My Parents' Best Idea

A follow up to America’s Best Idea

The motor home we rented and drove through Glacier National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Mount Rushmore, and Yellowstone

My parents were visiting me recently and my mom brought one of her travel albums with her to remind me of one of our family trips after reading my segment on the National Parks (below). She always writes a “travel journal” after a trip, complete with photos, historical and geographical information, details of the experience, personal commentary, and gastronomical adventures. We laughed at the drawing I made on our first night out, the crush I had on what’s-his-name (apparently I never knew; I was too shy to ask), and our attempts to entertain ourselves when we were stranded in Glacier National Park.

According to her journal, within three hours of departing, drivers on I-94 in downtown Chicago were beeping their horns to alert us that the motor home was already falling apart. A hose and the door to something important blew off and were unrecoverable. Subsequently, we overnighted in places so cold and windy the pilot light wouldn’t stay lit, and halfway up the tallest mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park we had to do a u-ey with no real maneuvering room because the transmission was overheating. People stopped to help and keep my dad from backing off the side of the mountain while my mom and her dog stood on the side of the road (apparently she left us kids and the other dog to perish with dad; which would have been easier than controlling us as he did what must have been an amazing asterisk turn—forget a K turn!—so we could head back downhill before the engine caught on fire). We had several flat tires and numerous other mechanical issues along the way, all of which were documented along with reports on the nice people who helped us get out of these situations.

My drawing of our first campsite

Our first night was spent at a deserted campground with no facilities, but something to draw about. Our most memorable interaction with park rangers involved a stray dog that started following us around in Glacier. I remembered they said they would take care of it, and my mom remembers what they actually said was they’d take it back to the office and shoot it, which sent all three of us kids, but especially my sister, into hysterics. (Memory has a funny way of making things seem less traumatic than they were at the time!) I don’t know what they were thinking, saying something like that to little kids. I couldn’t believe there was a photo of us with the dog, and my mom couldn’t believe I was so excited about that! Her journal reminded me that my sister’s horse kept heading back to the barn on the dude ranch, and that my shy little brother was chosen from the audience to participate in a Vaudeville act under a big-tent "mellerdramer" in the Black Hills for which he received an official certificate. And we were all thrilled to belly up to the bar for a sarsaparilla in frosty beer mugs.

I remember us kids making a sign that said “We have cruise control. What’s your problem?” and holding it up in the window as we passed the same cars over and over (see future installment on my attitude about driving). I remember the cupboard doors banging open and all the pots and pans and food flying out as we bumped out across the fields of the bridgeless Indian reservation. I remember lots of rain. It used to rain every day around 3 pm in the mountains, but I don’t know if it still does. I remember we couldn’t drive through parts of Yellowstone because it was half closed due to snow—in July! We had a snowball fight, which was awesome for us even though we regularly had 4 feet of snow, more than anyone could want, in the winter. I remember Glacier National Park still had a dozen glaciers, and am sad that now it’s down to one. And I remember all of the beautiful flowers and animals we saw, including moose, which I’ve never seen in person since.

The family and the stray dog

My parents sent me on several camping trips with the Kalamazoo Nature Center in later years, which accounts for some of my other national park experiences. I think it was on the first one of those that I took my first photos. When I got home, my parents were pretty well flabbergasted that I had captured such nice shots. I still have them somewhere and can picture many of them in my mind more clearly than details of the experience. It was a little traumatic being that far away from home, sleeping outdoors with strangers and bears, using public bathrooms, and eating other people’s cooking (I do fondly remember how comforting canned baked beans and Dinty Moore Stew were on cold afternoons after hiking mountains, fording streams, sliding across glaciers, and walking through clouds). I had become a travel pro by the second solo trip, though! Those trips were an integral part of the foundation of my personality and appreciation for nature. When I bought my own house, my mother took the opportunity to bring me two trunks full of stuff she’d been saving for me since my childhood. Among the treasures were little notebooks in which I kept lists of the birds and other flora and fauna I’d seen and learned about growing up. People often are astonished when I identify a female cardinal, for instance, not only because I know what type of bird it is, but that I can tell the difference between the sexes. That cracks me up! Of course they can identify all of the cartoon and other TV show characters I never got to watch, but I don’t feel deprived about that!

Every kid should have the types of nature experiences I enjoyed. There should be funding to send them on trips like those so they understand how we fit into the world and what we should feel responsible for protecting. As I mentioned in the original parks post, I am very active in supporting numerous organizations, whether by being a member, making donations, or writing my legislators about protecting them. I just signed a petition today asking Congress for funding to educate children on the environment, which I’ve included below. Then I sent it to everyone I know. If the link is active through this blog page, please sign it yourself.

Dear A, Our country is in dire need of education that stops water pollution and habitat destruction. Nearly half of our population does not know what a watershed is; let alone which one they live in. Right now, your U.S. representative has the opportunity to support a bill that will increase funding for key environmental and watershed education programs. This bill will educate America 's youth about their local watershed and provide opportunities for them to experience their watershed firsthand. Clean watersheds are not only essential to wildlife survival on land and in the water, but also to our health. By investing in our youth through environmental education, we can secure healthy watersheds for years to come! Ask your representative to help build the next generation of habitat stewards today. Sincerely, Julia Marden Online Grassroots Coordinator National Wildlife Federation alerts@nwf.org