The end of our vacation was quickly approaching with only one day left. My wife and I had flown, along with several family members, to join my cousin as he was married on the beaches of Maui. It had been a beautiful five days with a sunset dinner cruise on the ocean along with fishing, snorkeling, whale watching, and of course a wedding. On the last few days I wanted to go see Honolulu and Pearl Harbor. Only my dad and an aunt decided they would join us on a quick flight from Maui to Oahu. It was a much smaller group now. For our final day, Karen and I decided to rent a vehicle and explore the island as much as we could. Climbing into our red Jeep, we were off. The first stop was Pearl Harbor National Memorial.

Soon after arriving we headed for the ticket area to secure our boat ride out to the USS Arizona. That tour begins with a film about Pearl Harbor. We had some time before we needed to get in line so we went into the gift store to browse for possible souvenirs for family members back home who were watching our daughters and our dogs. While looking over the shelves at all the T-shirts, hats, and books, I came across something very interesting to me. It was a National Parks Monopoly Board. I picked it up and examined all of the different places on it. There was Yosemite and Yellowstone along with the Grand Canyon. All places I wanted to visit. Even more so after being in Hawaii surrounded by all of the incredible landscapes.  Most of the other parks on this board also peaked my interest. After a minute of looking it over I held it up for my wife to see and suggested that we should visit all of the places on this game board. She came over and looked at it ending with her approval that it could be fun. Our time to get in line had arrived so I set the game back on its shelf, paid for a few gifts, and headed to the theater to begin our tour.

Several years passed without mention of this idea of visiting the parks on that Monopoly Board. Neither of us could even recall which parks were on it. Besides, our children were still pretty young. They had become our focus now. They were beginning to grow up causing us to move into a new home for them to be able to begin their education and form life long friendships. After getting settled in a new routine at this location for a year or so, I woke up one morning and thought we should really travel to all of those amazing places on that Monopoly board we’d seen several years earlier in Hawaii. Our children were now old enough to remember these places. I mentioned this to Karen and she agreed it would be a great idea and a good time to start. Sitting down at the computer I began to research the National Parks board and found a few pictures of it. From that I began to plan our journey and plot our course. We had nine years before our oldest daughter would graduate high school. This is when I wanted to be complete with all of the parks on this board.

As the year progressed, I would talk about different destinations with Karen and where our first trip would take us. June approached and the time to leave was getting closer. I would mention a certain park on the board and Karen would bring up a different park that wasn’t on the board and quickly try to adapt to the conversation. Later it became clear why. For Father’s Day the kids gave me a National Parks Monopoly board. Many of the destinations were different than the photos I was looking at which confused me. After a little investigating, I found out there where multiple versions of this board. I was planning off of the first edition while the children had found the second edition. Fortunately there where many of the same parks on both versions – mostly the more popular ones. I spent the afternoon revising the next nine years worth of expeditions. It didn’t matter which board we used as there were plenty of places of interest on both of them.

The first destination was South Dakota. Fortunately that didn’t have to change as there were multiple parks in that area on both editions of the board. As I continued to plan I looked into some of these parks. What would we do to visit Glacier Bay in Alaska or Isle Royale in Michigan? Both seemed challenging and didn’t really partner with any other park on the board well. Then there were other parks that were clustered heavily near one another. Especially on the East Coast. Should we try to do these all in one trip? Or should we break it up into two different vacations? Working on our potential explorations for nearly the next decade, I decided Alaska and Hawaii should be near the end. As our children would get older I thought it would be easier to entice them to go if the destinations were more appealing. Once the parks were clustered into possible trips, I began putting years next to them and even possible months to go. Some places would make good Spring Break destinations while others would be better suited to summer destinations. It was so exciting and I couldn’t wait to begin this experience!