Parks and Monuments

As I have meandered about the western states the past four summers, I have had the opportunity to visit a lot of National Parks and Monuments. Each state has taken the lead of the federal government and set aside other special places for people to enjoy. These are great places and I am glad for them. There is a pecking order among parks and a few — Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Zion and a few others — are being loved to death. But others, while not nearly so grandiose, remain tucked away and largely overlooked by the masses whose desire to check the big names off their bucket lists. 

NATURAL BEAUTY — Monument Valley, near the Utah-Arizona state border. (Image courtesy Ken Lund.)

Yellowstone claims to be our first National Park, even though Arkansans know that Hot Springs was set aside as a National Preserve 30 years earlier, about the time of statehood. Yellowstone, nestled in the caldera of a giant volcano, is a natural wonder and for those who have not made the journey, worth seeing. But don’t go with the expectation of having the place to yourself. A single sighting of a far-off buffalo is enough to cause a 30-minute traffic delay. But one should never visit such a place with the expectation of rushing through. It is not going to happen. This summer was my forth visit, and I found the beautiful Lamar Valley in the northeastern part of the park. Stunning beauty, large herds of buffalo and almost no tourists. They were all waiting for Old Faithful to do its thing. 

As a seat-of-my-pants traveler, I find places like Yellowstone frustrating. Enormous tracts of land yet the only way to get a camping spot is to reserve one months in advance. My schedule is too mercurial for such advance planning, so I can never stay at any of the popular places. But many of the less well known parks do have first come, first served camping spots so I stay at these whenever possible. 

Coming through South Dakota I visited Badlands National Monument, a geologically recent badlands (30 million years old, give or take) chock full of mammals but no dinosaurs. Like most National Monuments and Parks, their camping spaces is inadequate for the peak crowds of summer and designed for an era when everyone pitched a tent. But a lot of the land near the badlands is Bureau of Land Management land where we weary, but too old to sleep on the ground travelers, can pull in for the night amongst the grazing cows for a peaceful night. 

Arriving in Arizona in the midst of summer heat, I found myself camped at a KOA campground across the road from Monument Valley, a Navajo Nation tourist attraction. July is probably not the smartest time to visit a desert attraction, but, hey I was there. The guide gave a great tour to the nine of us in the group. I was surprised to learn that, on average, half of the tourists visiting the reservation were from Europe, a quarter from Asia and only about 25 percent from the United States. 

As a fan of Tony Hillerman and his Navajo Police detective series, I have long wanted to tour Arizona’s Canyon De Chelly National Monument. The town of Chinle numbers about 5,000 people, yet the closest campground where I could plug in my air conditioner was 90 miles away. They did have a large conventional campground but no electrical hookups. I learned how to manage my battery-powered air conditioner to get through the night and slept comfortably. 

Canyon De Chelly was a delight to visit. The bottom of the 30 plus mile long canyon is a foot deep in sand, so we made the tour in the back of a Swiss Army six-wheel-drive truck. This is an important site for the Navajo people because of mistreatment — first by early Spanish gold seekers and later the U.S. government, when they tried to relocate them to reservations further south. The canyon had long been occupied by the Ancient Puebloeans with ruins perched here and there in crevices of the 800-foot-tall sandstone walls. As a National Monument, the federal government owns the canyon walls while Navajo tribe members own the canyon floor. 

I’ve visited many other places — a number of them small National or State historic sites, some just funky tourist stops that are fun to visit and a few fine eateries that are some of my favorite finds. I travel leisurely, often with no fixed destination in mind. Some days I make a couple hundred miles, some days I don’t. It’s all fun and one is never quite sure what you might find of the back roads of America.