Happy Sunday! Egidio from Through Brazilian Eyes is hosting this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge with a theme of “Longing.” I’ve decided to go a slightly different direction for this prompt, I hope y’all enjoy my take on this word.

At my last visit to Crater of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in August, I decided to stop at the gift shop again. In my first visit to the gift shop, I bought a fridge magnet – something I buy at all the places I travel to – but I also had my eye on the National Parks Passport booklet by the entrance. I’ve longed for one of those since my first visit to a national park in 2011 but thought it would be an expensive item to splurge, despite being only $15.

When I told my mom this, she thought I was just being cheap. This was something she would tell me whenever I don’t want to spend money on something. The thing is, growing up, I was constantly being told we were poor, that we didn’t have the money. I’ve live with this feeling throughout my teenage years into adulthood. Even now that I have a steady income, I still feel it constantly, like everything will be taken away at any moment. How does one splurge on that feeling?

In the end, though, I did buy the book. Immediately after paying for the book, I removed the plastic wrap and put 2 stamps in it, one for Crater of the Moon and the other for the Oregon Trail, which, apparently, the monument is part of.

Although I’ve visited quite a few national parks prior to getting this book, getting this book suddenly created this longing to re-visit all the parks I’ve been to, just to put a stamp in the pages of the book. I suppose that would give me an excuse to re-visit places I’ve been to, maybe discover something new along the way.

In the gallery below is some of the parks I’ve been to, some multiple times, that I’m longing to re-visit – Capitol Reef, Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Grand Canyon, White Sand, and Canyonland National Park.