Planning a Visit to America's National Parks (Ep. 14)

Transcript

Ranger John (00:00):
Hi, this is Ranger John and welcome to Travel Fuels Life.

Drew (00:17):
Hello everybody and welcome to Travel Fuels Life, a show where we share stories, tips and inspiration to help you live a travel lifestyle. I'm your host, drew Hanish, and if you're planning a trip this summer to America's Treasures, the National Parks, wouldn't it be great if you could just bend the ear of a 20 year veteran of the park service will look no further because today I have on the phone someone that I had the privilege to chat with over lunch last year at Texs at the travel conference and it is Park Ranger John from up in Washington State and I'm going to ask him all sorts of questions for you, including how we can get the most out of those $80 America the beautiful passes. Also find out about how he uses the blog that he runs to create a more detailed itinerary for your park visits. And he might even convince me to get over my fear of bears. So for my home in Greenville, South Carolina, it is time to dial up John Tilleson, also known as Park Ranger. John, hello John, how you doing today?

Ranger John (01:24):
I'm doing great, thank you very much.

Drew (01:27):
So John, you've been a park ranger for 20 years. What inspired you to become a park ranger?

Ranger John (01:35):
It's funny, I grew up, I mean I was in scouts, I was always outdoors and stuff and it never crossed my mind and I remember a lot of young guys get out of high school, they think they know the world and I thought I'd get a job and I would figure it out. But after a few years I think it started to hit me that I need to figure something out life and, cause I wasn't going to work for lower wage jobs all my life. I think it, I got that realization real quick. And then I remember one day this brochure came in and it said natural resources and it was for the community college and they had programs like wildlife biology, chainsaw operation and fish identification, all those different. I was like, I never thought about this before. I was like, this is everything that I love. I was like all this stuff is what I enjoy doing. So I mean I immediately signed up for the courses and gosh I never turned back it. It's been the best thing I ever did. It was like I found that thing. Yeah.

Drew (02:43):
So did you go through college then or were these just training courses apart from college?

Ranger John (02:51):
It was actually, what I took was a two year degree for natural resources management and it had degrees in either in forestry parks and recreation, wildlife management and in range land management. And it just stuck with me and I always loved going to parks and doing stuff and it just never crossed my mind and as soon as I seen it, I knew what I wanted to do. It was just like the light bulb went off.

Drew (03:22):
So how did you pursue actually going to work for one of the parks then once that happened? Did you do things apart from and build up a resume to get going or did you just jump right in and say, here's a park, let me go apply and see if I can get the job?

Ranger John (03:41):
The first thing I did is I had jumped right into the college and started taking classes and then I started looking around for jobs in summertime. Once get out of school I was like let start getting some work experience, which I, I tell everybody this that wants to get into parks now, is that one of the best things you can do is get you to get known it. It's really competitive to become a park ranger working in the outdoors positions and most people they request a four year degree minimum. Some of them but even more. But I got in with two years of work experience and two years of education and I think the two years at work experiences was invaluable. I mean I got to know people, I got to learn people, I got to learn the system and how it worked and build a reputation for my name and people ate that up. So I had people when I got done with my degree, they was like, soon as you're done I want to interview you. I mean they were waiting for me cause they knew my reputation.

Drew (04:50):
Wow.

Ranger John (04:51):
And that's something that's invaluable, you know, really can't put a price tag.

Drew (04:57):
So if somebody was trying to do that today, what would be the best route then? Is it, I mean because to be able to get a college degree, I know from doing web design and looking at resumes coming across my desk, I always look for that experience side. But with a web designer they can go and just start working on code here and start doing little projects here and there. How would somebody maybe try to get that experience these days?

Ranger John (05:25):
I think the best thing to do is, I mean if you're interested in a park, you could start off by volunteering. Yeah. I mean you've got volunteer groups. Most parks do have some, a volunteer group. It's a good way to get your name in and get known. A lot of them have, most every park I know has summer employment and it's really the good chance to get your hands dirty and really find out what is the operational part of the park. And I mean if you can get down there and clean bathrooms for eight hours day and still have a smile on your face at the end of the day, I mean that says a lot about your work character and stuff and being able to get along with people. And I mean that's ultimately what I'm looking for is I, I've trained, I've hired a lot of people for seasonal employment over the years and I always said that I hire attitudes and I train for skills. Cause most of the work I did were, I'd say most things were trainable. I mean there are some things I needed more skills with, but if you have a great attitude, if somebody you can really work with and work with the public, that goes so much further. I mean when I go to work I want to have a good time too and I always look for that as somebody with a great attitude.

Drew (06:42):
So what were your primary duties then when you got into being a park ranger? What was your day-to-day like?

Ranger John (06:50):
That's a pretty common question and the hardest thing is there was no typical day as a park ranger. Now I worked in Washington state for 20 years and each place might be a little bit different, but my primary job duty was doing law enforcement and emergency response. So that was always my paramount thing. And sometimes you never know when that happens. You just get a call and you respond. Other times we do active patrol, especially for emphasis for problems you may have if you have speeding in a certain area, especially where children and people are families are playing. That's pretty important to make sure everybody's safe. But you know, would get medical emergencies, lost children, something like that, you know, would be instantly responding to that. But besides that, we also managed an entire park and I almost explained it like managing a city. We in the parks would have a sewer department, you know have a sewer systems, water systems.

(07:54):
We had computer reservations for people coming in for camping. You managed employees mean typical parks. Some of 'em has 8,000 buildings, it depends on the size of park and you've got numerous employees, numerous volunteers, vehicles to maintain. So there was a lot happening at all the time. So if I wasn't responding to emergency, I might have been responding to a complaint or it might have been going to help maintain some facilities or checking in campers or answering questions or a little bit of everything. The good days I really got to do, I really enjoyed was doing interpreter programs and talking about the park and the history and stuff like that or got a chainsaw. I mean it was different every day.

Drew (08:48):
So when we meet somebody in the park and they're doing those interpretive programs, they don't just do that. They have a lot of other responsibilities that they take on it.

Ranger John (09:00):
There's a possibility now some of the rangers that you'll meet in the visitor centers, that might be one of their primary tasks, but they may be also tasked with doing evening interpreter programs and stuff like that as well.

Drew (09:13):
Okay, well good. Well so now you're doing some work with Yosemite right now is as a brand ambassador. What does that entail?

Ranger John (09:23):
Well Yosemite is a big part. They have four entrances. The south entrance is going through Madeira County. Many of people go through there. So I'm working with Madeira County to talk not only about Madeira County but Yellowstone itself as well. And all the counties work together real well in working with Yosemite National Park. I mean tourism's a major component and a common thing I'm starting to see now is you'll come into a park and you'll see local breweries with beers themed with the national parks or wineries or you've got several outfitters that does. Zion for example, they have outfitters for hiking the narrows where they have boots and hiking poles and Yosemite. They have some really great restaurants right outside, I mean got the town of Oakhurst, it's right outside it easy location to go get some supplies. Bass Lake that's right next to it. And Bass Lake has a beautiful lake that most people know it from the 1980s movie, the Great Outdoors it had John Candy, Dan, that cult movie that was filmed right there in right outside of Yosemite and Bass Lake. So there's a lot of that cool stuff surrounding that whole area.

Drew (10:47):
So the park really kind of coordinates with that or you are just kind of promoting from the county side?

Ranger John (10:55):
Well, and I'm promoting from the county side, but the counties all get together. They have a big meeting quarterly and they talk about the happenings in the park and I mean everybody kind of works together and you almost have to, when you look at a park like Yosemite, it gets millions of visitors a year. It really is a coordinated effort. I mean even with Yosemite having gosh about a thousand campsites in the summertime and several lodges. I mean there's still so many people come in. I mean there's still a need for lodging outside the park and restaurants and supplies and you can't do everything within the park.

Drew (11:32):
I was going to say that's what fits me because I'm not the guy who's going to be camping most likely I'm going to be looking for the nice hotel and where can I put my feet up for the night and have the mints on the pillow?

Ranger John (11:45):
And that's a growing population. It really is. I mean if you're not in an rv, a lot of people do look for lodges now and there's some really nice lodges. I love visiting the lodges within the parks, but they can be expensive to get into and not as near as many amenities. Cause many of the National Park lodges, they were built a hundred plus years ago, you're not going to find USB plugins and most

(12:12):
In most of your rooms and they're keeping more of the historical factor to 'em, which is really amazing. Some people like to visit the lodges and not necessarily stay in the lodges and not all of those rooms are created equal. I can easily say that. I mean I've been to some of the national park lodges. It got a little bit of everything to some where I was actually in one room, we got the last minute it looked like a closet converted to a room and it had a sink in a bed and my feet were actually in the sink.

Drew (12:42):
Oh no laying

Ranger John (12:44):
Mean my feet were off sink. So

Drew (12:48):
Can you imagine me at six foot six?

Ranger John (12:51):
Exactly. Right. And then it had a shared bathrooms in that area as well. So I mean not everybody's interested in that. They like their own conveniences in Hawaii.

Drew (13:02):
Now you live in Washington, but then you're working for Yosemite. How did they get to know you?

Ranger John (13:09):
They got to know me through my website and through my wife. My wife also goes around and has been to a few conferences like tbe like we met at and I happened to run across Yosemite one day and she was one of the speakers to this conference and they heard that she had mentioned about my website and was very interested cause of the national parks and me being park rangers. And it just became a perfect combination that they actually hired one of us to come down quarterly to come down and talk about Yosemite, talk about the different times of the year and things to do and talk about the surrounding. Of course they want to promote their county as well, which is great. And if you're flying in, it's a great spot again to get hotels, get so supplies that you may want to bring with you. So this is the chance for me to talk about my experiences being in Madera County as well.

Drew (14:12):
You have retired since from being a park ranger and so you've gotten more time to be able to travel. Was Tammy Lee an influence for you in terms of taking up the idea of blogging?

Ranger John (14:24):
She was a huge influence. I mean my wife's been doing it for 10 years now and probably made every mistake known to man doing it. I mean anybody that's ever done blogging and done this kind of stuff, tester's not like a college course to take on it or something. You just kind of figure it out on your own for a big portion. So I mean I've benefited greatly from it, but we knew that right after at 20 years we knew that I had to where it was time to retire for me and doing law enforcement, doing training if anybody knows people been in enforcement for years and having too bad knees where I can't do, I mean I wanted to have longevity outside of parks and now it's my opportunity to go in. I still love parks, I go to 'em and now I'm talking about parks on my website.

(15:17):
So it was something about year 1819 we started, me being at Parks, we really started talking about and we started getting the plan of what we wanted to do and our vision for it. And once we got that vision, we started going at it and we were just started our third year. February 14th was the day I started the blog and so it was just over two years ago. And so we're working at harder than ever now. Last year we visited over 70 national park sites of the four 18 total sites that they manage and we're well on that track again this year. We may even surpass it this year.

Drew (15:55):
I bet it's helpful buddying up on these trips and being able to have somebody who's already got all of that experience because she's probably got places that she needs to go or that she wants to go to. Do you coordinate your trips together to say, Hey, let's make sure that there's a national park or a park that we can visit somewhere nearby, whatever it is. Because she doesn't focus on parks herself, correct?

Ranger John (16:22):
No, no, no. She has her own site. She talks about travel as well. We tend to try to work trips together whenever possible. So she's going to be at a conference or she's going to be speaking at a conference or she's invited somewhere, I may go with her and then afterwards we'll go hit some area parks in that area. So we try to work it together when we're both doing things together, which is great. I mean I love spending time with my wife and I was missing at it that when she started getting really her blog really up and running, she was going 170, 180 days a year and I was going to work still. So it was sad seeing my wife gone all the time. So I'm really enjoying that.

Drew (17:04):
Yeah. Prior to you actually being a travel blogger, were you traveling very much or were you pretty much just stuck at the park you were at and staying sort of in the Washington area?

Ranger John (17:21):
I had to really pick and choose being in parks. I mean the summertime was kind of our go-to time, so it wasn't really, I mean when she was on trips in the summer, something pretty amazing. I really didn't get time off and that I only had a set number of days anyway, so she was going for most of the trips by herself and that's kind of tough when she's off and going to all these exotic locations and I'm just going, oh, I'm work today.

Drew (17:51):
Yeah, so your blog is actually very helpful. I went through and I was planning out my four corners trip and was looking at all of the Utah National Parks and so I got information on a couple of those. I got a lot of information on Zion, but unfortunately it just didn't work out for me to be able to go to Zion because you gave so much good information that I thought I can't just spend half a day at Zion, I need to make Zion a destination instead. So in terms of what you're trying to do with the blog and why you created the blog, what information are you trying to get in there to help people in terms of their planning?

Ranger John (18:38):
Well, that's a really good question. I know that personally I love getting on the National Parks website and looking at stuff, but it can be very detailed. It's written by government and they've got certain platforms of what they're looking at and I found it very difficult to find certain things that I would be looking for sometimes and I could spend hours and then I would get there and not feel like I was completely prepared. So I'm really trying to come at it as a point of, I worked in parks for 20 years, I heard the common questions that were asked all the time, so I knew a lot of what basic things people were looking for and I tried to make that easy and easily accessible so people could plan their trip mean if you're going to, like you said Zion, I was like, here's 13 hikes, it's right there in the main portion of the park that you can come right out and do. And then I tried to give photos for each one, the distance, the difficulty, and give a good description of the hike too.

(19:41):
I talk about camping, I try to, in all my articles that I've written, been to all these parks. It's not like I'm somewhere sitting in Washington DC writing this article. I've been there, I've experienced it and I'm coming from a perspective of not only a user but as a ranger as well. So I try to make it easy for people Mean the common things I've seen camping would be the growing trend I'm seeing is RVs coming into parks. There's still people that use tents, but there's a growing and population and real common themes is did they have hookup sites? And if they didn't, did they have generat? Could you use generators and what hours you could? And a real common theme I would see as well is, do you have a campground map? That's what everybody wants to know and you can't find these things online.

(20:32):
And I was like, well these are the most common things. Why are those not easily found? And I try to make that the forefront of putting things on an article so people know today's saying, everybody today wants to, if there's wifi in the campground, I mean I don't know how many campgrounds you've been to. I've seen people with their laptop now, their iPad out trying to FaceTime with their family and stuff like that, especially in the summer times when you get burned bads on and stuff like that. And that's common questions. Do you have wifi? That's one of the first questions almost every visitor had it seemed like in a camp crowd.

Drew (21:11):
Well, and what's funny is for a guy that travels like I do, I need wifi. And so I don't even really consider spending time at a national park because I plan out short trips to national parks where I spend half a day so that I can get back to the lodge to be able to get to wifi and never really would consider going out camping and thinking that I would have the ability to have wifi. So that's an interesting, right.

Ranger John (21:40):
And many of the parks do not have wifi. I mean that's not a common thing and cell service can be a real hit and miss too. But some people that live full-time out of their RVs, they may want that. That's a real common thing. And some of 'em even want to know if they can get their satellite for their dish or direct tv.

Drew (22:03):
Oh

Ranger John (22:04):
My.

Drew (22:04):
Enjoy the outdoors people,

Ranger John (22:08):
Right?

Drew (22:08):
Yeah. But

Ranger John (22:10):
It's funny, the trend, especially with technology and that's what people are looking for and you can't find that information anywhere and that's just camping. So that's where I tried to really interject and really try to give some of the real common questions that people have. The other problem I really ran into too is that I seen that I would go to a park and I'd do all this research on the site and then all of a sudden I'd hop at a park and in Zion and be a good example, I'd hop up there or Yosemite and there's a shuttle bus and I'm like, wait a sec, what's the shuttle bus thing? And now all of a sudden it kind of changes your plan for the day. Cause you didn't know shuttle bus into Canyon or something like that.

Drew (22:51):
Oh

Ranger John (22:51):
Yeah. So try to make it where people are prepared when they come in is here's some really good highlights to see and good trail and the focus on how to easily get around the park.

Drew (23:04):
Yeah, it's interesting because when I read blogs sometimes blogs are so detailed. I went to Chi Itza in Mexico and I read a blog on it ahead of time and there is helpful information and then there's too much information. Sometimes there's stuff, I mean exactly. I don't need to necessarily see a picture of every single thing that I'm going to view when I'm there because then yeah, it's still worth me going to see it in three dimensions, but in the end you're kind of giving all the surprises. For instance, when I went to Arches National Park and I rounded that corner and I saw what, you know get that first glimpse of the arch and it's like wow, all of a sudden becomes real. And if somebody were to show that to me ahead of time and give too much of that away, it kind of pulls the surprise out. But yet you still want to get the kind of information, get to Chichen Nitza early because if you get there at 11 o'clock, you're going to be inundated by tourists.

Ranger John (24:10):
Oh absolutely. Right. And I completely agree with that and I think about that when I post photos. You had a great example of archs there. Going to Dekin Arch, if I had a video showing that going around the corner, it would take away the excitement of that entire hike if I had that. I think that's something that people should really experience for their self. If I had that and that was already there, they've already hit that aha moment and I don't want to ruin that either. Yeah, I mean that's pretty amazing. I've talked about in Zion, the Angels landing hike and I'll take a photo, I've, one of my favorite photos that's done really well is the bridge is you just start the hike. Now if I've done a video at the end of the hike, I've ruined the entire moment of that hike and I don't want to do that. I want somebody to still experience that moment that I had that has just made it absolutely worth killing.

Drew (25:05):
Well let's talk a little bit about Zion specifically right now, because part of what maybe kept me from wanting to go to Zion was that I hear that everybody goes to Zion and that Zion is really busy at times. Are you sensing with some of these parks that certain ones are getting a little over overused, they call it over tourism? Do you see that as an issue yet or?

Ranger John (25:37):
I started going to the national parks over 30 years ago and I can tell you I went to Pikes and Arches in Zion. I'd be the only person on the trail. And now that's just unheard of. I mean when you go up to Delicate Arch now and Arches, I mean you can look off at distance and it almost looks like ants going up the hill. I mean there's just so many people going up and I mean rightfully so it's been discovered. But you're right, I mean Arch is National Parks actually talking about a potential parking where you actually have to have a parking permit to get in. I mean it's not enough parking. They've added parking, they can't keep up with the parking. There'll be a lineup to get into the park, a mile down the road. It has become so popular. I think Zion last year had about 6 million visitors. I mean trying to comprehend at us. I mean I think the island of Maui got 2.2 last year on the entire island. You can imagine they're getting three times the visitors and they're go trying to shove into one little canyon. Yeah, that's why you see parks like Grand Canyon has a shuttle, Bryce Canyon has a shuttle now Zion does. Yosemite's had a shuttle for years. I mean just they're seeing such sheer numbers of people.

Drew (27:01):
So is there something we can do as tourists to these areas, whether it be different time periods to visit or times of the day or that to kind of ease this or not be overrunning the place. Because I know we don't want to all be out in this majestic place with 10,000 other people as well because that sort of ruins the experience as well.

Ranger John (27:27):
It really does. And a really good example that's Yellowstone. Yellowstone has about 6 million visitors a year. And granted it's a big part, but most visitors come in three months, June, July and August. And during that time I think they get over three quarters of their visitation in three months. So when you start adding that math up, there's a lot of people in a park in three months and it's beautiful and that's when most people have time to go off to go to it. It's also becomes very challenging because when you have that many people, it's hard to find parking spots in parking lots. It's hard to even just get around. You'll find yourself only hitting a couple of highlights a day and frustrated with traffic when you're in the great outdoors and that's disappointing. But Yellowstone is a park that you can visit 12 months out of the year. I mean especially if you're not afraid of the snow. I mean it's an incredible park. You get in those shoulder seasons of May and earlier, a little bit earlier after SEP in September later there's still generally the weather's pretty good and you can beat a lot of the crowds just becoming out those shoulder season.

Drew (28:43):
I was going to say in Arches I found that by going out at seven in the morning and getting there first thing, and it was off season, it was October that I seemed to get out on that hike early enough that I think there were probably 20 people out at the Delicate Arch by the time I got out there. So exactly, that was a nice experience. Of course now I was at Sunrise and I think sunset's probably the best time to look at Delicate Arch. I can imagine at Sunset it's probably pretty busy.

Ranger John (29:18):
Oh yes it is. And if you get in during the full moon, it's ridiculous. Social media's done some great things for parks, but it's also created some problems with parks and Arch is one of those. I mean how many people have seen the moon with Delicate Arch is a photo once everybody's seen it, now you come out there on night of a full moon, it doesn't matter if it's October, November the full, there's photographers everywhere and they'll be jocking up across that back wall there and they'll be lined up layers, thick hours in advance before Sunset trying to stick their position to get that photo.

Drew (29:58):
So if somebody wants to go out to a park and the only time they can travel is in the summertime, is there a danger that park may have to just say that's it. There's only so many people that we can have in. You were talking about potentially having parking permits for arches, and if that's the case, how should people plan for making sure that when they have their day planned to go out to a particular park that it's actually going to let them in?

Ranger John (30:27):
If it is a park that is going to start requiring reservations, you have to secure one in advance or see if there's transportation in Mirror Woods right out San Francisco, Muir Woods National Monument. Now they have very few parking permits left. I mean it has become so popular as well. I mean it's got the huge redwood trees and it's just stunning. And you're talking right outside of San Francisco, huge population base and that now they have a shuttle service in for I think about eight months out of the year now. And you have to make reservations for that. So that's how popular it's got is not only will the reservations fill up for the parking lot, but it will for the shuttle as well. So if you show up, unless you want to hike about 20 miles to get to the park, you might not just get to go. And that's the downside of just the amount of tourism is to show up.

Drew (31:30):
So let's talk about some places that people aren't going that they should be going. Those little hidden gem parks of the parks that you've been to. And I think you have listed 48 out of 61 national parks that you've been to. Which ones are we ignoring and we shouldn't be?

Ranger John (31:51):
Typically the easier part is to get two or the grandeur of them, they're going to be busier if you get one that's a little bit more off the beaten path, sometimes that little bit more effort to get somewhere gives you a bigger reward. And I've got an article coming out in the next couple weeks is going to have the least visited national parks in the system. And I think it's a great start. I think one part that really stands out to me as a phenomenal part is a wrangle Scene Alliance is the largest national parking system in up in Alaska. But to get up into there, you actually to most people have to fly in Alaska, get a rental car and get up there and it's an adventure to get there, but that's part of the appeal to it. Is it an adventure to get there? Not something you're just going to fly to Las Vegas like you can to Zion, get a rental car easily in two hours, you're apart. This is going to be a little bit more of an adventure for you. But at the same token, you got 6 million visitors in Zion and probably a quarter of that or a much less than a quarter at Wrangle St. Elias.

Drew (33:09):
So what would someone see there? Is this mountain viewing and landscapes, is it wildlife, is it hikes? What would you say that park is best known for?

Ranger John (33:17):
Ring Saint Elias. I mean, coming in and when you come in on the south end, you come in on the McCarthy Road and it's probably about 60 miles in, you're going to see the epic beauty of Alaska. You're going to see the bogs, you're going to see all the wildlife. I mean I can't tell you how much wildlife we've seen on this whole trip. I mean it was just amazing. And then you end up to the main part of the park, you can go up into an old mining town. It was up there and there's actually a lodge up there in the park camping and you got glaciers and you can even do helicopter tours and all kinds of stuff.

Drew (33:55):
So how far is this from, is it near Fair Fairbanks? Is it north of Fairbanks, is it, or Anchorage area or whereabouts?

Ranger John (34:05):
You can get in from Anchorage or Fairbanks a little closer from Anchorage, but either way it's going to promise to have just an amazing drive just to get to the park. I mean Alaska is a great wide open still this, they call it the last frontier for reason miles without anything. And you're just already in nature before you even get to the park. And then the park just has epic jawdropping views. But yeah, that's actually one of the parks in Alaska you can actually still drive to.

Drew (34:37):
So now let's go beyond just the 61 national parks. You've actually have a page on your website where you have a checklist of all of the park sites and so there's 417 of those. And so for somebody trying to figure out what does that mean now, maybe just when I was traveling out through Arizona, I went to Canyon, thank you for helping me know how to pronounce that by the way. And that was called a national monument? Correct. So what is the difference between a national park and a national monument?

Ranger John (35:17):
Yeah, that's another great question. I get asked that a lot. The national parks, I mean the 418 sites are all managed under the National Park system, but everybody tends to know the National Park name. What it comes down to is a land use classification and they'll look at a park and what is this being managed or used as? I mean there's some that's called National Seashores and they're predominantly on the beach where you have more beach activities. So being labeled a national seashore, they have certain land classifications of things that needs to be done are managed more so as a beach, more so than it is like a national historic site. When you think of a Martin Luther King Jr site in Atlanta that has the home of Martin, Dr. Martin Luther King and several other, the buildings around there have historic significance.

(36:18):
Now a historical park versus a historic site. Historic site tends to be just one historical site or as a historical park will have numerous buildings that that's managing. So it's more of a classification system. It doesn't mean that it's going to be any less important of a historic site. I mean some of your most visited parks are not national parks. Some great examples is Statue of Liberty managed by the National Park Service. That gives a lot of visitation. Alcatraz, I mean, again, anybody that's ever been to Alcatraz can tell you there's a lot of people that show up there and it's day in and day out. So it, it's just how it's managed is what it comes down to.

Drew (37:03):
Okay. Yeah, because I noticed when I was at Ken DeShea that there were people selling things inside the park, which I'm not used to in a national park. Seeing somebody selling beads or selling it was a surprise to me. So is that one of those things that is kind of different in terms of the degree of management or what's allowed in that park?

Ranger John (37:30):
It is. And Canyon Dehe is really one of the odd creatures that's out there. It's a little bit different than most Parks Canyon Dehe is mostly owned by private sense. It's mostly the tribes within our Native America. So when you was there, you may have noticed Jeep tours in the canyon or horseback ride tours in the canyon. Those were all Native American run. Cause that is all Native American land in there. The national parks works with them to manage the area called Canyon, but it's not National Parks property to go down in there. That's all private land. The national parks works with these guys to manage the area though to help protect all the resources. So that's where you get a little bit different. Cause these guys that are out selling things, they're actually out on their own property quite often that they're just right next to the road or something and they're on their own property selling something. So that's a little bit different about that park over a lot of others.

Drew (38:34):
That was a big surprise to me. And it did feel like you were on the edge of somebody's neighborhood at times when you were driving down the south edge of the canyon.

Ranger John (38:43):
Yeah, it's real funny. I remember horses walking across the street and it's people's horses.

Drew (38:49):
Yeah.

(38:51):
All right. Let's talk a little bit about now people going out to parks. Me being somebody who, I don't consider myself to be an outdoorsy type, but I absolutely love photography and landscapes and I took a trip to Newfoundland many, many years ago where that just changed me from wanting to visit cities to wanting to see national parks and go look at wildlife and the rest. But there's a hesitation being not necessarily a city guy, but somebody who probably it feels a little less at home in nature. Let's talk about some of the things that I might want to pay attention to in terms of how should I pack, what should I be preparing for in terms of my first trip to the outdoors? Can you give me some ideas?

Ranger John (39:51):
Ok, that's a great or not a really great question. I mean, you don't have to come in and be the ultimate backpacker, hiking in 20 miles and camping on whatever you're carrying in. That doesn't have to be your first trip. Get a taste of it. I mean, the great examples like Yosemite would be a great park for a first time. I mean, somebody again could go fly into Fresno, come in and get a hotel like 20 minutes out of town and like a Bass Lake or an Oakhurst or something. And they have restaurants nearby. So they're feeling pretty comfortable. They don't have to bring a lot of stuff with them. The important thing then is to have some comfortable shoes. Depends on how much you're wanting to hike. You know, may being a photographer, I mean this is a great example, is the great John Muir really spent a lot of time at Yosemite and there's a John Wood or a John Muir photography studio in the Yosemite Village and they have actual photography classes and photography walks in the Yosemite itself.

(40:57):
They lead you. Great introduction. I always recommend people is if you go to a visitor center and they have a video, a lot of times just going in and going in and getting that video to start the day out, you get an idea of what the park is and why it was developed and get a history behind it. And another great resources. When you're at the visitor center, there's generally a arranger. There's there to answer questions and you can ask them, Hey, I just want to do a short easy walk, or I may want to a all day hike. And they can judge there by a little bit of what your interest is too to help you plan your day. But not all parks, you have to go out and do a full day resource. Some people like your national historic sites might be more of their interest. It has more of a history background. I mean people like history and learning about, maybe they were interested in Lewis and Clark and that story behind Lewis and Clark may want to go to different sites based on Lewis and Clark and follow their voyage from the Oregon Trail. I mean, how many of us remembered growing up playing Oregon Trail on the computer?

Drew (42:11):
And it's funny you bring that up because I'm actually planning my next trip to North Dakota because it's the only state I haven't been to yet. And I was trying to figure out, oh, okay. I was trying to figure out stuff that I could do there. And first somebody said, well if you're going to North Dakota, you got to do the Teddy Roosevelt National Park because there's a bad lands there. And they said it's really cool to see. And then I saw the Lewis and Clark stuff. So it does look like there's stuff for me to do in North Dakota.

Ranger John (42:43):
Absolutely.

Drew (42:44):
So what would you suggest I do in North Dakota? Well,

Ranger John (42:48):
No, I'm a big fan of Theodore Roosevelt. To me, he's my favorite president of all time. I mean he really, he's a big reason why we've got national park system today. The Fish and Wildlife is Fish and Wildlife today. He created that forest service. I mean he was very much the kind of an environmentalist president. I mean him and Lyndon b Johnson, both very much environmentalist presidents. So I'm a big fan of them. And that park is in honor of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore, the Theodore Roosevelt National Park is where he really kind of fell in love with national parks. Gosh, he grew up in New York. His mom and his wife both died day after one after another. I mean, talk about a pretty rough punch in the gut for a guy to lose his wife and his mother in two days. I mean that's a rough time.

(43:42):
And he went out to the west kind of trying to figure out his life again and stuff. And that's where he worked at a ranch for a while, became a ranch hand. He kind of got his hands dirty, got the love of the outdoors and got to really see that symbiotic relationship between humans and the outdoors and really got to see the importance of it. And it led to him being out there where Theodore Roosevelt National Park was created. So I mean, think that's a fantastic place to come see. And you might go through South Dakota at the same coken, which has bad lands and Mount Rushmore. I mean that whole area there is truly an amazing spot.

Drew (44:23):
Yeah, I did a western trip where I drove all the way up through Rocky Mountain National Park. I don't know how I North Dakota. Oh really? I went all the way up to Banff in Canada and somehow I just ended up, I guess Montana's so big, it's hard to get over to North Dakota from Montana.

Ranger John (44:47):
It really is. And there's a couple of other historic sites there. I think there's Knife River Indian Villages, that was an interesting park. I mean, it's not going to be one that's going to take all day, maybe a few hours. But it definitely gave you an inside life of how Native Americans grew up and lived in an area. And it's very interesting for living in an area to get so cold in the winter and how they adapted to things and learned to live on the land. I thought it was a very interesting part.

Drew (45:15):
Okay, good. That's stuff to mark down. Alright, so one other question that I'm going to ask you from my own perspective is that I am afraid of bears. I go with the, I don't know if you ever read Walk in the Woods, bill Bryson. But yeah, that's me. I'm not very keen on bears and so I, I'd love to see one, I just don't want to see one that's like me and him alone in the woods. So talk about wildlife encounters because for me, this is always the tricky part about getting myself motivated to go and do a long hike somewhere in terms of what happens if I have a mountain lion that comes up on me or mean, are these occurrences that happen or is this just all in my imagination?

Ranger John (46:13):
Well, you're talking to a gayman chased by a moose. I've walked in between two bears in my life. So I, I get it and I naturally get a little bit more apprehensive when animals are bigger than me. I pay a little bit more attention as I understand that. I think being prepared is the best thing you can do. You got to remember, and this is the way I tell people, is bears and moose and all these other animals, they're not like humans. They don't have a hospital to go to if they get injured. So they're just not out here looking for humans saying, you know what? I think I want to go attack this guy day and see what happens.

Drew (46:58):
Right?

Ranger John (46:58):
They're not interested in that. I mean, bear's going around doing his thing for the day. They hibernate the winters. They have to collect all this food and energy to survive the winter each year. I mean, that's a natural thing. So when they're out doing their thing, they're just not doing their thing. Usually when you get a bear attack or an attack by an animal, cause they're provoked, there's not too many animals that's just naturally just aggressive and just won't attack you. So the biggest thing, especially with bears is making before you go or when you're walking and hiking outdoors and they say, wear bare Bess it. I've heard a lot of people say that they can be loud, not loud buddy systems always great. You're always talk and whistling. So it's just knowing what to do there. I mean, preventing the problem from happening the first place is the best thing you can do. A lot of places you go, now that you're in bear country has bear spray, the stuff's effective. It really is. Is it? But you got to remember, if you've ever had pepper spray, it's not fun if it comes back on you. It's truly unenjoyable. Yeah.

(48:09):
All right. We take a risk. I think you have a much higher risk every day when you get in your car and drive home and go,

Drew (48:20):
Okay. I

Ranger John (48:21):
Mean, quite honestly, a walk in the woods is much safer than getting on the highway. I mean, how many times do we see today that people are texting or talking on their phones and distracted driving? I mean, I even seen somebody one day using a laptop driving down the road.

Drew (48:39):
This, you'll have to go back and you'll have to go back and listen to my Tesla episode where he was on autopilot basically in his car. Maybe that's the future of driving is we just won't pay any attention at all and we'll just have to go to the woods and take a hike to actually pay attention to something that's not our phone.

Ranger John (48:59):
Right.

Drew (49:02):
So tell me, what do you have coming up for yourself? You mentioned that you've got some blog posts that you're working on right now. Do you have any trips coming up that you're excited about that maybe some places you haven't been yet?

Ranger John (49:17):
I've got a big trip coming up here right around the 1st of March. It's, we're going to be flying in Atlanta and we're going to be actually hitting some of the Civil War sites, or I mean Civil War battlefields as well as civil rights historic sites like Martin Luther King Jr. Historic site in Atlanta. Looking at going at, I know a couple of 'em are still kind of in development with in Birmingham, the Civil rights and the Freedom Writers in Aniston, Alabama all have really important stories to talk about for civil rights. Some of the national battlefields like Chick Maga, Shiloh, or big battles for the Civil War. I mean, talk about some crazy history in American history right there mean we can probably all look back and have some kind of trace of family as fought on one side or the other, or even both sides in the Civil War.

(50:19):
And as part of what I eventually, as I've continued to build out my coverage on the parks of being able to talk more about the stories that they really do a great job of talking about. And we're going to go end up in, in Gulf Shores for a few days interested, and I don't talk just about national parks. I'll talk about some of the big state parks too. And that's what I'm really excited to talk about is New Lodge. They have for one of the Alabama state parks right there on Gulf Shores. And they have a really nice Gulf State Park down here. I want to talk a little bit about there as well.

(50:55):
We're going to make her way back up towards Missouri and visit the new national park for me. And that's the Gateway Arch. Oh. So that's going to be a new site for me as well. Ok. So yeah, I'm continuing to build out that coverage and I'm trying to visit as many sites as I can. Again, when I talk about a site on my blog, I don't want it just to be, I looked at it in a book and puke out same information somebody else did. I want it to come from a genuine spot being somebody that worked in parks for years and is a visitor. So people get that experience.

Drew (51:30):
Well, when you're ready for South Carolina, you let me know because we have tons of Revolutionary War history around this state. I've done some tours from Camden and up to cow pins and wax saws. Oh cool. Which is Oh cool. Yeah, so I mean, I've been out to all of those different sites. So when you're ready, we could chat about that.

Ranger John (51:52):
Actually, I might be calming you up cause I have been to congregate. That's a really cool part. And is it 96, I think? Yeah,

Drew (52:02):
96. Yeah. You know what I love? About 96? Yeah. Have you been to 96? I I was going to say what I love about 96 is that you see this picture in the visitor center of Nathaniel Green, my favorite American Revolutionary War General riding up on his steed like Napoleon. And then when you go out to the site, you're like, where was he riding that horse? What hill was he? What hill was he riding over?

Ranger John (52:34):
And that, that's a really cool hike there at that part too, where walks around and shows you all about the battle and how you could go, how it happened and everything. That was a really cool

Drew (52:43):
Walk. Oh, it is such a different experience than you ever would have imagined a battle would have gone. I mean, it is truly a Oh, I know. Yeah. So hopefully now we're going to have tourists over running 96 because we've got their curiosity up. They're like, oh, what are they talking about?

Ranger John (53:06):
Exactly.

Drew (53:07):
Well good. So we know your website, which is park ranger john.com. And how else can people keep up with the stuff that you're doing?

Ranger John (53:18):
I have stuff going out on Facebook all the time. I have an Instagram account, got Twitter. That's my big avenues of looking at. Oh, as well as Pinterest too. I put a lot of images on Pinterest too. People really enjoy that as well.

Drew (53:36):
Well, I'm sure people are going to find a lot of inspirational information out there on all of your social media resources and also on park ranger john.com. And I know I've already found some great stuff off of that and I hope this is going to be a great resource for people who've been listening to the show, who are going to jump out there and start doing some planning of some national park trips for this spring and this summer, because there is so much out there to see. And hopefully the information you give will help them get there at the right time and doing the right activities and getting the most out of those parks. So I really appreciate, I mean even from my own standpoint, fantastic information that I've read on there so far and I can't wait to see more information as you start posting it with the new parks that you go to.

Ranger John (54:24):
Excellent. Excellent. Well thanks for having me. I hope it's a great use for some people.

Drew (54:31):
And there closes out another week of Travel Fuels Life. Hope you got some great information out of this episode. And make sure to head to the show notesPage@travelfuelslife.com slash podcasts. Look for episode number 14. And there you'll find some quick links to all of those national parks that we talked about during the show, those profiles that John has put together. And we also have links to his social media accounts and tips on how to become a park ranger. So check that out. And I also put a link to where we can get you some more information about that $80 America the Beautiful Pass, which I highly recommend. And I think I went to three parks this year before that was totally paid for. And every other park after that was basically free. So it's a great value if you're planning on visiting more than just a couple of parks this year. If you want to keep up with me, make sure that you like and follow me on facebook.com/travel Fuels Life or instagram.com/travel fuels life. I am constantly posting pictures of the great places I travel to and I hope I can inspire you to hit the road as well. And until next time, have a great week. Safe travels and thanks for listening to Travel Fuels Life.