Posted on September 27, 2009 - by Cate

America’s National Parks: August Memories

To commemorate the latest work of Ken Burns, and in keeping with this blog’s theme, I thought I would write some pieces on the National Parks as I recollect them from my youth.

My father worked for many years, at RCA, here in Indianapolis and the company would shut down in August for two weeks each year. Dad took that opportunity to further a mission he had, which was to make sure that his family had the opportunity to see America’s great national parks. So each year, we would pack up the family car and head out to explore a new area of the country and specifically, a national park.

I can not tell you how much I cherish the memories of those trips and what a gift my father gave us. At the time, I did not recognize nor fully appreciate the great adventures and the planning that went into them. But now, with some time and perspective under my belt, I realize, how invaluable those experiences really were. I am sure that this documentary will resurrect memories of those fantastic journeys.

Not only do these trips recall the majesty and beauty of our country, but the hilarity of my family as we meandered through our vacations, dealing with life’s unexpected twists and turns, in spite of my father’s careful planning and because of our complete lack of camping skills.

It’s important that I set the stage or the scene of our memorable family vacations. In other words the reconnaissance and preparation. My father spent a great deal of his year planning, calculating and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say, plotting, our great annual adventure. It always began the same way, with a map of the country and a discussion regarding which park was next in line for a visit.

Since we never covered the same territory twice great care was given to the selection and route to our destinations. Once the destination was selected then it was time to consult the travel resource of the middle motoring class, the AAA Motor Club.

And nothing factored more prominently into our AAA visit than the sacred “triptik” — the invention of the American Automobile Association that physically mapped out our route on multiple pages that flipped over a plastic bind as we would traverse the country. Every flip indicated progress as we motored toward our destination. In combination with the AAA Tour Book, one written for every state in the country, the pair of resources was our bible for the trip.

I can remember sitting with my dad at a desk at the local AAA branch as the agent (dressed in a short sleeved shirt, polyester stiped tie, sansabelt flares and humongous sideburns — this was the mid ’70’s after all) mapped out our trip with a highlighter and would pull the companion tour books for each state we would travel through. Dad had additional maps (always a backup plan), and we would take turns reading the triptik, helping him navigate, while reading out loud from the tour book the various points of interest along the way.

The Corn Palace, Mitchell, Kansas

This of course was before computers, so given our limited resources, that tour book provided a lot of background and color. For example, the world’s largest ball of twine can be found in Darwin, Minnesota (self-explanatory) or the Corn Palace (Mitchell, Kansas) — a building made entirely of corn, are a couple of curiosities we might detour to explore. These points of cultural interest could be integrated into our meandering at a moment’s notice (and often were as long as it was Dad’s idea and didn’t significantly impact our timeline.)

The three trips I’m choosing to highlight:

• “the great northern swing” which included Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons
• “the great southern swing” which included the Grand Canyon, the Painted Dessert, Zion and Bryce
• and Mammouth Caves National Park

So stay tuned for the next installment and in the meantime check out the PBS site that is chocked full of great information about the series, but also incredible references to learn more about the National Parks and their history as well as wonderful teaching resources so that we can pass along these national treasures to our youth.