Visit a fun National Park during Quarantine

I really thought that the National Parks would stay open during quarantine and the pandemic, to be honest. Sure, I expected some sort of appointment system or restrictions for the number of people that came in, but I didn’t expect them to close down. However, once they opened up again, I was so ready to visit the National Parks around us.

More People Visiting National Parks

If you are also wondering why the parks closed down during the pandemic, here’s the video I watched that brought so much perspective as to why the National Parks closed down during the beginning of the pandemic and continued to restrict access to certain parks.

So, attendance has gone way up in the past few years. In a pandemic where social distancing is being asked of all of us, I can definitely see why the National Parks closed down as a precaution to the number of people that might flock to them, especially since many of us are restricted in the amount of public and free green space we have around our homes. National Parks are truly a publicly available green space to everyone, instead of having to rely on whether your home of choice has a garden or yard space.

Visiting C&O Canal National Park

However, I was so happy when the parks finally opened. The walls of my apartment were starting to close in, so I was super excited to spend time in nature. We ended up visiting the C&O Canal near us and it was so much fun to go on a hike and to be fully surrounded by nature.

We took masks with us during our visit to the National Park, but there were so many stretches of walking in which it was just us for as far as we could see. We hiked for about three miles or so until we reached a picnic clearing, had lunch, and then walked back. The clearing was big enough that we didn’t really worry about other people. Thankfully, only one other group joined us while we were there so it wasn’t a big deal.

For two apartment-dwelling people, we were beyond grateful for the freely available National Park that was a short drive away. We even got to see some cute animals on our hike through the C&O Canal National Park.

I didn’t take too many pictures during our National Park visit because I ended up really just being in the moment and enjoying the fact that I was actually IN NATURE?!? and NOT MY APARTMENT?!? It felt like a big deal and something I needed to savor.

I hope you truly enjoyed the pictures of the frog because I missed the opportunity to photograph a doe while trying to take a picture of the frog. Balance, right?

This was one of the coolest moments during the walk. Due to all the wires, the clearing was BUZZING so loudly! At first, I thought something was wrong with my ears…until I asked my husband and he said it was coming from the wires carrying the electricity. As you can see, these are the bigger towers so there was a high amount of electricity traveling through the space and causing the buzzing.

Have you visited a National Park during this time of physical distancing? How was your experience? Did you see more people than usual?

This is a National Parks post about
Visiting National Parks during Quarantine.