When we were young my parents took all five of us kids on a long car trip to several of the national parks in the West. Despite riding a few thousand miles in a hot station wagon, that was one of our most memorable vacations. Ever since, I’ve taken many trips to visit National Parks and have had some amazing experiences.

My mother served in the WAVES during World War II — this is from a letter to her parents October 7, 1945: “We finally got on Skyline drive which was through Shenandoah National Park. It certainly was a beautiful drive. It curved continually up and down a mountain. As it was national park area the entire 50 miles of the drive that we took did not have a single town, filling station, or even billboards. Only an occasional forest ranger station and lookout tower. We got up pretty high sometimes for awhile we were above the timber line and could see for miles. We were still on the drive at sunset and as the sun went down the mountain turned all pink and blue. Wish you could have seen them! Nothing quite like it.”

I took this photo of Delicate Arch at about 6 a.m. on a blazingly hot summer day at Arches National Park. The sunrise was beautiful and it even made it worth getting up at 4:30 a.m. and hiking 1.5 miles uphill to reach this spot. I finished the quilt by printing the photo on fabric and then adding a lot of thread painting.