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national parks, snark & occasional feelings

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ABOUT ME

Hi, I’m Terra, a 30-something runner, writer and wanderer on a life-long quest to visit all 400+ U.S. National Park sites. Based in Richmond, Virginia, with two fluffy wolves and one cheap cat.

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terragoes

A year ago today. || Thought a lot about this plac

A year ago today. || Thought a lot about this place today, this and Alaska. They seem so different, so divergent, but then are they really? They are extremes. They are wild. They are incredible.

#deathvalley #nationalpark #wanderlust #wild #travel #california #exploreca #dv #nps #womenofthewild

This Monday needs more puppies. — One of the la

This Monday needs more puppies.
—
One of the last things I did in Alaska was take a little hike with a lot of sled dogs at @blacksprucedogsledding. It was exactly as magical as it sounds.
—
#blacksprucedogsledding #alaska #fairbanks #travel #wanderlust #explore #puppies #sleddogs #husky #exploreak #iditarod #jeffdeeter #vacation #hike #puppy

When plans change, you change the plan. Mudslides

When plans change, you change the plan. Mudslides & deteriorating road conditions at @denalinps significantly cut my ride into the park, and while it’s a bummer I didn’t get to see more of Denali, it did open up my afternoon to scampers, and so, scamper I did, on the Savage Alpine Trail.

Medium-haired hippy river witch walks the woods of

Medium-haired hippy river witch walks the woods of Denali, sings to bears & tries real hard to shake it off.

My other new friend, the sea otter. I named him Pa

My other new friend, the sea otter. I named him Paul.

Sea witch. 🌊 #seward #alaska #boat #kenai #se

Sea witch. 🌊

#seward #alaska #boat #kenai #seawitch #travel #wanderlust #exploreak #selfie #nps #nationalparks #nationalparkgeek

New friend, the puffin.

New friend, the puffin.

Hard hike, hard day. We start in a fluffy forest,

Hard hike, hard day. We start in a fluffy forest, all ferns and moss and dripping leaves, going up and up and up. It opens slowly, to the meadow, and we hear marmots screaming their whistles. The ground is scrubby, dense, open wide. Each corner turned and hill peaked is another view of Exit Glacier, a better look at the second largest icefield on the planet. Then, it’s all grayscale, rain falling, black rocks, white sky. Maybe there’s something making it harder, maybe it’s just hard, but then, we’re there at the top, but we have to touch it. It’s the trump card, when else can you touch a glacier, so we scramble down and down and down, touch the ice, marvel at colors and then we rewind ourselves back up and out and down again.

#nps #kenaifjords #hardingicefield #glacier #travel #alaska #hikeak #hiking

Alaska, at last.

Alaska, at last.

At Yellowstone, the ground is alive. It smokes and

At Yellowstone, the ground is alive. It smokes and gurgles, belches, spews and grumbles. The landscape is slashed with earth openings, with geysers throwing their insides skyward. There are thousands of hydrothermal features at Yellowstone. A solid half of the world’s geysers are there, mostly in the Upper Geyser Basin, which is where I went first when I visited in June. It’s home to more than 150 geysers, including Old Faithful, that big-ass, fairly regular geyser that graces all the postcards. It gets all the fame and all the crowds, but there are literal miles of boardwalks around Old Faithful that lead past all sorts of sulfur-belching, neon-shaded sights.

Read more about my first day at @yellowstonenps on terragoes.com, link in my bio.

#yellowstone #nationalpark #nps #travel #explorewy #wyoming #geysers #hydrothermal #bluesky #wanderlust

Thing I often ask: If you were a bear, what kind o

Thing I often ask: If you were a bear, what kind of bear would you be?

This grizzly bear was wandering with his friend along the road at Yellowstone. It was early, I hadn’t made it more than halfway through my coffee, and let me tell you, seeing two grizzlies that close, even from the relative safety of a vehicle, will wake you right the hell up. These bears showed no interest in the line of cars ogling them, they were minding their own bear business, eating grass and snarfing along. They were the first bears I saw in the Yellowstone, the first of seven, but the only grizzlies. They were magnificent and, as far as I can tell, very good bears.

A whole mood. #yellowstonenationalpark #grandpri

A whole mood.

#yellowstonenationalpark #grandprismaticspring #bluesky #wyoming #wanderlust #travel #nps #explore #nature

Work sent me to Montana, so I sent me to Yellowsto

Work sent me to Montana, so I sent me to Yellowstone National Park. I’ve grown a lot as a traveler. There was a point when I would have tried to see it all, when I would have spent every minute of daylight going and going and going. That’s not me anymore. Now, I sit longer. I walk slower. I take naps & return early to camp. If I want to sit and stare at the river, I do. And if I feel like going and going and going, sometimes I do that too.

#yellowstone #nps #explore #wyoming #montana #wanderlust #nature #grandprismatic

I was Sadie’s mom for 4,813 days and it was not

I was Sadie’s mom for 4,813 days and it was not enough.

18 years ago, the Monday after my senior prom, I w

18 years ago, the Monday after my senior prom, I went to MEPS and joined the Virginia Army National Guard. My military service is old enough to vote now and I’m still not entirely sure how I got to this point, how time moved so slowly and so quickly all at once. I’m in the twilight years of my military career now, am the grumpy NCO who has been around for a really long time. It hasn’t all been great, and it hasn’t all been awful, but it has been an adventure.

Photos:
1 - Taking pictures of retention flights in Oct. 2020.
2 - Getting my first vaccine dose in Jan. 2021.
3 - Being a long-haired weirdo in the early aughts.
4- Playing media on the battlefield in the summer of 2005.
5- Unfucking mistakes for a general as very sassy, very junior Soldier in 2007.
6 - Conducting an interview with Richmond media before my second deployment in 2016.
7 - Playing platoon sergeant at Advanced Leaders Course in 2014.
8 - Getting promoted to SFC in 2015.
9 - Posing while conducting pre-deployment training for Kosovo in 2006 at Camp Atterbury, Indiana.
10 - Posing with my battle buddies the day I graduated from AIT in 2004.

Find yourself some gremlins who will drink wine wi

Find yourself some gremlins who will drink wine with you on a beach in New Jersey while singing “The Sound of Silence” and capturing your barefoot zoomies on camera.

#platypussss #wanderlust #capemay #nj #beach

Spring kitchen renovation vibes. #ikeakitchen #c

Spring kitchen renovation vibes.

#ikeakitchen #colonialgranite #rva #lilac @l#spring #kitchenreno #diy

I love a surprise & @organpipenps was a surprise.

I love a surprise & @organpipenps was a surprise. It was two hours from Tucson, quiet, beautiful. It’s the desert, but a forested one, a lush one, with mountains doused in greenery. The views were perfect, the trails just challenging enough and I even spotted a jack rabbit, the first I’ve ever seen.

#travel #wanderlust #scamper #terrgoes #exploreaz #nps #usnationalparks #usnationalparksandmonuments #nationalparkwildlife

37. 🎉 #terragoes #wanderlust #exploreaz

37. 🎉

#terragoes #wanderlust #exploreaz

Everyone likes to make a big deal out of the 63 Na

Everyone likes to make a big deal out of the 63 National Parks, generally forgetting there are a total of 423 parks in the @nationalparkservice. They’re called different things - national monuments, national battlefields, national historic sites - but they’re still parks, still parks of the NPS.

Really, I’m not mad. It means these places are often less crowded, less crazy, and I can soak up the magnificence of the place by myself. And that’s what I did at @organpipenps, an absolute hidden gem of a park along the Arizona/Mexico border. It’s beautiful, wild, lush. It’s worth a scamper & I’ll be back.

#nps #nationalpark #wild #desert #exploreaz #az #arizona #wanderlust #travel

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