Natalie

Boxing Day hike for the win! We did 6 miles on the Wateree Passage of the Palmetto Trail, and it was so fun. I loved the old railroad tracks and suspension bridges through the cypress swamp. #southcarolina #hikingwithkids #palmettotrail

One of my Christmas presents: a new gear closet to organize all of our camping and hiking stuff 😍😍😍

It was truly the trip of a lifetime! I can’t wait to see where 2025 takes us!

That is awesome!!

Haha I do love a good pair of fluffy socks no matter the time of year! My kids got slippers this year (I know—really changing things up), and one pair is a hamburger on one foot and fries on the other. So stinking cute.

Yes! I will celebrate the adulting accomplishments no matter how small! How have you excelled at adulting lately?!

STEAM in the PARK INTEREST LIST FOR 2025! Click on the Interest List for 2025 above to receive updates when applications go live.

A12 #ParkChat If you're an educator and interested in joining the #STEAMinthePark family, make sure you join the interest list! Applications for 2025 camps open on January 1. It's an amazing professional development. www.steaminthepark.net

This is SO cool! It makes me miss being in the classroom!

Thank you!! I feel like I need a special gold star sticker or something because I'm usually THAT person buying up random pairs of socks on Christmas Eve. 😂

The light here is gorgeous!

It's not Christmas Eve, and, yet, I am all done with my shopping. This is called personal growth. 😂

Since we bought this trusty little camper in early 2023, it’s been nearly 20,000 miles. The only issues we’ve had were a bent black tank pull and a stove eye that came loose.

We only live a few hours from eastern TN, and we need to go explore it more! We passed the turnoff to Fall Creek Falls this summer while roadtripping and I remember wishing we could stop.

A3: some of the best state parks we visited this year were Hickory Knob SP in SC, Bannack SP in MT (which has a complete historic gold rush town, shown below), Custer SP in SD, and Kodachrome Basin and Goblin Valley, both in UT! #parkchat #stateparks

Where to Eat in Grand Teton National Park Get reviews of the best restaurants in Grand Teton National Park, discover where to get quick snacks, and places to buy groceries on your next vacation.

Earmark these dining recommendations for next year's trip to Grand Teton! (Many are closed now, but those will reopen in late spring.) #parkchat #nationalparks #foodandtravel

Yes! We spent a month slowly doing the Mighty 5 this summer and it was incredible. I also can’t stop talking about Grand Teton and Glacier! #parkchat

A2: we did 9 national parks, 2 national memorials, and a national monument. One of my favorite memories was hiking the Narrows with my kids in Zion! #parkchat

A8: we are hoping to do a big loop around the PNW next year, so at least Olympic, Crater Lake and North Cascades. We’re also hoping to do New River Gorge, which is within easy driving distance but we just haven’t gone yet. #parkchat

That makes me feel better! :) I need a guide that will do ALL the snake whispering! We’ve been lucky at Congaree and have only see a few small snakes off the boardwalk.

We went a long way out of our way to stop by Craters of the Moon when driving from SLC to Glacier. It was totally worth the detour.

Is it bad that I’ve been putting it off because I am scared the kids will see a snake and tip us all into the water with their flailing?! They aren’t big fans.🤣 I wish SC didn’t have so many venomous snakes. 😩😩

I know! My entire life, I’ve either been a student, a professor, or had kids in school, so I have no idea what longer trips look like between September and mid-May. 😩😩😩😩

I think I’m still kind of a terrible hiker after all of these years! 🤣 I am awful at judging distances and always think I’m RIGHT around the bend from whatever we’re aiming for on the trail, and I am so slow because I’m always getting distracted by everything around me.

We live near Congaree, so we’re there hiking and camping a lot. I still haven’t been paddling there yet!

Make me feel better: what is the worst/scariest hike you’ve been on?

Haha perhaps that is it! Though, I will say, all of the crazies we’ve seen in the NP were at least in their late 20s if not closer to my age (40!), so perhaps silliness has no bounds.

Yeah, if I had my choice, we would’ve gone during a different time, but the kids’ school schedules put us there then. Plus, it was just one stop on our 8 week road trip, so we were just in it to win it while we were there. I will return in the cooler months next time!

That is the fastest a hike has ever turned scary for me, and I truly thought my younger kid was going to pass out. In just an hour, we got crazy dehydrated despite drinking all of the water we’d brought (which was at least 2.5 liters). I underestimated how fast the arid climate would dehydrate.

We ended up putting buffs on the kids’ heads and sprinkling the fabric with water to help keep the kids cool. And when we did find some shade, we stayed there for a long time until we got cooler. We had hats and lots of water, which got us safely back to the car. (3/x)

There are no trees and very little shade on the first 2/3rds of the hike, so we were baking between the sun and the rocks reflecting the heat back. I felt terrible—I’d done my planning, but nothing was going according to that plan. (2/x)