In a few days I will be off again on my ninth trip to visit National Park units. This will be my most ambitious trip to date in terms of sites visited. It will fall about 100 miles short of being the most miles driven on one trip, but that is only because I will be taking Amtrak’s AutoTrain from near Washington to Orlando on my journey home, saving 815 miles and two days of driving.
The trip will be heavy in history with 12 of the planned 19 sites having some historical significance. There will be a chance to enjoy some scenery and time with nature, with Acadia National Park along with Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine and three units along the northern Delaware River between Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. The final two sites are a mixture. Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park is a historical home the highlights the art of the sculptor who lived there. Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park is another historical house set in a scenic location.
The trip will start with a long two-day drive to Buffalo, New York to visit the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. Roosevelt took the Presidential oath of office following the 1901 assassination of William McKinley in Buffalo.
After visiting a few days with relatives who call Buffalo home, I’ll head east across New York, visiting Harriet Tubman National Historical Park, Women’s Rights National Historical Park, Fort Stanwyx National Monument and Saratoga National Historical Park, site of a crucial American victory in the Revolutionary War.
Heading into Vermont. I’ll visit the state’s only National Park site at the aforementioned Marsh-Billing-Rockefeller location, then head a short distance into New Hampshire to see its only site at Saint-Gaudens. After that, I have a long drive across Maine to the coast and Acadia National Park. I hope to catch a sunrise from atop Cadillac Mountain while there.
Driving up the coast brings me to Saint Croix Island International Historic Site. Yes, the island sits in the middle of the river on the U.S.-Canadian border. The island itself is inaccessible, but a visitor center is located along the banks of the river. I’ll then head a few miles up the road to Calais and cross into Canada to visit the Parks Canada site of the same name.
Returning to the U.S., I’ll head to the center of the state and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. In the background will be Mount Katahdin, which I last saw in 1970 on a trip to Maine. It is also the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, a National Scenic Trail running 2,100 miles to Georgia.
Another long drive will take me to south-central Massachusetts and the Springfield Armory National Historic Site. From here, I do a bit of crisscrossing for the next few days. There are four sites in New York that are fairly close to each other. The most I can reasonably visit in one day is three of them. So I can just take two consecutive days, right? I wish!
I can visit the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site on the same day that I visit the Springfield Armory. The problem is that the next day is Sunday. I could visit those other three sites on Sunday, but I have a ticket for an all-day train excursion from Steamtown National Historic Site in northeastern Pennsylvania. The excursion only runs on the Sunday, so after leaving the Eleanor Roosevelt site, I’ll fly past those other three sites and into Scranton to catch my train.
After the train trip, I reverse course and head back into New York to visit the Home of Franklin D Roosevelt National Historic Site, Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, and just up the road, the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site.
My final day of visiting sites has me in the Delaware River valley in northern Pennsylvania. The Park Service has made a bit of a mess out of the “official” and “other” sites they manage here. The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is the oldest unit and clearly an official site with multiple visitor centers. My first multiday backpacking trip with my father was in the early 1970s tackling 40 miles of the Appalachian Trail through the NRA, ending at the Water Gap itself.
Now to make things confusing, there are three other sites listed along the Delaware River. The nps.gov site lists as official sites (i.e. part of the 424) the “Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River” and the “Delaware National Scenic River”. The former has a website (like most of park units), but the latter does not have its own website. Also listed as a “Related Areas” is the Lower Delaware Wild and Scenic River, which does have its own webpage despite not being an official unit.
To make matters more confusing, the nps.gov webpage showing what year each park entered the system lists a “Middle Delaware National Scenic River” but no “Delaware National Scenic River”. The webpage for the Delaware Water Gap lists “other sites” as the Upper…, Middle…, and Lower… but also no “Delaware …” so I am going to presume Upper and Middle are official units and hopefully find stamps from both.
After a day going up and down the river valley, I will finally turn towards home. Two weeks of travelling across the northeast will add 19 more sites to my visited list, taking me to well over 100 total as I approach two years since the adventure began.
I’ll spend the night in Wilkes-Barre, then head down I-81 and US 15 into Maryland and Virginia, stopping in Lorton, Virginia less than a mile from the Amtrak train station. Thursday morning, my car and I board the train and let someone else drive us home to Florida.
Steve
