One place I never imagined I’d ever visit was Bentonville, AR. On our cross country road trip last summer, we accidentally drove through The Ozarks. Fabulous, BTW! Anyway, we were so far ‘off piste’, we decided to go even further out of the way and visit Crystal Bridges. We spent two days having the most unexpected good time. We loved the quaint, old-time, small town America feel of Bentonville, and had a wonderful, unplanned two days at Crystal Bridges.
We visited the Buffalo River in AR with family from both sides and had a great time also. We rented a huge b&b for all of us, and went on a canoe trip one day, and then a nature hike/scavenger hunt the next day that ended up at the river again and we spent the afternoon playing in the water.
OK, all of us had a great time except for my 13ish year old nephew who complained to his mom later that he could have done with less nature crap, lol. We should have left him at the b&b playing video games.
I visited the Little Bighorn National Monument in MT while on a work trip and was surprised that I found it very interesting. The rangers did a great job in explaining the battle to our group. I don’t know if a self guided tour would have captured my interest.
Rachel Carson reserve in Maine. Not telling you where
and as a kid, my family went fairly often to the St Lawrence seaway locks, and would watch the ships – we were endlessly fascinated but my father’s hopes of raising an engineer as a result were not realized .
Not someplace I never imagined I would visit, but a place that I was surprised by, was Mt. Rushmore. I thought it would be cheesy. I was surprised when I first saw it. It was more striking than I expected.
Welland Canal in southern Ontario and Sauble Beach along the eastern shore of Lake Huron in Ontario. It has been years since I have been to either, so I am not sure how they have changed. I found both places to be very peaceful when I was there.
Canyon de Chelly in northeastern Arizona. I liked it more than the Grand Canyon. We took a full day tour through the canyon with a Navajo guide. Gorgeous scenery and lots of old dwellings. And we saw very few other people the whole day (although it’s a small world because we figured out the daughter of the couple who went on the tour with us had married the son of my husband’s previous boss!).
I have been a lot of places and this is one of my favorites.
The Pictured Rocks cruise in Michigan’s upper peninsula. What I thought would be a tourist trap waste of time was an unbelievably beautiful experience.
“Imagine the refreshment of finding water after days of dusty travel. A reliable waterhole hidden at the base of a sandstone bluff made El Morro (the headland) a popular campsite for hundreds of years. Here, ancestral Puebloans, Spanish, and American travelers carved over 2,000 signatures, dates, messages, and petroglyphs. “
Funny. We were hoping it was striking but found it cheesy. We loved loved loved nearby Custer State Park and it’s natural beauty though. Goes to show we all think differently.
I think that having a Navajo guide is required at least in certain areas due to an agreement with the Tribe and the NPS. The monument is within the Navajo reservation, so special visitor policies and restrictions are in place.
CANYON TOURS: Local private companies offer canyon tours along the canyon floor by hiking, horseback or vehicle. Tour operators must be contacted directly for rates and reservations. For a current listing of operators, contact the Navajo Parks and Recreation Department at 928-674-2106.
As a STEM family, there is a long list of places we found while at a location, unplanned. Hydro/generator room at Niagara Falls, Hellisheiði geothermal plant in Iceland, pineapple processing facilities on Maui, Rio–Antirrio Bridge operations (wife works in bridge construction and talked us in), etc.
We stumbled on to Minute Man Missile National Historical Site on-line before our trip out west and we were able to get tickets to go down into the silo. The visitor center is a gem. It’s small but so well done documenting the Cold War. This is almost across the highway from the Badlands in South Dakota and well worth the visit. We also enjoyed Teddy Rosevelt National Park in North Dakota. We pretty much had the park to ourselves and saw many wild horses.
Death Valley–I tagged along on a trip when my H attend a conference in Las Vegas. I wanted to get away from a wet New England spring. The conference organizers planned activities for the spouses/partners of the attendees. I half-heartly signed up for the Death Valley Tour. I was blown away–what an amazing place. I also went on a tour of Hoover Dam on that same trip. It was an interesting tour, especially since I knew nothing about the building of the Hoover Dam. (It was a construction project that was on budget and on time!!)
