Sadie Speaks: The Ups and Downs of National Parks
Floating the Snake River, Grand Teton NP. Definitely one of the ups!
Sadie’s take on the good, the bad, and the ugly after visiting 15 national parks this summer.
October 1, 2025
“If anyone loudly blesses their neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse.” Proverbs 27:14 (verse chosen by Sadie)
These are some of our favorite things about the National Parks.
Ups:
The amazing views!
Badlands National Park, South Dakota
Beautiful lakes and rivers
Curicanti National Recreation Area, Colorado
The amazing Park Service
Our tour guide park ranger at Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
Nice people (mostly)
Tour group at Wind Cave National Park
Wild berries to eat
Low ground blueberries at Sahale Glacier, North Cascades National Park (abundant and delicious!)
And lastly, wildlife
But of course, because there are ups, there also have to be downs.
Downs:
The drivers
They are worse than me, and I don’t even know how to drive!
SO MANY PEOPLE
Shuttle bus from overflow lot to Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park. Even the overflow lot was full. Ugh.
Everything is overpriced
Mom’s note: This was in April in West Virginia outside Canaan Valley State Park. But still, my goodness.
People don’t know how to park
When we were in Tetons there were cars parked in the middle of the road! To be fair there was a bear, but still, grow up buddy. Learn how to park!
People stop in the road for EVERY SINGLE wildlife sighting—even just a deer
The bison brigade, Grand Teton National Park. To be fair, bison were actively crossing the highway
So those are my ups and downs about the National Parks. Notice how most of my downs are about people. :)
Sadie Scrambles
On this trip, we have been doing a lot of hiking. I have been logging all the miles, and so far I’m at 154.7 miles hiked. As you can see from the graph below, the amount of miles hiked has become progresivly longer with more and more elevation gain.
My mile time in 6th grade was 12:12 (yes I know it’s slow). A few days ago, I ran a mile to see how much I have improved, and this time it was only 9:56. (And half of the time I was running against the wind. And I was wearing jeans and I didn’t have shoes on.)
I will keep updating my miles as I go. My goal at the end of the trip is 500 miles!
After 6.5 miles of hiking and nearly 4,000 feet of elevation gain, Sadie enjoys the snow of Sahale Glacier at North Cascades National Park.
Roberts on the Road
For those just finding us, hello! Inspired by the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25, our family is on a yearlong RV road trip in 2025-2026 to celebrate my husband’s retirement after 20 years in Naval Special Warfare, as well as our 24 years together during the ups and downs of it all.
With our 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son in tow, this trip to explore America’s national parks and beautiful places is intended to help our family reflect and reset as civilian life begins.
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For background info on who we are and where we’re traveling, we’d love for you to read the intro post. The full list of road trip blog posts can be found here. Thanks for stopping by!
