If you are ever near the port town of Astoria, Oregon, you should take a little time for a side trip to Fort Clatsop, at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. Contributing photographer Rebecca Latson visited during her exploration of the Pacific Northwest portion of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail and returns with a little history as well as ideas for capturing photos of what you might see during your own visit.

To mark National Trails Day on Saturday, ten trails with a combined 160 miles of path have been added to the National Trails System. The newly designated trails join a network of more than 1,300 existing national recreation trails, which can be found in every U.S. state.

The two of us have enjoyed a half century of travel, much of it devoted to visiting America’s national parks. The initial three decades involved travel in a series of four Volkswagen campers, a vehicle we loved, but that disappeared in 2004 from VW dealers in the United States. If only the company would export its California van to the U.S. More recently we tented and stayed in national park lodges. The many national park visits offered some wonderful surprises including these ten that we seem to remember best.