Twenty-one miles east of the Everglades and just north of the island of Key Largo lies Biscayne National Park. It is the largest protected marine national park in the United States. With 95% of the park on the water, we booked a full-day sailing trip to travel across Biscayne Bay and set foot on one of its keys.
Everglades National Park protects the largest tropical wilderness in the United States. It is a mosaic of marshes, creeks, prairies, and forests, with a abundance of wildlife. And it is the only place in the world where the alligator and crocodiles both roam. We spent four days exploring the park, the third largest in the lower 48 states and covering the entire southwest tip of Florida.
Our Tuesday Quiz this week is from National Geographic. Ten questions test your knowledge of the United States. The questions include history, culture and geography. How well do you know the U.S.?
Here are some panoramic photos that we took of the national parks and national monuments that we visited. Click on any of the pictures for a larger view. Enjoy!
We are visiting Charleston, South Carolina this week, and the Tuesday Quiz is all about U.S. cities. Can you correctly identify the city by a picture of its skyline?
With over 400 miles of surveyed passages, Mammoth Cave National Park is famous as the longest known cave system in the world. We not only ventured into the cave on two occasions while visiting, but also had the opportunity to explore some of Mammoth’s 52,830 acres above the ground by completing hikes on both sides of the Green River, the park’s major waterway.
Hot Springs National Park, in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas, has the distinction of being America’s smallest national park at just 5,500 acres. Its protected status predates Yellowstone, commonly considered to be the world’s first national park created in 1872. In 1832, Congress, under President Andrew Jackson, designated a Hot Springs Reservation to protect the thermal springs, which were growing in popularity by those seeking its supposed therapeutic properties.
This week’s Tuesday Quiz comes from Fact Monster. The ten questions will test your national parks knowledge from Hawaii to Maine.
We were in the state of Texas for 17 days, and most of our time was spent in one place: Big Bend National Park. Big Bend, established in 1944, is the 15th largest national park by area (801,000 acres). We spent six days exploring its desert, mountain, and river ecosystems. There was plenty to do in a park of this size, so in addition to hiking in each area, we opted for several other activities.
This week’s quiz is a tough one – you must answer a series of 15 questions about the United States in four minutes. One wrong answer ends the quiz.
Over 200 million years ago, the Guadalupe Mountains were a marine reef under a tropical sea. When the sea evaporated, the Capitan Reef was buried in sediments and mineral salts. Later, an uplift created the mountains that today tower above the Chihuahuan Desert. These mountains include Guadalupe Peak, which at 8,751 feet tall is the “top” or highest point in Texas. We spent five days exploring this remote place.
We are arriving in Hot Springs National Park, and here’s another U.S. National Parks quiz to determine how well you know our parks.
