Welcome to our 2016 blog. First let me introduce the family. There is April and I (Andrew), our two children, Asher and Pickle (almost her real name) and we have two dogs, Plato and Mishi. We travel a lot and as we passed through Kentucky last fall we saw a National Parks flyer that started us thinking. They have a program where you can visit all five parks and get a commemorative patch. They are doing this because the National Park Service turns 100 Years old on the the 25^th of August 2016. So after a little thought we decided that we should follow suit. We have a pretty unique living situation. April is a Realtor and I work from home. So we decided to go big. We are going to visit one hundred National Park Sites in 2016.

Now to get some details out of the way. There are only 59 National ‘Parks’ in the US and some of them are in Alaska or the islands. For this years experience we are going to focus on the Lower 48. We are including any protected area under the direction of the National Park Service. This includes the Monuments, Recreation Areas, Battlefields, Historic Sites and so on. Opening up the restrictions like that increases the number to 401. It still seems like a huge goal and it is. That’s okay, huge goals are inspiring.

Now there are some things that will make this better, easier and more meaningful. First, we are going to communicate what we are doing. That will keep us moving. Second, we want you to join in. The more people going the same direction there is, the better the journey will be. We will have this more formalized later but the Join The Club tab will be an opportunity to join in the fun. Third, there will be a support tab. The centennial year of the National Parks is going to be a big deal. We are going to be a part of it. If you want to be a part of it but the traveling part of it is not for you or your friends or company, then you can help support us and help us bring this experience to as many people as possible.

So welcome to our blog. To a large degree this is what we do for school for our two children. Our school will continue after this year in a similar scope but a different theme. This is just our 2016 curriculum. We have a big job ahead of us but we are already well on our way. We returned on the 7^th of Jan having visited 10 National Parks and Monuments. Thank you for reading and we’ll talk again soon.