I got my bags packed on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo

Oh no it's a amateur traveler episode 665. Today the Amateur Traveler talks about

monuments, memorials, and mansions, battlefields, gardens, and at least one theater, as we talk about the national parks in and near Washington, D.C.

Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host Chris Christensen. Let's talk again

about National Parks. I'd like to welcome back to the show Eric Smith who's come to talk to us about

national parks again and this time in the capital region. Eric welcome back to the

show. Thanks for having me back, Chris.

And if we say welcome back, that means he's been on before, we don't know exactly how many times.

Eric is thinking eight times.

I know he came on first talking about National Parks.

You have been in a long-term

quest to see all of the national park sites and ever-changing growing list of

places.

Yeah I'm done with most of the stuff in the west and I'm not

including Alaska and Hawaii on that but hopefully I'll get to those someday but yeah

the lower 48 I'm down into the 20s or 30s left so stuff that's scattered all over the

country nothing I can do on one good long road trip. But this time we're

talking about the Washington DC area.

Yeah. We haven't talked about a DC on the show in quite a long time and it's not because it's not an interesting area and one of the things that makes it an interesting area is the national parks.

So where are you going to take us to, Eric?

The best place to start with Washington, D.C. is the National Mall, which is run by the National Park Service and while there isn't anything that says

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