nctiger71

The NC zoo is in Asheboro which is about 40 minutes south of Greensboro.

NC Weekend show about Greensboro
This is a link to a PBS show about Greensboro. About 6 minutes in it features activities kids might like.

There are other NC Weekend episodes on line about Greensboro.

Where is your starting point? Where are you going in Montana?

#1492
Never heard of it.

how many have you visited?
33, keep track of them in the NP app. It has the NP and all the other types of parks; monuments, seashores, battlefields, etc. Not National Forest though. Most of those we visited in the past 12 years since I retired.
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Get the app that looks like this if you don't have it.

which are your favorites?
Yellowstone, Redwoods and Bryce

what has been your favorite hike or activity?
Walking through the Redwoods and looking for wildlife in Yellowstone. We’re in our 70s so we’re not doing long hikes.

what parks are next on your list?
The ones in Washington state.

what's the park you've visited that most people haven't? Probably Lassen. I would have said Joshua Tree but recently saw a list of most visited and it was # 10.

“A Northern California road trip to redwoods, Lassen, lava and Yosemite is very high on our list. We loved sequoia but were in a hurry to get east…”
We visited N CA the past two years. Lassen was an unexpected surprise in 2024. It was mid-June and they had just opened the road for through traffic (entrance to entrance) the day we were there. There was still a lot of snow.

The Dixie wildfire in 2021 ago killed everything east of the main road.

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We were driving from Klamath Falls, OR toward Lassen and stopped in Laval Beds National Monument to do a little hike. We had just started and this guy walked across our path. We watched him about 10 minutes and then turned around.

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A couple of pictures of the wildfire damage in Lassen. That's burned trees as far as you can see in the 2nd one.

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This was taken 6/21/24.

Moonrise Kingdom

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Overview: The year is 1965, and the residents of New Penzance, an island off the coast of New England, inhabit a community that seems untouched by some of the bad things going on in the rest of the world. Twelve-year-olds Sam and Suzy have fallen in love and decide to run away. But a violent storm is approaching the island, forcing a group of quirky adults to mobilize a search party and find the youths before calamity strikes.

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Quirky is an understatement.
Cast includes:
Bill Murray
Bruce Willis
Harvey Keitel
Frances McDormand

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..stay…in the Valley.

Saves so much time driving in/out of the park each day and after a long day of hiking you can head back to your room and relax rather than load back up in the car and drive for another hour or so.

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IMO, this is good advice. We went to Yosemite the 1st time last year and stayed outside the park. Said I would only go back if we could get a room in the park because it is not an easy drive in.

If you cannot get a room in the park then Oakhurst is probably the best place to stay.

We went to these 3 NP in March 2024, We didn’t do much in Guadalupe other than visit the two visitor centers and an old ranch house.

To visit CC we stayed in Artesia which is about 35 miles north of Carlsbad. We stayed there because the hotel was cheaper and it is on the way to Alamogordo. We ate at the Adobe Rose Mexican restaurant. It was pretty good.

We walked down into the cavern but took the elevator up. I think we reserved our tickets online. We just did the self guided walk of the main room but there are ranger guided walks too. We were at CC 2 to 3 hours.

White Sands is in and out. There are a few trails and one metal boardwalk. You can walk up the dunes and slide down on a disk. We probably spent an hour and 1/2 there.

We visited these NP on our way to see our granddaughter who was working at Bosque del Apache Nat. Wildlife Refuge near San Antonio, NM. If you happen to go there a must do is to get the green chile hamburger at the local hamburger place. I don’t recall the name but there is a sign on the building saying the burger was voted #7 in the US.

29, not counting driving through or airports.

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I also have a 2020. There was an issue with the engines burning through oil. I just had my engine replaced under warranty at 93,000 miles due to the problem. But I think that has been corrected. Otherwise I love it and had no other issues with it.

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My neighbor has one, not sure of the exact year but it’s about 5 years old, and he’s dealing with this oil usage issue now. It’s his wife’s car and she mostly just drives it to work & home; about 6 miles one way.

IIRC, the dealers is trying to determine if it is using oil at a fast enough rate to qualify for warranty repairs.

We visited TRNP two years ago in mid-Oct. We had spent the night in Dickinson, ND; got up early and drove to the north unit and then after a few hours (at most) drove to the south unit.
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The north section is in and out, at that time the visitor center was a trailer and the ranger was not too engaged in her work (which in my experience is unusual). IIRC it's 12 miles in and then turn around. We did see bison and big horn sheep up close. There were a few hiking trails.

The south section is larger and it has a loop road but it was closed for repairs on the south end so for us it was also in and out the same way. There are more trails there and the visitor center in Medora is nicer and I believe they have a movie but we did not watch it. We did do a few short hikes.

The Painted Desert VC is off of I 94 between Dickinson and Medora. It has scenic overlooks.

Medora is small and seemed like a cool town but it was shut down for the season in mid Oct. The ND Cowboy Hall of Fame is there and that looked interesting but we did not go in; may have been closed.
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Statue at the HOF.

Since you are staying near the north unit you might want to check out the Fort Union Trading Post which is about an hour from Watford City, ND. I wanted to go there but we didn't have time.

TRNP is like a "poor mans" Badlands NP, IMO. Similar terrain but less colorful. But, we were in the park for the most part during the middle of the day. I would think the views would be better earlier or later in the day when the sun is not directly above. It would certainly make for better pictures.

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These pictures were in the north unit.