turn it off each time. You shoot and have to turn it back on. It's just a really old one of us first starting off. This bear is just browsing around eating acorns and I'm snapping and having to turn it off. When I turned it on one time, the fliers came back on with it and it flashed right in his face and he just reached up and walked at me. He didn't get me, but he kind of said, "Well, we've got to get a new camera here." Well, yeah, you're not supposed to get close to him. Well, this was Cadescope. Cadescope. Cadescope, yeah, you actually... You just can't resist it. I wasn't that close to him and everybody else was too. There were people with little babies and of course there was a bomb wire fence between that had once been ranched and you know, he couldn't have crossed it very easily, but it was... I got a picture. It was beautiful. Yeah, we've been to Cadescope. It was the first area we went to in Smokey Mountain's National Park and our friend Steven Karen, also on the show today a little bit later, they're based out of Asheville, North Carolina and they run the line on the Rosebud and breakfast and we were coming up to see them. I think we were driving from Florida, one of our favorite national wildlife refuges, we were at Merritt Island. Oh my god, yes. And we drove up. Actually, that trip we were driving from Tincanic, Pennsylvania, Rose, and we went... Don't ask me how our driving schedules or itineraries are made up, but I'm going to blame Priscilla, our sock monkey, but we went from Tincanic to Merritt Island to Smokey Mountain National Park. It was quite a beautiful drive. We saw manatees, we saw all kinds of wonderful... And we went to Cape Canaveral National Seashore, which has a nudie beach, by the way. I think it's the only national park unit that has a nudie beach for one of the ones that... It's not legally... It's just unofficial nudie beach. It's a nudie beach and I couldn't believe it, right? So we've got breweries, we've got nudist colonies. Now, anyway, so our parks are very good right now. And it's got the largest club jays, excuse me interrupting, but I get excited about them. I know there are, but Cadescoves of where we saw Elk. It was in the fall season and they were running mode and it is just, to me, that nature and history put together in one park, which is often what you find is incredible. Well, okay, we're going to bring on our next guest Elaine Masters, who has done a ton of national park travel across the country and around the world. She's an incredible travel writer, photographer, author, videographer. You can go to her website tripwellgal.com and she's been doing a ton of travel this year. I think we're just lucky to even have her back on the show, but how are you Elaine? I'm doing so well. Thank you so much for having me and I love that introduction. I appreciate it. Elaine, you are in San Diego area and that's where one of our first... When we first decided to do our love your parks to it started with this Everglades part, but we couldn't officially say it was part of our tour yet until we made announcements and really figured out what we're doing and we're still figuring that out. But of course, we were in Saguaro National Park and then Cabrio National Monument was our first like, okay, we're outside of our area even though we started the magazine in San Diego. Cabrio National Monument, which I think is another one of those parks where you really have the human history and natural history and the natural beauty and still modern times because you can see the Bay of San Diego, like you can see what's going on. So it's this amalgamation of quality of life, but so much history there. It's beautiful out there though in that lighthouse. Ooh, see maritime history. So you've got one of my favorite places to go hiking in San Diego when the weather allows. It could be a little stormy out there. On the other side of that pinnacle, that end of the peninsula where the national monument is, the state park continues down to this amazing tide pool area. And when you come back, we'll have to take you there. Yeah, and you want to go that isn't the tide pools are more like fall and early winter and that's also when you get to see the whales. So like we're coming up to that season, right? To go. Sounds good. Yes. Yes. I'm into tide pools. I love them. I love them. But your national parks journey, did that start with your road tripping when you were a kid? Absolutely. And then about six or seven years ago, my son-in-law needed to travel, get his car back across the United States to Philadelphia. And we took a three-week trip. Four of us, my husband and I, and then the son-in-law and daughter-in-law. And they wanted to hit every national park that they could in three weeks. Cool. So we had a lot of them. But that was wonderful. I mean, you know, it's barely a blip. You'd go for a hike and then okay, on to the next. But I had a chance more recently, this year, you mentioned my traveling to go to Samoa, American Samoa, where my partner wanted to see a friend of his who was celebrating his 80th birthday and had moved back to his home country. And that's where the national park is. I haven't realized it's one of the most remote in the country. Yeah, that has got to be epic to do. Very few people get there. We do have a lot of national park units, like in the Virgin Islands, in Guam, America, Samoa. You know, there's these outside areas, which were all military installations at a time, right? So these are still, is it still part military when you go there? American Samoa is not. It was adopted by the United States in an agreement after World War II and basically for its large port. It was important to the, I guess, to the Navy. So maybe that would be it. But it's also an incredible fishing processing area. So the tuna boats come in there and then cruise ships now. Oh, so it's getting commercial, basically, like in that region. Does the park kind of protect the, I mean, we need the parks when you have those things going on. I'm not saying they shouldn't happen, but I'm just saying we need these buffers for the natural world. You know, I agree with that for most places, but American Samoa is very unique. There is Samoa, which is very touristy and westernized and has a lot to offer along those lines. But American Samoa has held on to its community-based personality, I would say. And if you don't know someone who lives there, it's very hard to really partake of their culture. So there's not a lot of actually external things for tourists to do other than to do it on your own. There's only a few hotels and you rent a car, unless you're coming in by cruise ship, you can go to a couple of the little museums, the National Park Service office, you can get your National Park passport stamp, but that's about 10 or 15 minute walk, but you have to rent a car and get up the mountain and over it to experience National Park. Wow. And so with that, it's interesting about it, because everything I've read is like, it's almost like Puerto Rico in a way where it's part of our country, but not. And then some want to be part, some don't. So it's very complicated, complex, and unless you're really immersed in the society there and culture, you really, we're not allowed to have opinions. I don't know. It's kind of like trying to get into African politics, don't. You know what I mean? So it's kind of, it's interesting because I think they're at an interesting place of what they want to do in life, you know? Yeah. They just respect it when you go. They're really holding on to their national cultural heritage. And even though they're very westernized, I met many Samoans coming from, we went from the United States to Hawaii to Samoa, and there are many Samoans going from Hawaii, where they've been shopping at the malls and things that you don't have on American Samoa. And they were bringing back a lot of items for their homes. It's very family-based. It's wonderful. What was the park life? Did you, you know, get to hike? Did you get to go? I know you love to dive and snorkel and things like that, so did you get to do any of those activities? The National Park, there's a gate and it's open every day of the year, except when it's storming, and they do have big storms there. We were warned about that road, but we had a truck and you can get into the park through the main gate and then travel down towards the beach. And it's one of the the widest and easiest snorkeling areas. A lot of the beaches there, access is private, or they're very rocky. So this beach is wonderful. And since we're so focused as divers, first of all, but then just get us in the water anytime we can, and we were traveling with our own snorkel gear, we were snorkeling as much as we could while we were on the island and had a chance to see some amazing wildlife. Did not see the whales while we were there, but swam with sea turtles many times and sub-giant clams. And one thing I never got bored with watching in the week I was there were the fruit bats that were hanging in the tree. Yeah, they were very cool and they're very big. And they're again into their little communities and the locals kind of just shake their heads at them because they go for all their fruits. So it's a battle to get their ripe fruit and vegetables before the bats do sometimes. Yeah, that's amazing. When you think about it, you know, this this remote experience, but you're taking your diving gear with you. I'm trying to imagine you lugging this around the you know, the countryside, you know, on a plane. She's like, you know, she's got diving gear on a plane. It's better than snakes. I would like to say I have a caveat on that. I only brought my my short fins and my my snorkel mask and what else. Yeah, with the with the you know, the hose on it because I knew we were going to be doing a lot of snorkeling when we could. We rented gear when we were going diving. We did not dive on on America Samoa or Samoa. We went diving in Fiji later on that trip. I'm really sorry for you. Yeah, I know. I'm so fortunate. I got to tell you, I live in gratitude. Oh, you know, I know, but it's it's amazing. And you know, we live once and I think our parks, these are just so iconic and sometimes like, you know, you could go to a park like the Sequoia's or King's Canyon and we have friends who made a video when they were there in the 70s, you know, back when home videos were starting, you know, when you could, right? And they digitize it and they we've just done the Sequoia's which were our next park right after Cabrillo was Sequoia, King's Canyon, then Mount Rainier. And I know Johnny is going to be talking about some of these parks today. And, you know, we watched that video and it was right when we came back and we can compare footage. And yes, there was some change. There is some pollution. And it was actually one of the first national parks that showcased what they're trying to do to mitigate pollution and what we can do as humans and talked about climate change, which I thought was brilliant. And the National Park Service does not get political. They are just stating facts scientifically and historically the facts that they have on hand to give to you without being biased, which is fantastic. And what was interesting about their home video and what footage we had was the parks, the same places look the same, you know, it was that's how much this protection works, you know, about these areas. And, you know, it's like every time we go to Sequoia National Park, we go to one place. It is this beautiful meadow, crescent meadow historic. There was, oh, I can't remember his hail. Oh, my gosh, Johnny, maybe you remember. Tharp, Tharp is his name Tharp that lived in the trunk, the tree trunk. During the summer, he before it was a park, he used to hurt his cattle up in this meadow, but he lived inside of Sequoia tree trunk that would fallen down from lightning that was hollowed out. So it's beautiful to go hiking around this area. And every time we'd go there, we'd see a mama and baby deer. We'd saw a mama bear and cubs to Katie just for you. We see a lot of bear up there, but every time we go and we realized this is the deer spot and talking to a park ranger friend, just talking about these deer that this is their territory. They don't go out. I don't, I think it's like two miles or something that could be wrong, but they don't. This is their habitat. If you take it away, you've now killed this entire deer family. They do not know where to go because of their honing devices in their body, basically. They have a magnet that says here, this is your home. Birds do it when they migrate. They know where they're going. And that's, it's in their body to do so. Same as whales. And as we do things, as humans, we are messing with their zones or their, their thing, you know, it's kind of interesting. It's just like we want to go to places where our ancestors are. We've got it that thing in us too, to go to those places. So it's interesting about that and what you're saying about, you know, just like, yeah, you got to do that. Johnny, it is Tharp, isn't it? Hail Tharp? Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I, yeah, that sounds familiar because I think there's actually like a park named after him, right? I know when we went up there, there was a, this could be a different person, but there was a, a red one that's alive at the bottom of it. It was, you know, like maybe like a 10 square foot hollowed out room that somebody lived in. And I don't know if that was him or somebody else, but that's, I think that is him. No, no, I think, no, yeah, yeah, if it's still alive, then that I think is in um, Balch Park, in Sequoia. Yeah, in Balch is right above Porterville with the the tea ponds and yeah, I think it's the armstrong tree. I think it is that you're talking about, I'll send it to you. It's kind of cool. You feel like it could be a goblin living in there. I, I want to go to Rose because, and, and before we do that, anybody have any questions or comments? Have you, have you been anybody on the show other than Elaine, been to America some, or have any questions or comments about it for Elaine? So I was there last fall on one of the cruise ships we had that was on this stop. And I, I cheated. Well, I think I, I felt like I cheated because I only got as far as the visitor center, but I did get my stamp and I did get my patch and I did read everything in the visitor center. So I kind of think that sort of counts, but um, we didn't, I didn't have enough time, you know, the day wasn't long enough. I had to decide what I wanted to do in terms of excursions and um, going, you know, it was either the cultural excursion to get an experience of, of their family life, or doing, going in the opposite direction and going into the park itself. And I chose the cultural excursion. So I could get a little bit of both. Well, you like the history, Rose. We know that I do. She likes the history. So Rose, Isle Royale, that is someplace you just came back from and she floated. Well, I tried to get to Isle Royale while we were up there because it wasn't that far. But this, we planned this trip last minute. And when I went to try and get ferry tickets to get to Isle Royale, it was fully booked. And what I found out once we were up in that area, you need to book those tickets very far in advance almost at the beginning of the year when they become available. And especially if you want to stay at the lodge on Isle Royale, um, what they told me was that, you know, those rooms become available midnight on, you know, January 1st. And by 15 minutes after midnight, they could all be gone already because it's, the season is short. There's only the one hotel up there with very limited rooms. So it's something that you really need to plan for in advance. So unfortunately, I was not able to get to Isle Royale, which means I'm going to have to go back to that area and plan a little bit further ahead. Well, we do have an article for you and interview from Travel Rider Debbie Stone. I think some of you may know her from the International Food One Travel Riders Association as well. And she went there this year and had an amazing time and talked about like, you are so lucky to get there. She went in by seaplane. And I think that's cool. Whenever you get to take a seaplane in, this is, this is pretty magic and adventurous. But she does say bring your bug spray. Bring your bug spray in there. You know, that's the place with the moose and like the moose, like the moose, bone yard and everything. I want to go there. I really do. And I don't know if I'll go camping because I'm not sure if I want to be chowed that much. But you know, but tell us about, you know, your adventures at Voyagers because I think that's also kind of a remote park. It's not on the beaten path of National Park travel for sure. No, no, it's not. It's, it's, you know, at this point on my to-do list of visiting National Parks, I've gotten all the major ones and the easy ones that to get to out of the way. And so now I'm left with the ones that are one-offs that are that we are going to require some effort and some planning to get to. And Voyagers is definitely one of those. Though I have to say it wasn't hard to get to. It was a very short flight to Minneapolis. And a fairly inexpensive airline ticket to fly into Minneapolis from Philadelphia. And then it was a four and a half hour drive to Voyagers, to the southern end of Voyagers National Park. We actually drew through Duluth first and up along Lake Superior and spent a few days at Lake Superior and visited the Grand Portage National Monument, which was also interesting. And then from there we drove to Voyagers National Park. But it is, it's on the border of the US and Canada. It protects a series of lakes that were used by the French Canadians to transport goods from the wilderness in that area. And then eventually out to the town of Grand Portage and then from there traders would take it and transport it all over the world. And what we had read is that actually some of these beaver pelts made it as far as Russia for their fur coats and their fur hats. So these little beavers on the border of Canada and the US eventually ended up halfway around the world. But it's a park that protects all these waterways in the lakes on the border between the US and Canada. And it's not like a lot of the US parks where there's a lot of hiking. If you want to do any kind of experience in the park you need a boat. And that's what we did. As you introduced me, I float in my boat when I can. Usually I'm floating by myself because my husband gets very C6 so he doesn't grow on most of the cruises with me. But we did, this one was fine. We rented a houseboat on the southernmost lake, which is called Crane Lake, which is actually not within the boundaries of the national park. It's just on the border of it. And so it has some of these commercial facilities there. And we rented a smallish houseboat. It was just fine for the two of us. It was a 42 footer or 44 footer. And then from Crane Lake there's, you know, there's channels that connect all these lakes. And from there we went into the park itself. And this was our first time renting a houseboat. So we've, you know, we've never, we're not boat people in terms of having our own boats or having driven boats for, you know, very much for our, during our vacations. We've done some pontoon boats, but for a day trip kind of thing. But this was the first extended trip for us on any kind of a boat. And I have to tell you, it really wasn't surprisingly easy. It drove pretty much like a car, except that you couldn't go very fast, the highest. You know, the most you could cover was about eight miles a day. So you're toodling along slowly, getting to see the scenery. And I like that. Yeah. And they give you maps. And the maps show you where the different campsites are. The hardest part was the visual correlation between the two-dimensional map and then the actual scenery itself. So on the map, you see an island, you're on the water in the middle of the lake. And these lakes are pretty big. And you see a piece of land, and it's not clear, okay, is this the island or is this the mainland? So that was, you know, that was, that was maybe the hardest part. Fortunately, eventually we figured out that our GPS actually worked, even though we didn't really have much of a signal. And it was doing a fairly good job on Google Maps kind of showing us where we were. So that helped us to figure out where we were on the lake and, you know, where that we could go to the campsites. And the campsites, there's developed and undeveloped campsites. They're all marked on the map. We stayed at the developed ones, which meant that it, you know, it had a nice kind of a beachy, little beachy area. So we could beach the boat and then tie it off. And there was, they all had fire rings. And we had purchased firewood at the, you know, at the lodge before we left. And we purchased groceries at the grocery store before we left. And we rented the bedding from them. So it was like camping, but on a boat, kind of like, I always felt like I was a turtle because I had the house on my back kind of thing. And it was just, it was, I have to tell you, you know, I've traveled all over the world and had some fantastic experiences. But this was probably the most relaxing trip that my husband and I have ever taken. Because once we left, once we left the lodge and the marina, it was just us, you know, we would see some other houseboats. But again, the lakes are big. You know, you might see some fishermen, you might see some, some speedboats or motorboats or whatever. But then we'd get into our little bay. And most of these campsites were sort of situated at the end of a little cove or a little bay or a little idlet. And we'd be in our little protected little corner with our boat and our firing and, and bring our chairs out and, you know, have a fire and do some wars and, and cook our dinner and just it was, you know, being in the middle of the wilderness without having to do all that really hard backpacking and carrying 40 pounds on your back and eating a lot better and sleeping a lot better and having a flush toilet in a shower. So it was, it was extremely comfortable. Yes, there were bugs there. But you know, we just used a lot of bug spray and bug lotion. And yeah, and we went swimming in the lake. It wasn't too cold. It was, it was a little refreshing, but it wasn't too bad. My husband went fishing. He's gotten into fly fishing in the last couple of years. And you're required by, I guess, by either the park service or the state law, I'm not sure, but you're required to have a motorboat along with the houseboat. So if there's any kind of an emergency, you have a way to, you know, to go get help, right? The war of 1812 happens again. You know what to do. You were in that country, like when you think about it, that area, right? It was the war of 1812 happened out there. And I always, I'm fascinated by that war. But anyway, it's, well, I mean, it's, it's interesting because you think about when you're in places like that, what did soldiers do out in the middle of lakes and these areas yet, you're floating around in comfort, you know? It's like, here, I'll have another sangria, but the people that were battling out there at that time, but I wanted to ask if anybody on the show here has been to Isle Royale, and excuse me, voyagers, I am so like twirled around on this, voyagers. Has anybody been there or have any questions for Rose? Wow, you got guys are hitting these these off the beaten path parks for sure, which I think is exciting. But you know, Katie, you went into Joe's neck of the woods. You went to South Carolina. Yeah, you, you went swamp, you like the swamps. We know I grew up in New Orleans, I'm a swamp person. But it is, thinking about it, it is so served, it is pristine. And I loved looking for wildlife, of course. And that was one of the neatest things in there. The first thing was, I want everyone to know where you were. You were at South Carolina. Kind of, kind of Cree National Park in South Carolina. It's only 17 or 18 miles from Columbia. And it's the only, only National Park in South Carolina. And how it even came to be, it was named National Park in 1979. The, you know, the Native Americans, when they were there, they revered it, they built miles and everything in the swamp. And then, of course, we came along and it was all about the money, money, money. And by the time people began to realize it was getting the cypress trees were being cut. And cypress trees, I mean, you know, everybody thought about it growing up in the south, but you're only finding them from, say, Mississippi, Louisiana, or into the southeast. And they're such beautiful trees, but the cypress knees, unless you've got to cut grass around them, then they're paid in the butt. But the cypress knees coming up out of the ground. And this is a huge cypress area in here. The canopy is the highest, I think the highest in the country with 100 foot canopy of the trees. And of course, we saw the birds were the biggest wildlife, because it was really high. It was for the last month. So it was hot. And the first one we saw was his barn owl. And he was not going between trees. And finally, he stopped him one tree long enough. And I was able to get a good photo of him, but these are pretty little birds. They just sit there and look at you like, what are you doing in my territory? And then the other big field was two highlighted woodpeckers. And I've seen highlighted woodpeckers, you know, just individual, but this was a pear. And they were pecking away on this tree. And I got a pamphlet, decent picture of them. And then there was a spider, which usually I'm not real enthused about spiders, but this guy was about six, seven inches. It is an exotic species. And it's a golden silk orb weavers, what they're called. They're reds and yellow. And this really is great big giant webs. And the one I got the picture of had this other little spot. I don't know if it was one of his babies or if it was one of his prey, but they eat bones and insects. And they're in gardens. We took care of a farm in North Carolina. And I'd go out there and, you know, I'd be picking things and they'd be right there. And I'd go, Hi, how are you today? You know, first I was freaked out, but then I got to just you have to blend in and communicate. And but Hungary, you know, the cypress needs and everything like Louisiana, I remember, the negative thing that people would paint the cypress needs into Santa Claus's little father Christmas, you know, because they have like natural beards if you paint it, right? You know, they get so big, the cypress tree. The same thing is, there's so many of them will cut down if it parts of Louisiana. And I go obviously here to all we get way out into the small and where they're growing. Every now and then you see this big giant stump left, which for some reason, you know, the log is cutting. But at one time, one of the stories that I heard, this was in Louisiana, but I guess it applied everywhere with the cypress. Ford Motor was using moss to stuff the seats and things back in the early days. Oh, wow. And they would have the people sending the moss in cypress boxes. And they told exactly how they wanted the boxes built, because then they paid for the moss, the marks was just shipping. And then they turned around and used the cypress for the dashboards and the old cars and things. Wow. Wow. That's it. Kitty, do you know, because I've been through there was some swamp. And they said it was like a Tupelo honey and you could smell it. It was like, I'm Johnny, you're going to know this from Porterville with the oranges are in bloom. And all the citrus is in bloom. There's this just fragrant. Oh, yeah. It is. Oh, magic. That smell of citrus in bloom is just heavenly. And it was like that. Is that a Tupelo honey cypress? Do you know that that? I was in Alabama when I smelled it. The orange possum smell. Back in the mouth, ate up Orlando when used to drive into Orlando. There was nothing but orange possum orange groves there. And you could smell it. And just when they were blooming in the spring and they'd be beautiful. And I mean, you could just even if you call windows for clothes, you'd still smell like beautiful smell. But that was a cypress that I said, I was in a national wildlife refuge. I think it was in Alabama. And you know, and they said, Oh, something about a Tupelo honey. And there's, you know, obviously the song too. But I was like, Oh my gosh, because it smells like honey. And the citrus blossoms have that almost honey smell, you know, because we make honey out of it too. Right. The bees do anyway. So I was wondering if you've had that experience with all your swampy. I have not noticed it in the swamps. Like I said, the place I've done, I would notice as most was in South or, you know, what to Florida. But when Disney came along, you would see it. Not so much anymore, because you don't really see many, I mean, I'm sorry, many orange girls left there now. So Congry. Nancy and I went there as beautiful. Nancy and I went there last year, but we were at like closing time. And because we were on, we were just like, we need to just go at least. And I got to go part way on the boardwalk. So I was pulling a rose there and get, get, I can't really, but I can't really say, because we didn't even get time to get in the visitor center too much. So can you visit us today? Is it all the boardwalk or are there hikes? They're all the trails. We did the boardwalk because it's so red. I mean, it's swamp ground. Actually, technically, I don't believe it's called swamp. It's really, they call it swamp, but I think it's like bottom land. And it's, um, the, when you come into the visitor center, if you have time to go through that, they have a lot of exhibits. And one of the exhibits sort of tells you a little bit about how it got to be preserved. This man, Harry Hammond, he was an outdoor husband and he saw the park being, all the stipes being cut down. And it bothered him and he started a movement trying to, you know, to get it made into checked lines. And it took actually, it didn't happen until about four years before he died. And other people had gotten on the board with him and fought for it. And right about four years before he died, President Ford named it, I think it was in '79, they called the national swamp then. And then later on, it got upgraded to the national park. Oh, okay. I want to go back. Protected. And one of the exhibits in there, there's a big sign up there, table tops or trees. And that, because they were cutting the, you know, they made beautiful coffee tables. And, um, but if they had cut this all down, you know, and it's a piece of land that once South Carolina, that part of it lowlands look like, I'm a real over, but if they had, had not stopped the loggers, it would be there. Wow. Wow. I mean, that's kind of the employers. The story of the sequoia trees too, you know, that we were cutting them down. And in one point, the service, park service, we're also actually cutting sequoia trees so that they would have the perfect campsite areas and the perfect places for the cabins. And then they went, Oh, we won't be doing that anymore. They realized, you know, it's just, it's levels of learning and management, right? And so, you know, our park service does a good job of that. And I, have you been to big thicket? Katie, you have been a big ticket, right? No, big ticket out in Texas. No, I have to preserve. I encourage you to go there because it is a lot of cypress and a lot of boardwalks and non boardwalks. It's, it's swampy, snaky, flowery. It's, it's magic, magic, swamp land. It's cool. I want to say, Joe, have you been to Kongery? Since you're in South Carolina? I'm not sure what it is. Joe. Oh my gosh. It's beautiful, Joe. She needs a spanking, a park spanking. Oh my gosh. So staying in the south, Joe, you're going to tell us a little bit about the Blue Ridge Parkway and then because we're talking road trips, which means we get to talk to Johnny next to because he went on a romantic road trip through the National Park. So in the, on the west, but you're going to take us on the south road trip. I am. When people hear the word travel, a lot of times they think of driving somewhere. But when people hear the word national park, they don't think of a highway. So I want to tell you about one of my favorite national parks. It's technically not a park, but it's managed by the National Park Service and has been since 1936 when it was started. And it's dubbed America's favorite drive. And it's also America's longest linear park. Blue Ridge Parkway is 469 miles long through the Appalachian Mountains. It goes from the Shenandoah National Park in Rockfish Gap, Virginia. And you may recognize that name if you watch the Waltons many years ago. But it goes from Rockfish Gap to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So the the Blue Ridge Parkway connects two other national parks. And a fun fact, it is the longest road planned as a single unit in the United States. Wow, I did not know that. I'm just a wealth of information. It must be all that wine. It is. It is. It makes you smarter. People don't know that. But the juice of the great makes you smarter. Right. And there's wiggies on the Blue Ridge Mountain as you've taught us on the Big Glen radio shows and your show that there's wineries to visit. There are. There are lots of wineries, on and off the edge of the Parkway. Two of my favorites are in Virginia. The Parkway has tunnels that have they they tunneled through Rock Mountains. There's only one in Virginia, but North Carolina has 25. So as you're driving down the Parkway, you go through these beautiful little curved arch tunnels and come out the other end to an entirely new mista. And the parkways is going to see because the top part is like a bridge. And when I look at what's going on in California with these the wildlife corridor, the wildlife bridge they're building, I keep going. It's like the tunnels. Yeah, you know, just a giant tunnel, like what they have in the blue. That's what it looks like. You're right. Yeah. The Parkway is also known for for its curves. And the most famous is called Back of the Dragon. And this is a motorcyclist Nirvana. It has 438 curves in 32 miles. Fortunately, the speed on the Parkway is 45 miles an hour, but it does drop to 35 and even 25 in some curvy places. Are you talking about me again? I am. And here you go again. Another tip here. You could drive the entire 469 mile long Parkway in about nine hours. But my question is, why would you know the drive is beautiful. You can see rock churches built by Reverend Childress. You can see waterfalls. There are churches that are filled with frescoes in the Italian painting style. You see birds. You can stop at overlooks that have breathtaking views. You can stay in a caboose and a bed and breakfast. Or you can visit wineries like I do. And you might even see black bears alongside the road. Kathleen. I'm a little bit next time I'm there. I've seen lots and lots of bears. I love photographing bears. And butterflies, because you know, like the North Carolina portion, which we've done a lot of, there's, you know, you're going through the Pisgah National Forest. And like right now, this time of year, you go out. I think it's Stewart's knob. You go out there and there's swallowtails. And I tell people this every time because it's blows my mind. I had a butterfly go over my head and the temperature draw up. And this is in August, end of August. Butterfly went over my head and I heard its wings and it touched my hair. And I just, I was just like, I like literally was going to just cry. I don't, I can't explain all that emotional stuff with it. But it was, I heard the butterfly wings. And that you know, it really happened. Experience. And but the butterflies and blueberries and spring of salamanders, the, we've done the Blue Ridge Parkway in a lot of different seasons and course portions of it during winter get closed because of where it is. But if you get it before they close it, there are giant icicles. Have you seen those icicles? Yes. Yes. I should send you some pictures of that. Oh my god. It's amazing. It is because there's water coming out. The natural water is coming out through the rocks and the crevices all along the far away. One tip I have for you though, if you go in the winter, anybody who's listening, you need to be aware that the temperatures on the mountain are generally five to 10 degrees cooler than wherever you started out in that state. And when ice forms on the road or if there's snow on the ground, they do close portions of the Parkway to vehicle traffic. But if you choose to drive on a closed Parkway, like I accidentally did one year. Well, I was on a side road. I was on one of the dirt side roads and had to cross the Parkway to get to the other part of the dirt road. And there wasn't one. So I had to get back on to the Parkway to get a yes to a winery that I was going to. And when I got there and they found out how I had come in, they said, you do know if you had gotten stuck, the fine would have been $500 and nobody would have come to tow them out. So just so you know, don't drive on the Parkway when it's closed. It's not not high on the list of to-dos for people. It is beautiful, though. It is absolutely magical. I think it's the most visited National Park unit that we have every year since 1946. Has anybody else here on the show been on the Parkway? I have been on it. Yeah. There's also the monument to Teddy Roosevelt. I mean, Franklin Roosevelt for the CCC, the monuments. They are really nice. So beautiful Parkway was built by the CCC. So much of our parks, national and state parks were built by those. And these were young kids who didn't know what they were doing. And these buildings are still standing. The stuff they built in today is crumbling and taking years to air and down and building everyone. My grandfather and my uncle worked for the CCC and worked on the Parkway, something that I stumbled upon in my mother's diary. So that was pretty neat to know. And one of the most photographed spots on the entire Parkway is Mayberry Mill. And that is in Madison, Virginia. And that was built in 1905 to grind corn. And it ran for more than 30 years grinding corn and lumber. And Ed Mayberry was also a blacksmith. So it's pretty cool to know that that that mill ran as an industry in the area for over 30 years. Wow. Wow. Amazing. Our next road trip is California coastline, Pacific Northwest coastline. This is something that people do like you follow, 101 and Highway 1. Have you done that, Elaine? I know you have. So you've done it, haven't you? She has parts of it. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I love it. It's a it's a naughty thing. So it's naughty, but it's not. I don't know why I say it's naughty, but like I had some really good times on that road. And I mean, I think I've done pretty much most of it. So Johnny, I've done a lot of it in Baja too. And I know that Elaine has as well. You can go south on one down. I was called the Green Angel Highway, but Johnny here, Johnny Shafer, him and his husband Paco had a amazing honeymoon road trip. And by the way, you can get married in national parks too. Like Yosemite has that little chapel where you can get married and things like that. So a lot of weddings happen in national parks, which is really cool. Johnny, you didn't get hitched in a national park though, but you decided that's how you were going to spend your honeymoon. Yeah, we both have family in Olympia, Washington. And at that time, we were living in Los Angeles. And so after we got married and spent time with family, we needed to get back down to LA. So and we love hiking. We love the outdoors. So we decided to make our honeymoon a leisurely trip down the Pacific coast. So we took a couple weeks and just, you know, kept, you know, planned ahead of time. We love to go to nps.org. nps.gov because there are a lot of good resources, you know, for planning. And then we branched out from there and just, and it was pretty seamless experience for us in terms of going between national parks and state parks and local parks. And we were especially impressed with how Oregon has done such a beautiful job of preserving their coastline while also making it very accessible. And, you know, we spent a lot of time hiking along the coast there. And we kind of started out in Reneer National Park. And, you know, Mount Reneer is 14,000 feet above sea levels. You can see it for hundreds of miles away. And, you know, the people in the wimpy always said, oh, the mountain looks extra beautiful today. And, you know, they're, you know, they're a couple hours drive away from it. And we just love how the meadows and the forest around Reneer, there's just so much to do there. And yeah, I ended up spending a couple days there because it was just so gorgeous. And, you know, the way that they, you know, there's so many different things you can see while you're there, different types of terrain and lots of trails to hike on. And so we started there. And then I just want to touch on Mount Reneer is probably one of the most iconic parks we have. And everywhere you go, the park, Mount Reneer changes its look. And it looks like its spaceships are landing on it all the time with the way the clouds are. And sunrise sunset, the wildflowers. I mean, we walked over glaciers while we were there. We did part of the things of Wonderland Trail at the top. And we were lucky to have a lady that we worked with at the time who was into plant cultivation. And so she went with us and we're showing us the native species and showing now this is what we do at nurseries. We copy them and make it that it will grow in your garden because we're not all at alpine levels of height. It's really fascinating. But that is so epic that you did you just want to roll in the wildflowers? I just want to know anybody else have that experience at a national park where you want to get out and roll in the meadow. Absolutely. Yeah, the meadows and the butterflies. And yeah, did you do that? Johnny, come on, you're on your honeymoon. You can roll around in the flowers. Well, yeah, we took lots of pictures of them. Paco loves a lot of times the one I'm hiking with Paco all of a sudden, we're Paco going, I'll see him, we offer the distance hunched over a flower like a tiny flower thinking close up photos of it. And he just gets lost. And, you know, he loves the minutiae. And so a lot of times he'll be photographing tiny little insects. And he's got a great eye. So he'll just be hiking along. And all of a sudden he just sees something that catches his attention. And he honkers down and just starts exploring a, you know, on the micro level. And it's really fun. I've learned to look at the world a lot through his eyes because he's very, you know, he's very visual. And so yeah, we loved all the, some of the flowers that were some of our favorite things every year, especially within summertime. And so we've been there in the fall as well. And it's a whole different experience in the fall. And it's a lot less crowded in the fall. So especially right before they start closing things down, it kind of gets deserted. And so we almost felt like we had the park to ourselves, you know, another time when we were there is really fun. That's cool. There's a reflecting pool there that has this gorgeous, you see not right near reflected in the pool or in the late, you know, small pond. And it's really stunning. That's one of my favorite things is the reflections and the it's so pure and clean up there. And you went to later Lake as well, which I know is another national park you wanted to touch on. And we did that about a year and a half ago, I think it was. And we want to talk about reflections in the water. And you had to be careful. It was this, you know, where we were at that time. And the reflections in the water of all the different mountains were incredible. But did that not blow your mind? Like I felt like we were in landscape. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. My dad, it was his favorite place on earth. And my dad was much more well traveled than I am. And you always wanted to take us there. And it just never happened. And so when we did our hunting room, we'd say, okay, we might, you know, I want to honor my dad. We got to go to Crater Lake. And so we went and, and you know, there's a 31 mile rim drive around it, which, you know, we took bikes and went around. And the views from the lake range from 550 feet above the surface of the 1900s, you get to see the lake from a lot of different angles and viewpoints. And it's, it's really highly recommended. It's just a, it's that lake is just so beautiful. It was formed 7,000 years ago, 7,700 years ago, when the top of the mountain blew off in a volcano. And they have proof that, that natives were there to witness it because they found their sandals and other artifacts under the ash. And, and then it was formed after that by the the milk, you know, the, the runoff from snow and rain. And so it's one of the most pristine lakes on earth. It's unbelievable how blue it is. It's just so, so stunningly beautiful. That's awesome. I mean, it is really, it's, it's magical. I think it's, isn't the deepest lake, one of the deepest lakes that we have, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the other deepest, like, deepest water caves we have is in Florida at Wacula Springs, which is a state park. And you've been there, Katie, right? That's where the, the beautiful black lagoon was filmed in Tarzan. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to ask each of you as we close up the show, which thank you so much. It's been fun talking parks. I, I could just sit here all day long and do nothing but do that, except for I'd like to do it in a park. But I feel like I'm in a park because we're right on the 60 acres outside Hot Springs. So, shout out to Tiffany's bed and breakfast. It is beautiful here and it's all barred out while I was walking the dog. Yeah. Beautiful. And they don't even make a sound. I want to ask each of you in the conversation today out of the parks that we talked about, is there a park you haven't been to but want to go to from this conversation? And then is there a park you haven't been to that you still want to go to that is within our National Park Service? So, let's start with you, Joe. Well, I've been shamed into going to Congaree. Yeah. That's close at least. That's true. That's true. Um, oh my goodness. I want to go back to Red Rocks. Uh, and I'm not even positive. Well, yeah, I am. That is a National Park. Um, and I want to give a shout out Happy Birthday to the National Park Service. But I want to tell everybody, if you are 62 or close, uh, they sell a senior lifetime pass, a park pass for only $80. Now, the first one we bought was a lot longer ago than last year. And at the time, Daryl qualified. I didn't. But, um, I think it was $10. And when I qualified and bought mine, it was 20. But for 80 bucks, you have a lifetime park pass. And if you don't have one, why not? It also takes in National Forest and National Wildlife Refuse and BLM long, long list of things. Absolutely. Yeah. And also if you're active military, it's free. Yep. And you can get them online. You can get them when you visit the next National Park. And if you've been buying, did you know, if you've been buying like the annual park pass, if you save those expired passes and you have one or two or three or even four, you get credit for those. You can turn them in toward the price of your senior lifetime pass. Uh, that's sweet. Yeah. So you might get it free. Don't forget the parks are ours. Our tax money goes into them. It's also important when we talk about all of this that we watch that our money does go to them. So I'm just saying, you know, as we are in an election year, sometimes it's good to look at who we're backing. Are they backing places like our national parks, our national forest, our wildlife refuges and clean water and things like that. So I'm just saying, not getting political, I'm just saying it's a good time to always think about what we care about your home. Yes. And to look at that. So, um, yeah, that's an important part of it. So I want to go over to you, Elaine. Anybody on this show get you your ears freaked up to go, Hey, I want to go there. Oh, yes. I've been making notes. Uh, I would love to spend more time on a road trip through Texas. I've done a little bit of it. West Texas, I want to go to Congaree. I want to see those swamps and the trees, especially just amazing. And it's close to Beaumont and other things I think would be really interesting culturally. Yeah. That would be so much. South Carolina. Yeah. Your Beaumont. Texas. And then the one that didn't get mentioned that I've missed and I would love so much to see because anyone who's seen close encounters of the third kind will remember Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming. And I was about 28 miles away from it, but my companions in the car were not willing to veer off the road, go see that. That's when you dumped them out of the car. Didn't you know that? I would have picked a road trip. I loved love wisely. Yeah, no, I agree. That is iconic, isn't it? Like just that. All of the G and then all the mystery around it in history. We've got a great article about it up on national part traveling dot com by our friend Eva Eldridge. She went there and she was like, it's epic and you really need to plan on when you go because if you go on the height of summer, it is going to be like Mount Rainier. When we got to Mount Rainier, Rainier, you know, anyway, we went in, we were drove in from a podcast garden show thing we were doing in Portland, drove in and then realized we had no food or anything. We're just hanging out and having a good time. We checked into our hotel, we were just doing this and then we were like, we're hungry. Like we haven't even had breakfast and it's like three in the afternoon to three. We left the park to go find food and get with it and we couldn't barely get back in. But because it was such a line to get in. So we ended up finding Lake Moage, which is at the top part of the park, which is gorgeous and incredible. My thing was Arctic lilies and they had a lot more there. So I got to photograph those. But what about you, Katie? I'd love to go to Mount Rainier. Yeah, I haven't been to too many of the Western folks. I've been there a lot of the Florida ones. And sometimes I like the ones that are less than no ones even better than the big name ones. So what about another park that we haven't talked about? Is any park on the National Park Service kind of jolted you to like, I want to go there? Well, you know, Calinational Forest, we really just touched on out the bear. But that is so unique because it has the crystal clear waters of Alexander Springs and Juniper Springs. And Alexander Springs, you can see clear down to the bottom. And they're very unique parks and not parks, they're National Forest and very preserved. And you can ride through them and you don't see different kind of landscapes. And again, where I saw one bear one time. But it's a really beautiful country. I saw a bear. Nancy and I saw a bear last year. In the fall, we went to see our friends over at LDV Winery. And they're next to Chirokawa National Monument in Arizona. We went up to the top. We were told to finish this bottle of wine and eat the brownies. And we did. And then I had a sugar high and I stopped. I did. I had a total sugar high. And I was like, I'm at the top of the world because you see all this volcanic and these hoodies and volcanic eruptions. And it is like crazy cool, right? And we've been there before and the grotto and hiked it. And last time we were there, we're like, there was bear scat and everything. And literally, as we were finally leaving, I healed myself, you know, drank a lot of water and was fine. We're leaving. This bear just jumped right out in front of us and was like, Hello, here I am. But it was right here where the scat was from the other side of the hike. So I was like, that's your habitat. I know where to hike next time. So that's cool. So bear, the bear necessities and parks are all part of it. I want to go to you. Oh, but Katie, I just I'm nominating you to go to Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas. Okay, it's outside Beaumont, Texas. But it sounds interesting. Texas and Scotland's house is near there too, by the way. So that's important. Since I know you love American music, Janice Joplin was born in Beaumont, Texas, but she's got a museum in her house from Fort Arthur. It was just down the road. So I'm just saying, you need to go to Big Thicket and you need it. And it's not the park spreads out through all different parts of different communities. But it is swampy cool. It is you must. I will sound interesting. I will put I was in court office. So I don't want to have border with me in Beaumont and don't know how I missed it. Well, it's okay because, you know, well Rose, what about you? Any of the parks on this on this show that you want to go to? Well, as a matter of fact, I was I'm in the beginning of the planning stages for a trip down to Asheville to see the Chahuly exhibit at Biltmore. And then from there, I was thinking I would drive out to Congaree and see that. So one of the questions I have is how much time do I need to see Congaree? It's not a real big park. It depends. I would love to have had more time there. We had maybe just about an hour and we did the football, but there's kayaking too. Now they don't rent the kayak, so you have to rent them from an outfit or from Columbia or something. But there's several of them that do kayak and look real interesting. But I didn't get to do it, so I can't tell you first again. Okay. Well, I was thinking I didn't know just how much you want to do. Right. You could spend a day there or they have primitive camp and it's nothing is developed. No, no. So you could do primitive camp. I'm not as a perimeter anymore. I kind of got past that. Yeah. The only floats. Okay. No, no, I don't just float, but I'm just messing with you. I need a bed these days. Yeah. My camping days are over. But last time I set up a tent, it rained and I had forgotten to spray my tent and it leaked. So that's it. Absolutely. No more primitive camping. Oh, well, you know, I say let me know when you're going to Hungary and I will try to meet you there. And we will kayak Hungary together. I'm liking this. I want to go. Well, you're headed east, aren't you? Yep. We're almost, I mean, we are in Swampy, Alligator Land. We're almost back to North Carolina. And then, you know, Rose, you're going to Asheville. I'm going to call you on this because like there's stuff in Asheville, like seriously, in Blue Ridge Parkway is right there. You've got Pissed on National Forest, Smoky Mountain, National Park. Oh, I know. I know. And Chimney Rock State Park is a park to go to and Lake Lure has a flowering bridge. This is the most, I know this is not a national park, but it's outside a state park, which is also unique park because you go up this huge tower, like it's a rock tower, and you can see all the vultures and you can see the lake and it's where dirty dancing where they were in the water together, that they filmed in the cold, where it's supposed to be a summer scene. Like, could you imagine being, you know, in the lake, in like North Carolina, and in, I think it was November, they were filming it? Like, no, no, but anyway, Lake Lure, Lake Lure has this historic bridge that they were going to tear down and put a new bridge. And the town, which is a tiny town, said, hell no, we're going to keep the old bridge. You can make your new bridge over there. We're going to keep the old bridge and what we're going to do, they made it a National Historic Landmark. It's part of, I didn't know that she had one, but Rosalind Carter created a butterfly trail throughout the country. It's part of the butterfly trail. So they turned this into a flowering bridge. So the master gardeners of the whole area got together and created these beautiful gardens that go over the bridge and there's a dog garden park under the bridge and there's like a children's garden and there are butterflies everywhere and colors and you can stand and walk over the bridge and look down at the river going to the lake. I'm serious. This is insanely cool. So one must do that. And this is the thing we're talking about National Parks, but part of a National Park road trip is all the things that you see on the way and what buffers the parks. So like Joe was talking about the wineries and things like that off the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is all part of it. It's so important because all of those entities working together is what keeps the parks healthy and the community's healthy and happy. So that's a big deal. But Rosalind, what else is on your list that we haven't talked about today? Well, there's a couple of parks in Alaska that I haven't been to yet. So I'd really like to see those. I love mountains. So definitely those and then the ones in the Dakotas. Those are in the Badlands and just that general area. I have not been to the Dakotas yet, so I would definitely like to get out there. Awesome. Awesome. We've got some links on the from nationalparktraveling.com to send to you for help with that on articles on the Badlands. Teddy Roosevelt's National Park is out there. Johnny, from this show, where do you want to go? Well, I just turned 62 this year, so I'm excited to get my $80 path. And for some reason, when you mentioned Pennsylvania, it kind of got me interested because we're actually planning to go see a friend who lives out there. And so we love lakes and it sounds like the kind of terrain that we would especially be drawn to. So I would say that kind of peak my interest going to Pennsylvania. And in terms of a park that I haven't been to, that I want to, this is almost, well, this is embarrassing. I could because I grew up in Porterville, I have never been to Yosemite. I mean, even Porterville, I mean, even Paco has been there. But I guess it was because my dad always wanted to go to all the more local parks and, you know, and then or take trips, like out of state, we just never made it there. After I went up to college, my, he took my brothers there. So they've been there, but I've never been to Yosemite. So I guess that would be something that I need to do. Yes, yes, you should. And it is, it is all that it is. I know most of you have been there. It is, it's like going to Yellowstone. It's one of those iconic things you have to do. And I've got many articles. I know Elaine has articles on Yosemite too that she can send and we'll put it out there. And everyone, we have so many links from all of these conversations today. I'm going to put a page together and give you a link from the episode notes so everyone can see to help you plan your trips to the national parks. Rose, do you have any tips of, there's Gettysburg, right? And also Eisenhower's historic site in Pennsylvania. But any park tips for Johnny and Parker for when they go to Pennsylvania? Oh, definitely. So one of my favorite parks in the state is called Ricketts Glen State Park. It has 21 waterfalls and a trail that just climbs up along the ridge and just follows the waterfalls up and down. And then of course, you know, depending on which part of the state you're going to, you can't go to Pennsylvania and not go to see Frank Lloyd Rides with falling water. Yeah, exactly. That's in the Laurel Highlands, right? Up that area. Yeah, it's closer to Pittsburgh. So it's on the Pittsburgh side of the state versus the eastern side. Ricketts Glen is sort of middle-ish of the state, roughly speaking. It's not a big state, but it is. Well, when you get waterfalls, I definitely peak my interest because we've got some of our favorite things. There's one waterfall, so that sounds great. And there's the Poconos, too. There's the Poconos. And then if you're on my side of the state, I'm on the eastern side of the state near Delaware, we have DuPont family country estates out here with a lot of beautiful gardens. So yeah, you do. The Longwood Gardens, Winterthir Gardens. You've got to get a Longwood. Yes. You have to. Yes. I demand. I'll put you in the car and take you there. Well, I just wish I could put everybody in the car and just take everybody everywhere. But Longwood, and it's an amazing story, too. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you must go. Yeah, must. And then there's Amish Country, just, you know, 45 minutes to an hour away from me here. So there's a lot to see in the state. And it really is a beautiful state. Yeah, it is. Thank you all for joining us again. Everyone, the links are in the episode notes. I'm going to put in something together because there's just so much content to share with you so you can plan your best experience. Again, here at johnny.com to keep up with Johnny. Also, Joe Clark, go to haveglasswilltravel.com. Just don't get caught in winter on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is quite fine. Well, tripping.com to keep up with Rose and her floating adventures on small ships or houseboats now. Katie, keep up with Kathleen walls. Go to americanroads.net. And for her travel books, go to katiewalls.com and then keep up with Elaine and her adventures around the world and across the country. Go to tripwellgal.com. Thank you all so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for joining us here on Big Blend Radio's Parks and Travel podcast. Visit nationalparktraveling.com to plan your next park adventure and to see our parks and travel digital magazine. You can keep up with our shows at bigblendradio.com
