How many years has it been since I created a log cabin quilt? One side is doused with purples and blue flowers, the other side is fronts of T-shirts displaying many National Parks I’ve explored as my love affair of many years still unfolds.

My heart warms like a quilt during sleep as I recall my oldest daughter, Erin as a teenager joining me in a quilt making class, where we ended up being the only two attending. How special I feel that she wanted to share this creativity.

I am especially pleased when remembering Erin and my younger daughter, Megan traveling with me cross country for a month of summer 1986, when they were 15 and 12 respectively. We tented and hiked in Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, onto Glacier of Montana, to Olympic and Mount Rainier in Washington, Crater Lake in Oregon, to the Redwoods, Lassen, Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon of California. Of course, we include the Grand Canyon of Arizona, onto Carlsbad Caverns of New Mexico, and Mesa Verde of Colorado, where native American homes were uniquely built into the sides of hills. The state of Utah graced us with five of the most unique national parks: Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches. WOW, we saw all this beauty I say to myself!

I drove a rusted Dodge van, belonging to my then boyfriend, odometer reading 150,000 some miles, experiencing only two breakdowns, miraculously mended (that’s for another essay.) Since I was a single parent 90 percent of the time, having just finished graduate school, there was little money to be saved – $700 in traveler’s checks carried us through gorgeous mountains, spectacular waterfalls, new wildlife. My girls brought money saved, knowing we had a very tight budget, where I’d agreed to buy them each a T-shirt from the park of their choice: Megan chose Yellowstone, and Erin chose Glacier. Their T-shirts now sewn into the quilt with the many others I must buy from each of the parks we visited, not knowing I would be stitching them together years later, close as I wished to be with their memories. Adding in 1990, Badlands and Wind Cave of South Dakota, Teddy Roosevelt of North Dakota, and another of my favorites, North Cascades in Washington, along with Big Bend in Texas, where Erin and I floated down the Rio Grande inside and outside of a tube maned by a guide. An 8×10 framed photo is hanging on my living room wall of us in those muddy waters where immigrants now cross, searching for freedom. Greatfulness surrounds me.

Just days ago, I ask my daughters and granddaughter Denali what their favorite National Parks are: Denali says her favorite is Arches because of fond memories with a friend biking around Moab, her second favorite being Olympic because it has different climate changes/biospheres, adding Banff in Canada just she and I, although not a US park. Megan says that probably Glacier and Yellowstone are her favorites because of the expansive mountains and geysers and animals; Grand Canyon was also amazing! Erin says Zion for the Narrows and Angel’s Landing, Mount Rainier for the mountain vistas and wildflower meadows. Although the Grand Tetons are a majestic memory I have returned to three times, riding donkeys down into Bryce Canyon stands out wondering if riding donkeys would take Erin and I over the narrow edge, that scary narrow ledge is no longer present, only love as I am warmed in spring, fall and winter by the quilt’s PARKed grand memories shared with my precious daughters!