Leave Only Footprints

If you've ever been to a National Park, Conor Knighton's book Leave Only Footprints - My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park (#911) will bring back fond memories and comparisons of your own visit to his time spent there.  If you've never been to even one (!) this entertaining memoir may inspire you to start planning your trips when we all can travel safely again.

As Mr. Knighton points out, there are only fifty nine officially designated National Parks.  Most of the more four hundred units which the National Park Service manages are national monuments (like Mount Rushmore) or national battlefields, seashores, preserves, recreational areas and the like.  He spent exactly one year roaming the country to visit each and every National Park.  But if you're looking for a guidebook to start planning, this is not that book.  Instead, he groups the National Parks according to characteristics they have in common to his way of thinking - Trees, Water, Ice - to name a few.  And it works wonderfully well.  The experiences and anecdotes which make each park memorable to him may bring a chuckle or a tear to the reader's eye, but Knighton makes the parks come alive in a unique way.

Since some of the parks are so inaccessible, most of us could never duplicate his year of incessant travel, but his book may spur many of us to get off our couches and get out there.  If you go, don't forget your National Parks Passport, so you can record your own visits to some of the most awe-inspiring places our country preserves for us to visit.  After all, they're OUR parks!  Thanks for reminding us, Conor Knighton.