Visit All The Parks!

Glossary

BOTG

Boots On The Ground. An important principle - to do a park justice, you have to do some reasonably serious walking. A guideline is no less than 8 miles of trail. Ideally, spend multiple days in the park and for parks that have multiple areas with notable different characters, visit each of those areas. An example would be Great Sand Dunes, where you have the Dunes (obvs) and the Sangre De Cristo mountain trails. You have to do both, because they're very different experiences.

NAANP (and What Is A National Park Anyway?)

Not An Actual National Park. There is considerable confusion as to what constitutes an actual National Park. Starting with Wikipedia, you'll see that it's mostly about permitted uses. Designation as a National Park brings additional protections, sometimes as a side effect of being subject to provisions of the Antiquities Act. This is often most relevant to parks like Mesa Verde, where priceless and precious cultural artifacts are protected and preserved for generations to come.