As you may know, Carl and I have been in our home state of North Carolina these past 11+ weeks to visit family and friends and catch up on various medical appointments. We first visited our daughter in Boone for a week, then spent the next four weeks in our hometown of Garner, two weeks with my mom near Bogue, then a week in my sister’s driveway in Swansboro before spending the last few weeks back in Garner moochdocking at my friend’s house (thank you, Chris!).

Spending quality time with our family and friends has been absolutely wonderful. It had been almost 18 months since we saw them, and we have definitely tried to make up for all that lost time. It will be bittersweet when we pull out on January 3 to begin our travels again. On the one hand, 11-12 weeks has not been enough time to be with everyone; on the other, our wanderlust needs to be satiated and we are ready to go.

The most popular question we’ve been asked is “what was your favorite place to visit?” This has been easy enough to answer—most of them—especially the national parks we visited. A couple of weeks ago, though, a friend asked me “what has been the most challenging?” Mmm. I didn’t have an immediate answer, and I have spent some time thinking about it since she asked. Now I have one.

Hello fellow national park enthusiasts! I posted this last week but have added a few clarifications.

I’d like to bring to your attention a big change to the confusing entry requirements for Glacier National Park and Yosemite National Park starting this year.

National parks usually require some type of entrance fee unless you have an annual pass or a senior pass (i.e., America the Beautiful pass; there are a few other types of passes with which you might be familiar). This is still required at Glacier and Yosemite.

Starting this year—May 6 for Glacier and May 21 for Yosemite—through September 2021, both parks are requiring an additional entry reservation ticket.

LET ME REPEAT. To get into Glacier and Yosemite National Parks this summer (and most likely all future summers), you will need a park pass (or pay an entrance fee when you arrive) AND a reservation (with an entry reservation ticket in hand or on phone).

We all know this year, 2020, will go down as one of the most memorable, simply because everyone’s life has been upended one way or the other by the Covid-19 pandemic. We didn’t let that stop us, though, from allowing our long-in-the-making plans come to fruition. But first, a quick update on Madeline and Rachel.

Thank you for following Riveting Journey’s blog! When it comes to building this website, I’m a “Jack (or Jill) of All Trades, Master of None” ~ meaning that quirky things happen behind the scenes with this website that sneak up on me and can take me a little while to solve since I don’t know why they occur!

You might not have received a notification on the last couple of blogs that have been posted because of a widget on our website dropping out. I have fixed this, so I thought I’d post a quick note to you, hoping that you will receive notification of it in your email.

I apologize for this brief intrusion on your day, but I hope you will enjoy our two latest posts: Our Stay at “Unhenge Park”! and To Fall In Love With A Rainforest.

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Again, thank you for following our travels around the U.S.!