Via California - Summer 2019 - 22

Visit a national park
Since the dawn of the automobile age, touring U.S. national parks
has been the quintessential family summer vacation-parents
in the front seat fiddling with the map (or GPS) and kids in the
back behaving like angels. More than 300 million visitors take a
trip to one or more of the country's 61 national parks each year,
from Alaska's Denali to Oregon's Crater Lake. They camp, raft,
swim, hike, bird-watch, and summit peaks, but also stroll, sightsee,
and buy tchotchkes. Think of almost anything travelers like to do,
and there's opportunity for it at a national park. Even the easiest
hikes at southeastern Utah's Zion, such as the mile-long Canyon
Overlook trail, offer great views of the park's standout feature: its
dramatic sandstone cliffs. For bigger thrills, head to Zion's Narrows
for an upstream wade through the Virgin River with 1,000-foot
walls rising above you on either side.

Kings Canyon you can visit
stout General Sherman, the
world's largest tree, and
gaze upward as you wander
the surrounding groves. Or
tackle Mount Whitney, the
highest point in the contiguous United States.

→ At Yellowstone, the counThe Narrows at Zion
National Park.

3
Watch a movie in your car
In an era when people increasingly stream movies
alone at home, a communal night at the drive-in can
feel like an old-fashioned party, an iconic pleasure most
of us have experienced only secondhand, depicted on
a small screen. At several outdoor theaters, including
the West Wind in Las Vegas, you can wear your pajamas, bring your own snacks, and set up folding chairs
under the stars-or snuggle in the backseat.

30-35caMJ19_SUMMERP.indd 32

try's first national park, you'll
find 10,000 hydrothermal
features and 500 geysers,

the world's biggest log hotel
(the Old Faithful Inn), and
local huckleberry ice cream.

→ The colorful, sculptural

rock formations throughout
Petrified Forest in eastern
Arizona are one reason
to visit. The Ancestral
Puebloan people's uses
for that rock, such as building the eight-room Agate
House more than 900
years ago, are another.

Las Vegas's West Wind
drive-in theater.

3/26/19 11:48 AM

TOP: COURTESY STEVE CRECELIUS / VISIT DENVER; BOTTOM: COURTESY SILVERWOOD THEME PARK

→ At California's Sequoia &

TOP: NATHANIEL POLTA / TANDEM STOCK; BOTTOM: LAS VEGAS NEWS BUREAU / LAS VEGAS CONVENTION AND VISITORS AUTHORITY

Via California - Summer 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Via California - Summer 2019