This newsletter is dedicated to sharing the beauty, history, and affordability of our
National Parks with you and your family. 
Each article is written by an African
American who wants to share their 
transformative experience with you. 
Pickup & GO! will show you
where to go;
where to stay and
what you will need
to have the best experience.

Let us take you on a personal journey
into the beautiful heart of our country, where
you will be inspired, amazed and rejuvenated!

The First Biannual Conference & Expo
BREAKING THE COLOR BARRIER IN THE
GREAT AMERICAN OUTDOORS
The Hilton Atlanta Airport Hotel, Atlanta, GA
September 23-26, 2009

The purpose of this ground breaking conference is to showcase the broad diversity among Americans who are involved in protecting our environment, conserving our natural treasures, and performing extraordinary feats of
personal accomplishment in the Great Outdoors. More here

About the cover:

1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Tennessee


The Appalachian Mountain range is one of the oldest on earth, formed more than 200 million years ago. The ancestral home of the Cherokee Indians, the park is one of the most ecologically diverse in the world. This park has the unique distinction of being within one day’s driving distance for more than 50-percent of the American population. The Ken Burns documentary highlights the contributions of George Masa, a Japanese immigrant whose photographs
of the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee served in the fight to protect the region as a national park.

2. Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah


The phantasmagoric shapes of Bryce Canyon National Park inspire amazement and awe in today’s visitors who gape over this unbroken landscape covering 56 square miles. Carved over more than 40 million years into shapes resembling birds, animals and lizards, this area was the summer home of the Paiute Indians who believed that the forms had once lived and had been turned into stone as they fell into gambling and quarreling, thereby angering the Gods. Hike down to the bottom and you may feel as though you’ve left Planet Earth and you’re somewhere on MARS!

3. Biscayne National Park - Florida


A wonderland of coral reefs and exotic marine life, the sea bed of this national park is also known to be littered with shipwrecks, principally from ships carrying enslaved Africans in the infamous trans-Atlantic trade in human beings. It also contains the ancestral home of the Jones family on Porgy Key, African Americans whose story is lavishly told in The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. Sir Lancelot Jones, the "baby" of the family, is shown to have faced down development interests who wanted to build, among other things, an oil refinery in the bay. The fact that we can enjoy the serenity and diversity of nature in Biscayne National Park today is largely thanks to the efforts of this American hero.

4. Glacier National Park, Montana

Catch sight of your first glacier in Glacier –Waterton International Peace Park, Glacier preserves the rugged, snowcapped "Crown of the Continent" with the best aspects of the North American landscape still intact. Grizzly bears abound as do big horn sheep, mountain goats and bald eagles, and alpine meadows teem with wildflowers in July and August. The ingenuity of humans can truly be perceived and admired in the Going to the Sun Road, which crosses the Continental Divide at Logan’s Pass at 6,646 feet. It was named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1985 for the ingenuity required to build it. Men armed with shovels, hemp climbing ropes and a few tons of explosives "pinned" the road onto one of the most difficult and expensive routes "to do the job right."

Recent Press and Appearances:
February 2009

Come Together: Providing a Bridge to Urban Communities
Appalachian Trail Magazine
By: Wendy K. Probst
read more here