See the USA….in your Chevrolet
What a grand country we live in
Or a Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab with the Hemi 5.7, it doesn’t matter…. but I always thought the tune was catchy….
While our travels have taken us around and around the world, last week they took us just 1200 miles away from home, a short jaunt over to Nebraska to see the annual migration of the sand hill cranes and it was a magnificent trip. But we got so much more than we bargained for!
We drove across miles and miles of eastern Montana eying wheat fields and a big sky dotted with snow capped mountain ranges. We cruised across Wyoming, broken buttes and 100 mile views, oil and gas pumps extracting energy and pronghorn antelope racing across straw colored plains. We hit Nebraska where unplowed corn fields stretched to the horizon waiting for this year’s crop.
We commented on the diversity in everything from people to place. We sometimes forget how amazing our own country is….don’t ever do that. This trip was a great reminder.
What to see in the USA
Moon over Montana
From the enchanting fall colors of the east to the redwoods of the west we have beauty and grandeur that is unimaginable. It made me just want to make a list of the amazingly beautiful places that exist right here within the 3.5 million square miles of our borders. So I did. And without stopping even to think, I came up with a very short list of 30 must see places:
- The Grand Canyon National Park
- The beaches of Florida
- The Redwood forest
- Big Sky country of Montana (wilderness areas the size of Switzerland!)
- Great Lakes of the mid-west
- Great Plains
- Sand hills of Nebraska
- Texas Hill country
- Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park and all of the redrock of Utah
- The Rocky Mountains (all of it!)
- The Everglades
- The Florida Keys
- Death Valley
- Sand dunes of Michigan
- 10,000 lakes of Minnesota
- The meandering Platte River
- Grand Teton National Park
- Yellowstone National Park
- The Ozarks
- The Adirondack
- The Great Salt Lake
- Joshua Tree
- Oregon Coast
- Hood River
- The Great Mississippi
- Yosemite National Park
- The entire state of Alaska!
- Mt Rainier and the Olympic Peninsula
- The Black Hills of South Dakota
- The Smokey Mountains
I think there is a bucket list in the making! Imagine the adventure of seeing all of these places in our own country. And of course, there is so much more I haven’t even touched the surface of. Many of these places are probably within reach of your doorstep, a mere day or two’s drive away. Pack up the tent and hit the road, the USA is waiting for you!
What did I miss? Add to the list, let’s see how fast it can reach 100!!
Winter in Yellowstone
The lava fields of the Big Island of Hawaii, the Pemigewasa Wilderness of New Hampshire, miles and miles of corn fields or wheat fields or sunflower fiields of the midwest, the morning sun coming off of an old and leaning red barn, gospel music coming out of a feshly painted church in small town Mississippi or the smell of early morning coffee and muffins while waiting for the first-ferry on Bainbriudge Island.
I get that my lists aren’t fully bucket-y, but the moments are.
Yes, the moments are “bucket-y” for sure. The point is how many amazing things we have here in the US to see and do. Thanks for your input!
Awesome, thanks for adding John, especially the underground. I think I naturally block those out because I am WAY claustrophobic. I’m not familiar with the scablands, I’ll definitely check that one out.
Great start on a list, but I notice a lack of underground attractions. Mammoth Cave, Carlsbad Caverns, Luray Caverns as biggies in the dry world, and all sorts of wet ones, especially in Florida. Sunrise from Cadillac Mountain in Maine (first daylight to hit the United States). Catalina and the Channel Islands. The Scablands with all their artifacts of the Missoula Flood.
It will be interesting to see what other come up with.