Now that Christmas has passed, I felt like it was time to countdown to what has the potential to be the most amazing trip of my life. This summer we embark on a six week long National Parks trip with our two boys. We have been planning for months, saving for years, and finally the day is almost here. I love a paper chain because it allows you to see the days ahead. We are so excited!  Yellow Stone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon are all on the itinerary. All that is left is to survive the Winter, endure the Spring, and pack!

If you haven’t seen Ken Burns The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, you should definitely give it a watch. You might be inspired to take a trip of your own. You can also watch it on Amazon Prime or Netflix.

“Wilderness is a necessity … They will see what I meant in time. There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls. Food and drink is not all. There is the spiritual. In some it is only a germ, of course, but the germ will grow.”

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”

“How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof. In such places, standing alone on the mountaintop, it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make — leaves and moss like the marmots and the birds, or tents or piled stone — we all dwell in a house of one room — the world with the firmament for its roof — and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving track.”

“The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the moutnains — mountain-dwellers who have grown strong there with the forest trees in Nature’s work-shops.

– John Muir
Founder, The Sierra Club