Focus on America’s National Parks: Images of Yellowstone

It has finally arrived. Yesterday, the first episode of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea provided the best excuse in recent memory to avoid all to-dos, to step away from the musts, to ignore text messages and e-mails.

The show began with a quote from John Muir: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.”

I thought back on some of the beauty I’ve experienced in the National Parks. The day at Denali when, with just a few other people around, I watched a moose taking a midday bath with her newborns. The afternoon a foghorn broke through the quiet of a hike in Acadia National Park. And the hundreds of images I focused on during a three-day photography workshop in Yellowstone National Park. Here, some of the photos I settle into when I need to pull back from daily life. I hope you enjoy them.

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Lining Up Happy

Flippering Out. Photo by Jenna Schnuer.

Since writing about author Gretchen Rubin and her upcoming book The Happiness Project, I’ve been a now-and-again reader of her blog. A read of it today turned up a post about keeping a non-journal of one liners about happy times. Rubin writes: “Studies show that recalling happy times helps boost happiness in the present.” OK, sign me up–in Flyover America style, of course.

1. Watching dolphins leap behind a boat in the back bays of Gulf Shores, Alabama.

2. Flying over a moose on an ultralight flight outside of (and high above) Fairbanks, Alaska.

3. Making my first purchase during the Highway 127 Sale (a groovy 1960s belt buckle featuring a scene from Alice in Wonderland).

4. Hanging out with Cool Dog, a white-as-snow sled dog, in Door County, Wisconsin.

5. Diving under a bigger-than-expected wave on the waters off of Long Branch, New Jersey.

6. Surfing a wave, albeit briefly, on the last run of my first surfing lesson.

7. Getting a sneak peek at some of Nashville-based crayon-crazy artist Herb William‘s newest work.

8. Hiking in Acadia National Park–and hearing foghorns from far off in the distance.

9. Beating back my skiing-related post-knee surgery fear of downhill sports during a snowboard lesson in Utah.

Yours?

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