I'm Too Old for Junior Rangers, So Now I Collect Passport Stamps

Disclaimer: you're actually never too old for Junior Rangers; I'm pretty sure every national park will let you complete the workbook, take the oath, and pin the badge onto your T-shirt at any age!

HOWEVER, for my teenager's nineteenth birthday, I wanted to give her something that might recreate, for her, that enthusiasm that she always seemed to feel as a child for earning Junior Ranger badges. She has a huge collection of them, and I think took a lot of pleasure in earning new ones. Exploring new national park sites was something we've always loved doing together, and we have taken MANY a detour or special trip just to hit a new park so she could earn a new Junior Ranger badge.

So what might incorporate the same kind of fun?

The National Park Passport Book, I hope!

And, because sending this kid away to college has made me realize how precious (and how ever more preciously few) are the activities that she and I love to do together... I bought myself the National Park Passport Book, too. Now we can collect passport stamps for every single national park site TOGETHER!!!

First up: a day trip to the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, sneaked in just a couple of weeks before she went back to college for the semester.

It's been several years since our last trip to the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, so I was able to tell my partner and the teenager all the same Lincoln gossip that I'd told them the last time, and they were able to pretend like I haven't also been telling this same gossip continually even when we're not visiting the memorial.

Fun fact: this area used to be a major breeding ground for the passenger pigeon. Sigh...

My favorite thing here, though, is always the living history farm!

The teenager was HORRIFIED to see me pull a couple of weeds in this garden. But hello, I would love it if some stranger would wander by *my* garden and pull a few weeds!

Here's the well where the family drew their water, now at the very edge of the national park site and bordering a residential street:

It was SO muggy when we hiked this trail that all we talked about was how on earth people managed without air conditioning back then. Did you know that until his dying day, William Faulkner refused to have air conditioning in his Mississippi home? Putting a window air conditioning unit in their bedroom was just about the first thing his widow did after his funeral...

Because I bought us the bougiest passport books, they also have spaces for national park stickers, which is apparently also a thing. Every year they publish a new set of ten stickers, each featuring a different national park site from a different region. Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial had several sticker sets in their gift shop, including the 2009 set that includes a sticker for the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, so I bought us both that one and then spent part of the car ride home busily sticking my new stickers in their correct spots.

I dunno if I'm sold on the stickers, though... They'd be objectively awesome if the images were good, but they weren't always. If I had to guess, I'd say that every national park site has to submit its own photo, and the small sites with limited staff maybe don't always have someone on staff to take a beautiful photo? 

Stay tuned to see if I end up buying more of the stickers, and DEFINITELY stay tuned for the teenager's next big college break, when she and I are going to knock some passport stamps off our to-do list!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Here's Every National Park Junior Ranger Badge Kids Can Earn On-Site or By Mail (Updated August 2024)

August 2024: I corrected some links, marked through some sites that no longer allow mail-in badges, and added some new mail-in badges to my list.

July 2023: I crossed out several Junior Ranger badges that are no longer available to earn by mail, but fortunately I also added a few new ones, too, and I updated my map with new Junior Ranger badges that kids can earn on-site.

Find my original post, with a map of every national park site hosting a Junior Ranger program, and a list of every national park site that allows you to earn the Junior Ranger badge by mail (or sometimes even online!) HERE!!!!!!!

P.S. Want more obsessively-compiled lists of resources and activities for kiddos and the people who want to keep them happy and engaged? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

When in Michigan, You Must Take a Flying Leap Down a Sand Dune

 

We thought we were probably lost. There were lots of little roads between Traverse City and Sleeping Bear Dunes. Lots of turns onto unlabeled streets, lots of winding country roads, lots of farms and vineyards and orchards full of cherry trees. And when you type a national park into your GPS, you're never quite sure what part of the park it's actually going to take you to. Will you arrive safely at the visitor center, or at a fire tower fifty miles away? The main entrance gate, or the post office where the park gets its mail?

Since we didn't know what to expect, and weren't quite sure where we were going, then, it was even more magical to be driving down yet another little road and suddenly see, to our left, the largest wall of sand I've ever imagined.

It was huge. Incongruously huge. Game of Thrones The Wall huge. Absolutely impossible, except that there it was.

Obviously, we had to climb it!

Okay, climbing a giant sand dune was a little bit like slogging through hell below our feet. But above us?

Only sky.

And look at that view from the top of the climb!

We lounged in place for a while, me recovering my resting heart rate, and the kids playing in the biggest and best sandbox in the Midwest:

Can you imagine living around here and having small children? I'd have taken my two here every single day!

When we'd originally set off, my words had been something like "OMG look at that giant dune let's climb it!" But after deciding that maybe I wasn't having a heart attack, after all, I started to look around me and realized--we weren't at the top at ALL! There was a whole other HIGHER dune just ahead!

We must climb it!

Notice in these photos the concession to Mom's fragility embodied in Will having taken over the Mom Day Pack. Now, Will was the Keeper of Water and Snacks and First Aid Kit and Sunscreen and Bug Spray, and Mom just had to get her own butt up that last dune, the distant figures of her children literally running up that mountain of sand egging her on:

But what did I see when I finally reached the top?

Omg. Another, higher dune.

Must. Climb. It.

And from the top of THAT dune?

Nope. I give up.

Later, when we finally found the visitor center and picked up park maps, I'd learn that the trail we were on was something like three miles round-trip, a distance that we were not prepared to hike with zero prep. If I had this trip to do again I'd have us pack lunches and make a day of just this Dunes Trail, but for three people with just a water bottle each, not even all of us wearing shoes, this was our turn-around point.

Now, to enjoy the lovely walk back!

Although most of us ran most of the way:

And there may have even been some leaping involved!

You probably can't tell, ahem, but the leaping was my favorite part. 

After sandwiches eaten in the delightful air conditioning of the car, I decided it was time to figure out exactly what we were supposed to be doing and seeing in Sleeping Bear, not to mention pay our entrance fee, so Google Maps kindly agreed to direct us to the visitor center. 

Twenty-five dollars later, I had a nice, big fold-out map of Sleeping Bear Dunes to peruse while the kids worked through their Junior Ranger books:

After that, my Junior Rangers and I took the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The kids weren't super impressed with most of the stops--I mean, not after a whole morning playing on the marvelous and mind-bending Dune Climb!--but this stop was worth it all:

Despite the dire warnings--

Is that exhausted climber... vomiting?!?

--people really were walking all the way down this dune--

--and then crawling back up. The kids and I hiked to an overlook where we joined a vocal community of observers of these intrepid adventurers, rooting for our favorites, discussing what we'd do differently were we in their places (god forbid!), offering advice and criticisms, and cheering every time someone finally finished their long crawl back to the top:

Oh, and we also admired the view, of course:

I had anticipated that Sleeping Bear Dunes would be fun and pleasant, but I was shocked at HOW fun it was, and just how unspeakably beautiful. I'd happily spend weeks back there, rolling down dunes and crawling back up them and lying like a lizard in the warm sand and admiring the clear, blue water. 

And at the end of every day, I'd do like I did on this day and drive my kids back down those windy country roads, past cherry orchards and vineyards, to buy ourselves ice cream from Moomers. 

I'm pretty sure the cow who made my chocolate caramel nut ice cream is in this photo!

And here's my ice cream, in a chocolate-dipped waffle cone:

Will had a banana split:

And Syd had a worms and dirt sundae:

As Will's time as a child in my home grows very short, I often think with longing about her younger years, when I so often felt overwhelmed and disconnected. I fantasize about time traveling back to our old house by the park and ringing the doorbell, and when an exhausted, bored me comes to the door, I put her to bed with a book and a snack, and I spend the day playing with a very small Willow and Sydney. I drink in their tiny selves, and I enjoy every single second with them. I memorize again all their little features and gestures, and I don't look away for a moment.

My big kids spend their days mostly going about their own business. They have schoolwork and jobs, friends and hobbies, and I am no longer the planet they orbit around; they are no longer my ever-present shadows. I'm not exhausted and overwhelmed by them anymore (or rather, I'm mostly not...), these independent, capable kids that can now mow the lawn and do the laundry and read to themselves and even help me drive the eight hours from Traverse City, Michigan, back to our home. But I miss them, so much, now that I have the space to miss them, and I'm going to miss them so much more when one of them lives in Ohio. And because I miss them in the day-to-day, I cherish these trips with them even more. Mind you, half of them griped most of the time, and both of them griped some of the time. I thought about bailing on the whole adventure more than once, and when that happened only the fact that I wouldn't get any refund on that super expensive cottage kept me on the road. 

But sometimes, every now and then, both kids would be smiling at once. Both kids would be having a marvelous time running down a dune, or sitting at the top of a hill talking to each other about how slow and sad my hiking is, or eating a dish of ice cream the size of their heads. We would be looking at something beautiful together, and they'd be saying how beautiful it is, in the next breath mocking some hapless soul trying to crawl back up a sand mountain so he didn't have to pay $3,000 for the air rescue. I cherished those precious moments with my grown-up Willow and my nearly-grown Sydney. I drank in their funny, clever, quirky selves, and I enjoyed every single second with them. I memorized all over again their changing features and their familiar gestures.

And I did not look away for a moment.

Day 1: Presque Isle Lighthouses

Day 2: Mackinac City

Day 3: Searching for Petoskey Stones

Whirlwind Trip to NYC Day 4: New York to New Jersey--and Back!

This day was a day for wandering far and wide! Will and I had a bit of a lie-in while Matt and Syd ventured out for the best bagels in Harlem, and to play another game of "Dunkin roulette" at the eponymous coffee shop on the corner. We stopped there every morning of our trip, and the rules of the game seemed to be that you give your order to the barista, and then she makes you something random and you drink it.

Syd did not enjoy this game because she's very particular, and the barista especially horrified her one morning by serving her HOT matcha, which she loathes, but I kind of liked not knowing how many shots of espresso or what kind of milk was in my own morning coffee.

Once we were all finally up and dressed and caffeinated, with our tummies full of bagels, we went out for the day. We briefly hopped off the subway so we could see our first real, live Banksy--

--and then we were right back again--

--where, you'll be pleased to know, Will's NYC dream came true:

Then it was back on the subway for a long, long time--

--all the way down to the bottom bit of Manhattan and the Staten Island Ferry:

Is riding the free Staten Island Ferry back and forth from NYC to New Jersey and back the absolute most touristy thing one can do?

Possibly, but it also gives you a terrific view of the Statue of Liberty!

And the views of the Manhattan skyline, air pollution highly evident, are a big part of the fun!

Even if you plan to ride the ferry right back again, you have to disembark in New Jersey and hop on a different ferry that's ready to go. Matt used his time on the first ferry, though, to scope out the best views, so when we all got back on again he knew exactly where to lead us so I could take the best photos of my unwilling children with the skyline and the Statue of Liberty over their shoulders:

And another view of the Statue of Liberty! I 10/10 recommend the Staten Island Ferry for the free views without the fuss of actually visiting Ellis Island--although I DO want to do that someday!

In all our trip planning for NYC, Will was really just excited about seeing the vermin, so here she is feeding leftover bagel--which is very bad for them!--to a seagull:

She attracted so many bird friends that I bagged it and took the rest of my photos of her from a VERY safe distance...

After a delicious lunch (for us and the birds!) of bagels, we walked the Battery north to Castle Clinton. I had planned to explore Castle Clinton and have the kids earn their Junior Ranger badges there, but even though the place is technically open, it's really actually closed and pretty much just serves as the open-air ticket window for the Ellis Island ferry:

When Matt asked about it, though, a ranger did pop into the office and bring back Junior Ranger books and badges for the kids. Syd looked at me hopefully when she saw the badges already in my hand, but I still made the kids look over the two or three displays that we were able to access and fill out their books, anyway:

And then Ranger Google helped them with the rest of their books!

So, I don't think that we left Castle Clinton with any particular insight as to its merits or claims to fame (other than the fact that it was an aquarium for a time, which...), but regardless, Junior Ranger badges achieved, we headed northeast for some more sightseeing on foot:

I had been vaguely leading us more or less to the Wall Street bull statue, thinking we might as well check it off our list, but this is as close as we got to it:

You guys, people are standing in line BEHIND the bull, because they all want to pose for photos squatting underneath the bull's butt! That's... not what I'd expected. Hard pass.

We didn't really have an agenda for the rest of our day, but I knew that if we simply walked north up Broadway we'd definitely pass stuff we wanted to look at, so that's what we did!

We passed Trinity Church, where Eliza and Alexander Hamilton are buried, but the area is under construction and you can't access the cemetery, boo. I'd sort of had it in my head that we'd walk as far as the African Burial Ground National Monument, but instead we diverted and visited the World Trade Center Complex to see the memorials:

The sun was setting on our last full day in NYC and the kids still had some spending money burning holes in their pockets (Thank you, Grandparents!), so we took the subway back to Bryant Park's Winter Market. Will bought a new best friend--

--and so did Syd:

Syd had some dumplings--

--while Will had a cookie:

I had a hot apple cider and a gingersnap, both of which will remain unphotographed because my hands were full!

The remaining hours of our trip were that unremarkable combination of packing, eating the weird combo of all the last bits of groceries (chicken strips and leftover take-out pizza and Matt's regret that he'd bought whole jars of peanut butter and jelly that we for sure weren't going to be able to finish), subway stations and Grand Central Terminal--

--and the airport shuttle and security theater and the sunset over the East Coast--

--and the hassle of dealing with overly-gregarious and WAY too hyped for the time of day fellow riders of the airport shuttle and the hour-long drive on top of it AND the detour to pick up the dog from the sitter that make you especially happy to finally walk in your own door, be furiously greeted by the cats who are outraged to tell you that STRANGERS ENTERED THE HOUSE AND PLAYED WITH THEM WHILE YOU WERE GONE, take a shower in your own bathroom, dry yourself off with your own towels, put on clean pajamas that don't smell like Saturday's spilled coffee for a change, and eat... well, it was more take-out pizza. 

But it was take-out pizza that tasted like home!