As you drive along the rolling prairie in western South Dakota, unless you have the expert eye of a trained geologist, you’d never guess that two spectacular cave systems lie beneath the earth. We spent a few days exploring both…
Driving west through southern South Dakota on our way to Badlands National Park, we passed field after field of bright yellow sunflowers that seemed to go on for miles. It’s a stunning sight, but more stunning scenery awaited us as…
Quick — what’s the longest river in North America? Nope, it’s not the Mississippi. It’s the Missouri. Like fur trappers and Native Americans before them, explorers Lewis and Clark braved this great American riverway in search of adventure and nature’s…
On day three, we packed up and hit the trail early for the return trip to the Three-Mile Campground on Isle Royale’s southern coast. Refreshed for the steep ascent out of Lane Cove, we soon reached the trail junction and…
For anyone wanting to really get away from it all, it’s hard to beat the remote Isle Royale National Park in northern Lake Superior. Isle Royale takes a bit of advance planning and logistical decision-making, but it is well worth…
Heading northeast from Wisconsin to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, we drove along the lovely shore of Lake Michigan before turning inland. At Munising, the town at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore’s western gateway, Lake Superior came into view. We had hoped to…
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, 55 miles east of Chicago and connected to it via the South Shore train, covers several parcels along the otherwise industrialized southern coast of Lake Michigan. We pulled into the Dunewood Campground across the road from…
We stopped in at Illinois’ capital city, Springfield, to pay tribute to the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. We started at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, where the future president lived with his wife and sons…
Traveling north from West Virginia, we crossed the Ohio River and proceeded along the wildflower-studded highway to the Cleveland area. We stopped in at Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s Boston Store Visitor Center to watch the park film and talk to…
Happily, once again the sun came out after the overnight showers, allowing us to pack up dry gear. We had one more area to check out before leaving West Virginia, and it was the New River Gorge itself. An 867-foot-tall…