After we left Wyoming, we had several more National Parks on our list.
Next up was Rocky Mountain National park in Colorado. We stayed just outside of the park so we had some beautiful views. As we traveled on the park roads, we saw this guy.
What was even more amazing was later that evening, we saw this, in our campground just steps from Dash.
Next up was the Great Sand Dunes National Park, also in Colorado. This park is small but the views are really neat. Check out this swirl cloud formation as we were entering the park. I have never seen anything like this!
The dune is approximately 741 feet tall. At first it doesn’t look very big, but when you see people walking towards it, and then see the little specs at the top of the dune, you get a sense of just how big it is.
It was really cool to see the high plains in this area. We were at about 8100 foot elevation in the picture below.
We also made a stop at Mammoth Caves in Kentucky. This park has over 426 miles of caves that have been mapped by explorers. There are many more that have yet to be explored.
These is no entrance fee for this park, but in order to explore the caves, you must book a tour. There are numerous tours available with different durations and difficulty.
I booked the Historic tour for my first encounter. It was really cool (literally) to see just how tall some of the areas were.
Houchin’s Narrows
Giant’s Coffin
Some spots got very short and others very skinny.
My second cave tour was Domes and Dripstones. This cave was very different from the first one. This was the entrance and the first few steps in.
The views were just amazing.
Our last National Park stop was the Great Smoky Mountain. Here we got to see to this little one.
We really enjoyed all of the National Parks that we visited on this trip. We saw some amazing views and wildlife. We are so blessed to be able to take this trip of a lifetime. We hope you enjoyed seeing all of the pictures and reading the posts. Thank you so much for join us on our journey! Just in case you were wondering, we accomplished our goal of sleeping at least one night in every state in the nation!!
Amazing! Thanks for sharing !
Amazing! Thanks for sharing !
Beautiful memories!
Congratulations for your feat of sleeping in every state! Way to go! Thanks for all the insight to our beautiful national parks!
That was quite a fabulous journey! Thanks for sharing with us!
Jean & Ed,
I enjoyed reading each of your post & somewhat keeping up with your journey. Congrats on reaching your “sleep in” goal, but more importantly, for really enjoying your “-“.
I hope that reading this inspires me to visit many of these parks in my near future rather than leaving me with the current sense of envy that I feel. I grew up in KY & haven’t been to Mammoth Cave since elementary school time frame. Although I only have a handful of states left to fulfil my own “slept in” goal, most of my check boxes were filled by work trips & you’ve highlighted many things I have yet to see.
I hope you can enjoy the more static lifestyle with friends & family in The Villages & I hope to see you sometime soon.
“Traveling along with you” on your journey was very inspirational! Appreciate you sharing some of your adventures and photos too!
Wondering where your next journey will take you?
So beautiful
Wow! You guys did it! Congratulations! What great memories and experiences. Thanks for sharing!