Traveling With AAA podcast

Episode 2: Explore the Great Outdoors

In this episode:

ACE Publications travel editor Jim Benning and AAA field cartographer Shane Henry explore Arches National Park and share tips on visiting many of the country’s most popular parks.

Mary Herendeen:

If you're like me, you love being outdoors. When I was a kid, I went camping with my family, and I'll never forget those vacations at Wages Creek in Northern California. It felt so good to escape the business of the city. Standing on the beach looking out at the Pacific Ocean made me feel connected to nature and gave me a sense of freedom. I'm Mary Herendeen.

Welcome to Traveling With AAA. I think we all need to reconnect with nature from time to time and now that people are traveling again, outdoor vacations are more popular than ever. Trips to our national parks top the list, but how do we visit these beautiful places responsibly? How can we enjoy the parks without harming them? And what do we need to do to get the most out of our outdoor vacations?

Here to answer those questions and take on some exciting outdoor trips, our two adventurers, we have AAA and ACE publications Travel Editor Jim Benning, an award-winning travel journalist who has explored ancient sites in Peru and took his 12-year-old daughter surfing in Costa Rica. Jim, welcome to Traveling With AAA.

Jim Benning:

Thank you.

Mary:

Also, we're delighted to have with us Shane Henry, a AAA field cartographer, one of a handful of cartographers who actually go out in person to make the maps we all need. Shane has spent 20 years exploring the American Southwest and Mexico. Shane, welcome to Traveling With AAA.

Shane Henry:

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Mary:

Thank you both. For each of you, where did your love of the outdoors come from and when did it start? Let's start with you, Jim.

Jim:

Well, I grew up in Southern California with two parents who loved to camp. We had a Volkswagen camper, and we set off every summer on pretty good road trips throughout the Southwest, all over California, up into Canada, and I'm pretty sure that's where my love of camping and the outdoors was born.

Mary:

Wow. I also grew the love when I was a child out camping with my family. I'm one of eight kids, so a lot of our vacations were spent traveling to local lakes in the area. We went to the beach a lot, so it was pretty awesome. Thank you. And for you Shane?

Shane:

I grew up on the Western Slope of the Cascades in a little logging town, so there really wasn't a moment when I realized. It just kind of came with birth, trout fishing, hunting for most people and those beautiful mountains.

Mary:

That's your whole life.

Shane:

It really was, is still.

Mary:

Thank you. So Jim has accompanied Shane more than once as Shane has gone out on cartography trips. Last year the two went to Arches National Park in Utah, and Jim wrote about the experience in the AAA Explorer and Westways magazines. Guys, tell us a little bit about your trip.

Jim:

Well, the reason we went out there was really to explore Arches. Shane was working on a map of Arches National Park and doing some field work for the map driving a lot of the back roads. And last summer, like many national parks, Arches was seeing just a massive influx of visitors. In fact, so many that they routinely had to shut the front gates and turn people away. We thought it would be interesting to go out there, visit the park, and see how the park service was handling all of these people who understandably were tired of the pandemic and looking to get some fresh air and enjoy the great outdoors. So that was the reason we went out there to do the story and to work on the map and just see how that park was coping with all of this.

Shane:

Interesting, because I knew kind of what he had in mind, the crowds and of course through COVID every other article was about the disaster of crowding, but the day we arrived I think it was 114 degrees, and some of those smart tourists stayed out of the park, so there wasn't really a big crowd that particular day.

Mary:

 Wow. I bet, 114 degrees out.  

Shane:

Yeah, it was hot that day.

Mary:

Yeah. During COVID we bought a small travel trailer and a boat. So we've been doing that for the last two years and it's been amazing. So tell us what was the most exciting thing that happened during your trip or the most surprising?

Jim:

I think for me a couple of things. One is I was a big fan of a writer named Edward Abbey growing up. He wrote an amazing book about Arches called Desert Solitaire. He was a park ranger there back in the late ‘60s and really kind of captured the wonder of this park which was then a national monument. And it's considered one of the classics of outdoor writing. Shane had found an old aerial photo of the site in the park where Abbey lived for quite a while in a trailer. The trailer's long gone, but we were able to track down this site in the park that he had written so eloquently about, and  for those who love reading Abbey, it's like a Walden Pond. Like this iconic site, he really celebrated and made you feel as though you were there.

Jim:

So that was one of the highlights. I think the other highlight apart from finding that spot, which is kind of hard to find, was sitting out on a hike one day and hiking several miles up to this wonderful little arch called Partition Arch, this red sandstone arch that's kind of a set off from the main trail. I had it all to myself for a while, and I was just basking in the silence, tranquility, and the view through this arch looking out at the park. It was one of the highlights of the trip.

Mary:

Wow. It's definitely taking me there, and to your point, you said that Abbey was really able to draw readers and really paint the picture. So I'm going to pull from your article. You put here an excerpt from Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire: “Standing there, gaping at this monstrous and inhuman spectacle of rock and cloud and sky and space, I feel a ridiculous greed and possessiveness come over me.” I'm just transfixed with that. I wonder, how are you feeling? You said that you were there and just kind of alone and enjoying it. Tell us more about that. What were you seen? What were you feeling?

Jim:

It's interesting because when I first read that I could absolutely relate to Abbey’s sentiment. Like you want this place all for yourself. But of course, one of the things that I was there to write about was the fact that we all want that place to ourself. And how does the park handle thousands and thousands of visitors who all want that experience? And so I guess the answer for me was finding places where I could enjoy some solitude and just kind of get away from the crowds and just feel as though I was really grounded and connecting with this place. And then, chatting with the rangers about how they tried to kind of cultivate this experience for all of the visitors who understandably also are seeking solitude. And the article was called A Delicate Balance because the park service is trying to create this delicate balance of preserving the wilderness, preserving the outdoors, while also giving a lot of people who want to see this area a chance to enjoy it. And it's a challenge.

Shane:

The dichotomy of their mandate is preservation versus accessibility. That's their job description. That's tough.

Mary:

Yeah. Shane, being an outdoorsman since birth, right? Like you said, Arches is another national park  getting so popular that many have put in place certain crowd control measures. What are some of the things that we need to know about visiting these places?

Shane:

I'm gonna defer to Jim in a second about the new ones that are coming up, but one thing I was thinking about is that there is a kind of culture to visiting a national park, so tempering your expectations is the first thing you can do.

A park like Arches, Yosemite, or Yellowstone, if your expectation is you're gonna drive in there and have the wilderness to yourself, you're gonna be disappointed every single time. But what the park service does do—and by the way, I'm a huge fan of the park service. If you want to meet civil servants who really love what they do and will do anything to help you have a great experience, national park services are those people.

So there are little things again with the expectations. If your jam is you love to listen to music as you're barbecuing your hot dogs over the campfire, that's not gonna be really part of the national park culture.

Shane:

Now there are places you can do that: BLM land, National Forest Campgrounds, but there is a kind of respect you need to have for other people's experience around you, and it's only getting worse or,  there's more need to do that than there was before.

If visiting a national park was not part of your family's experience, then the first time you go, which is what happened during COVID, a lot of first timers, there's things you wouldn't know. So if you're driving down the entrance road and you see the shot for Instagram that you've been waiting for, you can't just pull over and start taking pictures. There's not really a place to do that. You'll be in the road.

If there were  50 cars a day in the park, no one would notice they drive around you, but if there's 500, you've immediately caused a traffic jam and a safety hazard. The park service is not dumb. They know those photos are what you want, and you'll see just a little way up is an actual pullout, and that's where you need to pull out and then hike back to your thing. But with all the new visitors, there isn't necessarily a guidebook to some of that stuff. You have to learn it by watching other people and talking to the park service.

Mary:

Yeah. Thank you for that. And Jim?

Jim:

Yeah, you asked about crowd control measures. I think so many parks saw record visitor numbers last year, and in previous years that they've really had to think hard about how to give people access to these parks that are their parks while also kind of maintaining a quality experience for everyone.

 At Arches, where they were literally shutting the gate and turning people away for hours on end, they decided to pilot a new timed entry system this year, and I think it's starting in April, and it'll run through, I think about September. And you will need a reservation to drive into the park between certain hours, and they're trying this to see how that works.

Other parks are trying different things. Yosemite actually has a new reservation system they're implementing for the busiest months of the year. This year there will also be a timed entry system. I think it's the first time the Park's trying this.

Jim:

And in terms of dealing with the influx of campers and people who want camping reservations, they've also started experimenting with a lottery to give people early access to campsite at the popular campground.

I just entered and my number was not drawn, so I didn't get access to getting a reservation there. But there are parks all over the country that are experimenting with different kinds of reservation systems. And what that means for the average American who wants to get out and see a national park is that the days when you could just hop in your car and sort of spontaneously go and visit the most popular parks are probably behind us for a good long while. And so you really need to plan your trip and check the park service website. They have a great website with detailed information for each park. Find out whether you need a reservation and what's required for that.

Mary:

Yeah. It's great to hear about the reservation systems. I didn’t realize that was a thing because, in my younger life, my parents just took care of it. And as a young adult, my girlfriends and I would just pack up and go camp near lake Tahoe or Inland, and it seemed like very spontaneous. We'd just grab our stuff and go. It wasn't a big deal, but now, with two children, I definitely want to make sure we've done our homework. So for San Elijo State Beach , we go every year, and we book a year in advance, but it's really difficult to get in, so thank you for sharing that.

What are some other things we can do to be good citizens in the outdoors? Should we visit the off season, or visit some less visited national or state parks? What are your thoughts?

Shane:

You know, we used to be the secret that wasn't a secret in the travel industry was, Hey, shoulder seasons, right? If you can go to Arches before the kids are out of school or just after they start, but for parks like South Rim Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, there really isn't a shoulder season anymore.

There is still an off season, especially if it's one like Yosemite. Yosemite is beautiful in the winter. Jim loves Yosemite in the winter. So you can still do that, but those March and October slots that were mostly retired folks, those are all full now too. So I think the trick is flexibility and going in the off season. If it's a park where you can do that, that's obviously a smart thing, but also broadening your scope a little bit.

Shane:

Of course, everybody wants to see the Grand Canyon and God knows everybody should, but there's a national park here in Northern California, Lassen. If you want to go to a place with the woods and not see any people, that's your place to go. And then there's preserves and others that are part of the national park system. Like again, here in California, the Mojave preserve is one of my favorite places. You can go there and maybe not see anybody. And so, I think being open to some of those other experiences is probably the smartest thing you can do.

Mary:

Right. Recognizing that there's beauty all over.

Jim:

One of the interesting things about the pandemic is that it sort of both drove people into the outdoors because it's a great place to social distance, travel safely and get out of those Urban areas. But at the same time, you had more people working from home, more people working remotely, and for those people who could figure out the wifi cell situation, some of them were out camping and working remotely through the winter, through shoulder seasons. And so depending on how many people actually go back to the office  we may continue now.

Jim:

Yeah. It's the way it's gonna be.

Mary:

Yeah. You mentioned working in the outdoors, and my husband, since we bought this trailer,  goes down to the beach no less than twice a week and works from there so, I mean, just trying to enjoy it as much as we can so thank you for sharing that.

AAA is one of the few entities that's still sending field cartographers out to do mapping. Shane, How did you get into this work? And could you tell us a little bit about what it's like?

Shane:

Sure, it's mostly luck as it turned out. So I had another career as an actor, and I was hiking here in the mountains near where I live now near Frazier park, and there was a guy with a flat tire on the road, and the back of his thing said AAA mapping unit. So because we couldn't get by him, we helped him change the tire and talk.  I was asking him about his job because I didn't understand exactly what he was doing. As he was describing, my friends kept laughing and I didn't understand what they were laughing at. And after a minute, they're like Shane, that's your job right there. So just on a whim, I applied. There wasn't an opening right away. Maybe a year and a half later, I had since moved to New York phone call comes, and they want me to come in for an interview. And I have not done anything else but this since then.

Mary:

And how long ago was that?

Shane:

20 plus years

Mary:

20 plus years. It sounds like fate, right?

Shane:

It is

Mary:

A AAA truck broken down on the side of the road and you helped changed that tire

Shane:

And that gentleman ended up being my trainer and my partner for almost 10 years. So what we do is we drive everything on the map, but the focus for this position is on the back country stuff, so the four by four roads, the four service roads, the roads that are kind of out in the middle of nowhere.

You can get the other data as most map makers would do, that data is available and pretty accurate. I verify all of that data, and then we add our own in on the dirt roads verified by me. So I'm a glorified data collector and editor. So I'm kind of the first person who says, well, if we're doing a map about Arches, what's actually important, obviously obvious things like campgrounds and the arches themselves. But maybe there's an old cabin that isn't featured on anything, but has some information on it that the park service would like to have part of their map. We would stick it on our map too then. So I get to see all the fun stuff.

Mary:

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

Thinking about what somebody can find on one of our maps that you were helping put together, share with us what else our members could expect?

Shane:

Oh my gosh. It varies so much depending on what the park is. A place like Arches, Bryce or Grand Canyon. I mentioned before about the turnouts. We would mark those If there were a specific place you can pull over, and let your kids run around a little bit. So it might be something as simple as that, or it might be a historical mine. I don't encourage anybody to go down into mines, but there are people who love our maps because out in the back country, we would mark with the old name, Hey, you know, here's Golden Hill mine, and that's the part of the job that I kind of decide  how much of that gets on, how much do we have room for?

Shane:

Is it too cluttered? Is this really interesting or is it just a thing? So yeah, just so many different things. The maps appeal to so many different people that if you're a rockhound, you will find some geological information, like a place you could dig for something. People who love mines, people who like to four by four, we don't do hardcore four by four maps, but a place like Arches or Canyonlands has some really tough backcountry roads for those people too.

Mary:

Yeah. Thank you for that.  Jim, this isn't the first time you've accompanied Shane on one of his mapping explorations. Is there anything you want to share about a previous trip?

Jim:

Well  I've traveled with Shane through a good part of the Southwest, working on the Indian country map that we produce. And I think, one of the things that kind of blew my mind was the amount of work that goes into these maps and just how much curating goes on because you simply can't fit it all of the landmarks, all of the roads onto a single map. And so there's a lot of thought given to what will our members really benefit from on these maps and what don't they need to know? I mean, a couple of other things that I learned about map making while accompanying Shane, in a lot of parks, there's no cell service in various corners.

Jim:

And if you're traveling with a navigation app on your phone, which works great in the city, it might not work so great once you're off the grid and out of cell range. And so these maps are invaluable just in terms of being able to navigate around the park. And in addition, the navigation apps, don't do a very good job of distinguishing among different backroad types. So, you could have a graded dirt road that might be fine for any passenger car or a really rough rocky stretch that you would really need a four by four and a lot of clearance on. And the maps that Shane works on distinguish between those two different kinds of roads. So if you're added Arches, which has both of those kinds of roads and you want to get away from the crowds and you want to do so safely the, this map is invaluable and the national park serious maps are really invaluable for people who are looking to do that.

Mary:

Wow, thank you. So what are some other things that you'd like to share about your trip? Is there anything specific that stands out for you?

Jim:

Oh, I mean, in terms of our trip to Arches I was just thinking a lot when we were there about the popularity of these parks and particularly Arches. And I wasn't really sure how it was going to feel when we got there and were sort of confronted with a lot of other people out hiking and were the trails going to feel too crowded? Was I going to get what felt like a kind of outdoor experience I used to get as a kid when it didn't seem like there were so many people filling these parks? And one of the highlights of the trip actually was hiking to delicate Arch, which is the most iconic arch in the park. It's on most Utah license plates.

Jim:

You see it everywhere on postcards. And  there were a lot of people on the trail hiking up to Delicate Arch. And I knew when I got up to the arch, it was just  going to be crawling with people, and I wasn't quite sure if that was going to feel okay to me because, like Abbey, I wanted this place for myself. But what surprised me was that everybody was so respectful. They were quiet. There was almost like a reverential feeling to the place, like we've come to a sacred site, and we need to be respectful of one another and this place. And we were there last summer, and for me it was my first big road trip since the pandemic began.

Jim:

And it really felt like a kind of a quiet celebration going on, we've all survived this so far. It was at a point where people were starting to go back out,  before the latest Omicron variant. And I didn't feel that greedy feeling like I needed this place to myself. I felt sort of grateful. I was grateful to be there and be sharing it with these people. We've all just suffered this rough couple of years, and I don't know, it was a really special feeling that I don't think I'll ever forget.

Shane:

Wow, it's funny because I had a moment related to that, and it surprised me a little bit. So I'd already done most of the park. I'd been there a couple times already, and at the risk of sounding like the old crotchety guy, I was horrified at the crowds and just mortified because I can remember Arches when you see a couple of cars. So Jim says, “well, I gotta go do this hike to Delicate Arch you're coming, Right?” And I'm like, “are you kidding me?”

We drove into the parking lot, and it's full, and it's over a hundred degrees, and it's like 8:00 AM. And I'm like “I'll look for you. I'm going to go drive out in the desert by myself.” I was quite mortified by that. And this is one of the things that park service has to deal with, people whose expectations are maybe not there, but when he got back and I listened to him talk about it and talk about the people that he met and how he found his joy out there. It kind of made me stop for a minute and go, yeah I'm probably pressing a little bit with expectations that I have from 25 years ago. So it was good to have him go with me on that trip and kind of straight me out a little bit.

Jim:

Straighten out the crochet deal, Matt maker.

Mary:

It reminds me of those photos you might see Instagram versus reality. And I think all of us really have to just reset our expectations. The beauty's not a hidden gem anymore, that everybody wants to experience.

Shane:

That. You know, the, one of those that I laugh at the most is cuz I go by there all the time near page Arizona is Horseshoe Bend. I think it's actually a state park, but it bumps up against part of the Grand Canyon and everybody gets their shot. You kind of hang over the edge and there's this beautiful curve of the Colorado river right there. But what you never see is if you turn around, there's a parking lot full of shuttle buses, to get that shot you have to ask people to step out of the way, and you wait in line to get that one iconic shot. So whenever I see that one, I kind of shake my head a little bit. And the place you go, if you like that, go to Gooseneck State Park in Utah, just North of Monument Valley, similar setup, not so many people.

Mary:

Not Gooseneck. You're sharing with us if it was really hot in the hundreds, what can travelers or people that are going out for the first time, what are some things that they should know to travel safely?

Shane:

You know, preparation is just really the key shameless plug. First thing I always do is get a map, a fold out map that I can put on the table, give my daughter the highlighter pen and say, where are we going?

So you also get a sense of  where you are in the geography. And then the next thing, as Jim mentioned, the national park service nps.gov is a really great site. You can learn biology, geology, and history. They also have a little section that is plan your trip, and I always click on that and see what they're saying, are their roads closed? Is there a heat warning on? Do you need to take that consideration if you have somebody older or younger or yourself? And then I can't stress this enough.

Shane:

I'm such a fan of the park service. The first thing I do, and I've been to all of these parks so many times is I stop in the visitor center, and I make small talk with whatever ranger that is willing to make small talk. They always have good things to say. If you're like me and you're like, where can I go to not see so many people, they know where that is and they'll help you get there. So in doing all of that, you also end up remembering to use the bathroom, get a couple extra bottles of water, maybe something to eat if they have that available there. So I think the stop at the visitor center on a hot day or in a hot park is just hard to be.

Mary:

Yeah. Thank you.

Jim:

Yeah, and just being smart about it. I mean, it was hot when we were there, but I did get out at 8:00 AM. Which is kind of a narrow window early in the day when you could hike safely. Later that afternoon, Shane and I stopped by the visitor center. I had an interview lined up with the park ranger to chat about some of these issues with crowds. And we were waiting for the ranger and a young woman walked up to the information table, it was probably about 112 degrees at the time, and asked where can I hike now? And the ranger just said, flat out you can't hike. Now don't think about hiking right now. If you want to hike in the park, wait till tomorrow morning, get out early before the temperature gets too hot.

Shane:

You could see her disappointment, but he was doing his job. He didn't want to go have to hike out there and drag her out three hours later.

Jim:

Yeah. Wow.

Mary:

Yeah, For those that are looking at things like that on Instagram and seeing these beautiful sites, but not really having done it before, It's important to do your homework. So how can those who are not as adventurous, those looking at the photos and being inspired by the words in your articles or the words of Edward Abbey, and want to go out and explore this, how can they enjoy it if they're not adventurous like you two are?

Jim:

I mean, one of the   great things  people can do that  don't often think about is signing on for a small group tour that takes in national parks. There are a lot of companies around the U.S. that will take anywhere from five to 20, 25 people out in a couple of small vans. The benefit of this is that they often will have reservations already. If the park is already booked up, they'll have reservations at beautiful lodges in these parks when you may not be able to get them. And you share this experience with hopefully new friends. Insight Vacations is one that I know, they offer several great tours that include some of the Southwest Parks, Canyonlands, Bryce, that area but also parks further East.

Jim:

And so, I would encourage people to think about  not necessarily traveling on their own but leaving it to a guide and signing on for one of these small group tours. And the other thing of course is that you don't have to camp if you're not a big camper. There are incredible lodges in and around a lot of these national parks. When Shane and I went out to Arches, we stayed  in a hotel in Moab, and Arches is one park that doesn't have a lot of campsites—there's more camping available outside the park. But in that kind of heat, I think we both, weren't really too enthusiastic about camping, but Moab is not far from the park entrance. It's maybe a 15-minute drive, so it's a very comfortable way to visit a park, make day trips in, then head back to your air-conditioned room afterward.

Mary:

Well, I love that idea.

Jim:

I would just say that travel advisors can be super helpful in helping you navigate the many options out there in terms of what kind of a tour or what kind of lodging you may be interested in.

Mary:

Yeah, AAA has our own travel advisors. Can they help with tours like this instead of tours or lodging?

Jim:

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think during the pandemic, and as we sort of hopefully emerge from it a bit, people really learn the value of using travel advisors. They can help you navigate COVID rules. If  cancellation is required for any reason, they can handle a lot of the tough work of getting refunds, so that's a good way to go.

Mary:

Yeah, and for those who enjoy the air conditioning of their vehicle and enjoy the sites from their car, are there any things like that where they can drive through the park?

Shane:

Yeah, Arches is actually a very car friendly park  If you're car touring. I'm a big fan of Bryce too. Bryce is basically a long skinny hill, and the road goes down the top of it, so you have views off of both sides. So I love that one, and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for a car tour is also really something special even when the crowds are there, it's still a spectacular thing to do.

Mary:

Yeah. Sounds like something I would get into with the two boys. I've learned that when they fall asleep in the car, do not disturb. And we'll do this when we go in to look at holiday lights and things like that, the kids are asleep, do the driving. So I'd still want to be able to enjoy the sites, if the kids had fallen asleep in the car.

Shane:

 I got one more shameless plug related to that. So we do a map, as Jim mentioned, called Indian Country, and it's a four corners map basically. So if you were taking you a trip with your two kids and you wanted one of those lifetime trips, that's a great map to do. So all five of Utah's big five national parks are on there, Grand canyon in Arizona, Chaco and Canyon de Chelly in New Mexico. And what that map literally was designed to do over a hundred years ago is lead people from one of those parks to the next one, to the next one. It's often the map you'll see if you go to a visitor center at a park, it's the one they'll have there on the thing, because they know they can give directions really easily too. So road tripping, that's about as good as it gets.  My favorite map too, obviously.

Mary:

 I'll have to check it out.

Jim:

Yeah. You know, I I've been thinking about this because we just put together a story for the next issues of the magazines with some of the best road trips you can take in national parks. And Edward Abbey, who I mentioned earlier, who wrote about Arches, he didn't believe that cars belonged in national parks. He writes about that quite fiercely in Desert Solitaire. Of course, my experience growing up was driving into national parks with my parents and having a wonderful time. And I hadn't given it a lot of thought, but it turns out that that roads were a part of the national park system really from the very beginning. In fact, the early park sort of masterminds were thinking about how are we going to get people to visit these parks?

Jim:

How are we going to make sure we're going to get federal funding to continue to maintain the parks? And they believe from the beginning that roads were the answer. They also believed that roads could really offer people if they were done properly  a window onto these parks that would help people want to continue protecting them for years to come.

And so a lot of the roads in our national parks were just beautifully designed to offer great views and to leave people sort of with that feeling of connection to this country and  land and with a real belief in protecting it for future generations.

And of course, if you don't want to mix cars with your wilderness experience, there are all sorts of places you can go in the U.S. where you can get far away from cars. The Sierra Mountain Range in California is full of wonderful backcountry hikes to be had where you will not see a car anywhere in sight. So, you can find whatever kind of wilderness experience you're looking for, but the national parks are great places often to drive and to have that kind of experience, as you said, with your whole family.

Mary:

Yeah. It's amazing that they did such a great job with putting the roads in a way that would still preserve the beauty of it.

Shane:

Some of them are just astounding. One of my favorites is Crater Lake near where I grew up, you literally drive around a volcano with this beautiful lake in the middle. That's a great car trip right there. You don't need to hike at all to fall in love with Crater Lake.

Mary:

Sounds beautiful.

Jim:

Thank you. I should just mention that some of these roads of course, because it's such a great experience, they're incredibly popular these days. And so even sometimes just to drive one of the roads, you will need a reservation. I believe that's true of going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park in Montana. If you wanted to drive that road, it's an incredible road offers amazing views. You need to make sure that you plan that well in advance.

Mary:

Yeah. That's really important that you mention that because even the driving trip, if I'm not planning on lodging or anything like that, you still have to changing have those reservations

Shane:

Yeah. Changing now.

Mary:

So what would be one thing besides making reservations, besides planning early in advance, one thing that you recommend to get the most from your outdoor vacations?

Jim:

I mean, Shane touched on it earlier, but I would say  just to be prepared. And part of that, I guess is, in addition to having food, water, a map, and all of that is just to recognize that you're in an outdoor, sometimes in a wilderness environment, the weather can have a big impact on your trip. Other visitors can as well, and so you've gotta be flexible. And just going in understanding that things may change while you're there. It may be too hot to hike, and you're going to have to let go of that idea of hiking—save it for another day and just be willing to kind of go with the flow.

I've had so many experiences. One of my favorite parks, as Shane mentioned, is Yosemite and being up there with my daughter and not having a particular plan in mind, but, you know, we may get to one trail and it turns out that it's closed. So we pop in the car and drive a few miles to another trail and wind up having an even better experience, hiking up to a waterfall than I had even imagined. And so just going in knowing that things can change and that you've just gotta be willing to go with it

Shane:

Pretty much the same answer. So if you want to go see Arches, you should absolutely do that. But if you get there and there's just too much for you, well, next door, you have Canyon Lands. You have the brand new Bears Ears just below that, you have Capital Reef not far from there. So if you did a little research ahead of time and familiarize yourself with the area, then having  the flexibility to go with plan B, instead of plan A, isn't going be too hard. I think that's the thing, I don't think we all know how all these changes are going to turn out yet. I have faith the park service will come up with something that works, but while they're figuring it out, this will be Archer's first time trying this. Yosemite's trying some new stuff as Jim mentioned. So I don't know what it's going to be like this time out, so I'm going to be ready for make a plan B

Mary:

Thank you. So for our listeners who are listening in to hear this definitely be prepared, and also look out for that reservation system to launch in April, you said, right?

Jim:

In Arches, Yeah. Different parks have different timing on these things.

Mary:

Yeah. Thank you. So anything else? Have these experiences the ones that you've had more recently, have they changed you in any way?

Jim:

You know, every time I visit one of these parks and get into the outdoors, I'm reminded of is just what an amazing country this is. How beautiful the land can be. I live in the city, and  It's very noisy. A lot of people feel like life is coming at me very fast. And what I really value in going out into these parks and into the outdoors is just slowing down, finding some silence, some quiet and I find that It helps sort of balance out all of the craziness of city living. And inevitably by the time I come back to all of the craziness, I'm feeling more grounded, more connected, more relaxed.

So  it's like a balm for the soul, I think. And that's why I go out there, and it’s what keeps me returning year after year.

Mary:

Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more about the great outdoors. I will say when I'm home, I'm hyper focused on everything that's going on in my small world, but when you get out and enjoy something like that, you realize that the problems are so small and the beauty is amazing. So, yeah. Thank you. All right.

So I appreciate everything that you've shared with us, with our listeners. I know I'm excited. I'm thinking about my next travel plans and I'm sure our listeners are today as well. Jim Benning travel editor for AAA and ACE publications. Thank you for being with us and Shane Henry AAA field cartographer. Thank you for sharing with us as well. And thank you to our listeners for joining us. If you're planning a trip, connect with a AAA travel advisor, check out aaa.com/travel or visit your local branch. And if you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to subscribe. Thank you for Traveling With AAA.

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