Summer number two of our three-summer road trip kicks off in July, and we couldn’t be more excited.

Haleakala Crater is a very unique place. Imagine being on Maui — a lush tropical island in the middle of the Pacific — and then driving for an hour on switchbacks up the slopes of a 10,000’ volcano only to end up looking into a crater seven miles long, two miles wide, and a half mile deep. And at the bottom is a landscape the most resembles the surface of the moon — sandy, rocky, rugged — but also has verdant sections, one-of-a-kind flora, and a large population of endangered nene (the Hawaiian goose).

Hawai’i Volcanoes is a special place for us. From our home on O’ahu, it is the most accessible National Park. That said, we don’t live on the same island, so we still have to fly to Hawai’i Island, reserve a rental car, book a hotel, and dedicate some time to the park. Even so, on some occasions we just fly over for a quick visit — especially when the lava is flowing!

I filled the gas tank of our rented 2002 Volkswagen Eurovan 17 times in 31 days from mid-July to mid-August. It was a green Weekender camper van with a Westfalia pop top. The kids slept upstairs. During that month, we drove more than 3,000 miles exploring seven national parks, from the Rockies to the Olympic Mountains.

People who live in the Seattle often describe a clear day by saying, “The mountains are out.” They could be referring to either the Olympic Range to the west or the Cascades to the east. However, when Seattleites say, “The mountain is out,” they only mean one mountain: Mount Rainier, the volcanic peak that dominates the skyline to the south. Perhaps, the only thing more impressive than seeing Mount Rainier straight ahead as you drive down I-5 is being up on the slopes of the behemoth when the mountain is out.

Olympic National Park shares the Olympic Peninsula with national forest land, military installations, indigenous tribal reservations, private land holdings, state and county parks, and a smattering of small towns and rural outposts. The borders of the national park are not contiguous. There is a large inland, mountainous unit and several smaller coastal units. To visit the entire park, patience and long drives are required, because you are covering a land area roughly the size of Yellowstone National Park, and with just as much beauty and intrigue.

One of the least visited national parks in the system, North Cascades is truly a hidden gem in Northern Washington. Add in Ross Lake National Recreation Area and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area, and the North Cascades Complex was yet another highlight of an amazing trip.

Driving into Glacier from the east, the giant monoliths rise abruptly out of the plains. Our approach was made even more dramatic by the hazy conditions caused by wildfire smoke. The mountains weren’t visible until we were well past Browning, Montana and approaching East Glacier. But when those mountain appeared, they were majestic and foreboding and addictive all at once. Glacier is a very unique place, as we were about to find out.

How can Yellowstone live up to expectations, if the expectations are so incredibly high? The wildlife, the geothermal activity, the history, the canyons, the waterfalls, the expanse of wilderness. It sounds like five or six parks in one. And, to summarize, that’s pretty much what we found at Yellowstone. That, and a park that exceeded our expectations.

Before our trip we had the great fortune to chat with David Kroese, who has visited all 423 units of the National Park System, most of which are documented in his book The Centennial: A Journey through America’s National Park System. Having someone like David look over your itinerary is like getting the professor’s answer key before you take the exam. His top advice for the entire trip was for Grand Teton, and it was simple: “Don’t ignore the canyons!” We listened, and we were very grateful.

We planned meticulously for our trip. Every activity was scoped out; every hour scheduled. But our plans were mostly guidelines. Just suggestions. And we learned that quickly at Rocky Mountain.

On a Friday night, we hopped on a red eye flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles to Denver. We checked into our hotel and took in a Colorado Rockies game. The next day was all planning and prep.

Phase one of our big park-to-park tour is upon us. It’s been a long time coming; planning the entire trip for 2020, un-planning it because of Covid, and replanning for 2021. But we’re more than ready at this point. With the day-by-day itineraries handled, the next steps is packing.

We knew that we’d have to be ahead of the game when it came to planning our second summer. Entering popular parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier, and Grand Canyon sometimes require reservations 12 or 13 months in advance. Of course Covid-19 through a wrench in everything, too.

The National Parks are America’s best idea, and the best idea to come from the National Parks Service in recent years is the Every Kids Outdoors program. But this past year, millions of fourth graders lost their ability to take part in this program because of Covid-19. Those of us who were directly impacted and many in the outdoor industry have been begging the Department of the Interior to give these kids another chance—perhaps just consider it a stimulus package for our youth.

It’s been on our minds for months now. How will the global pandemic impact our Park-to-Park Tour? The answer: with great disappointment and some reluctance, we have decided to post-pone year one of the trip to 2021.

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” - John Muir

Our family believes in getting out of doors. Whether the kids are riding bikes in the neighborhood, the family is taking a weekend hike, or we’ve planned an entire vacation around camping exploring the wilderness, we love to be outside. Being in tune with nature is a particularly important lesson to give to children.

In the early decades of the 20th Century, the automobile was still a relatively novel invention, but becoming more prolific. With the growth of automobile ownership, people found more freedom in their mobility. For the first time, travel to the wide-open West could be accomplished without needing to book expensive and limited transportation via train.

Growing up in the Midwest, I had limited exposure to National Parks. I visited my first National Park—Hawai’i Volcanoes—at age 23, a few months before deploying to combat in Afghanistan.