Episode Guest
Jessica Bowser
Virginia Outdoor Adentures
Speed Round
What is your earliest park memory?
I grew up in Cleveland and there’s a large metro park there and there’s a particular area called Squire’s Castle. If I remember the story correctly, there was a man who was building what looked like an actual stone castle before this was a park for his wife. And maybe his wife died or left or something happened, and it never was completed.
But there is still the foundation and the walls of this huge stone home that was meant to be, at some point, a home, and it’s now a park. And my grandparents used to take me and my brother and sister there as a child and the. The castle part of it was especially cool, a little bit creepy, a little a little fairy tale-ish.
That part was really cool. And then I can remember my grandmother picking mushrooms and showing us different things that she had found and just picnicking there and having very slow, peaceful afternoons of picking dandelions and just like playing tag with my brother and sister and different things like that.
That is definitely one of my earliest park memories. I wanna go back there one of these days, next time I’m home visiting. I told myself I need to check it out because it’s been so many years since I’ve been there. I wonder if it looks the same. But I think it’s those early memories that help us make those connections to parks and to continue to love them as adults.
What made you love the parks?
It is connection. It’s all about memories and connection and that feeling that you get when you’re enjoying parks. You can always bring that feeling back, whether it’s days, weeks, months, or years after you’ve had that experience. Or at least for me personally, if I can just close my eyes and think about it, I can think back to 30 years ago, or even longer than that, and what that was like and what those afternoons were like, it just brings back a lot of joy.
And I can remember joy and love and all of those things and time with my grandparents. I wish that everybody could have those types of experiences in the outdoors.
What is your favorite thing about parks?
That they’re so accessible to everyone, especially here in Virginia. I think we’re really blessed to have parks within an hour’s drive of our home no matter where we live in Virginia.
What is your favorite thing to do in a park?
Gosh, it’s funny because my brain immediately goes to hiking or kayaking? Or is it birding? But actually, what it really is, is the ability to do any and all of those things at my own pace. Sometimes I’ll just be at a park and I’ll be moseying on down the trail. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m daydreaming or something catches my attention, but I’ll stop.
I find myself not moving for a really long time. I’ll be listening, like listening for the birds, listening for any wildlife. Sometimes just enjoying the sound, whether it’s like a stream bubbling or a waves slapping. Feeling the breeze on my skin or smelling like the different scents that are in the air, whether it be wild flowers or even just decaying leaves or wet soil.
It’s such a sensory experience. And maybe 20 minutes later, I snap out of it. I’m like, how long have I been standing here? And so I think really what I love most about it is just the ability to do that, to, to be so engrossed in the experience regardless of what I’m doing, whether it’s hiking or birding or kayaking or something entirely different, I can do it at my own pace and really get the most benefit out of it.
What park have you yet to visit but is on your bucket list and why?
Oh goodness. I would have to say something outside of Virginia. I don’t know if there’s a park in Virginia that I haven’t been to yet. So during the pandemic, I was supposed to visit Banff National Park in Canada, and because of the pandemic, the borders were closed, I never got back there every summer.
There was a different reason why I couldn’t get back. I would love to go, not just a Banff, but there’s a neighboring park. I think it’s Jasper.
What is your favorite campfire activity?
Hammocking. I have a hammock with me all the time. When you talked about having things in your car that you can just grab easily. A hammock is in my car at all times and I usually throw it in my pack and have it at camp with me too, so I can string a hammock up almost anywhere pretty quickly.
Tent, camper, or cabin?
If I owned a camper, that would be definitely part of it, and I hope to one day. My family owned a camper as a child, so I have some really great memories of camping in a camper. So between tents and cabins, gosh, how do you pick one? They’re two completely different experiences, and they’re both amazing. Especially ’cause we have so many great cabins and campgrounds here in Virginia. I think it’s a tie, Missy.
Hiking with or without trekking poles?
Definitely with, I was a without for way too many years of my life. And then someone gifted me trekking poles, and I was like, “how have I made it this far in my life without these?”
And what is your favorite trail snack?
I love to dehydrate foods. I have a dehydrator at home, and so I’ll slice oranges and apples and other veggies and fruits and put them in the dehydrator. And then I have healthy snacks ready to go all the time.
What is the best animal sighting that you’ve had?
Oh gosh. I’m so torn between al of the different birds and snakes. It’s so hard to choose. So I’m a birder, and every now and then, you get a bird that doesn’t belong in the area that shows up. And nobody knows why it’s here or how it got here, but everybody’s really mystified and just excited about it. And so a really great bird sighting, whether you expect to see it or not is such a joy.
But so are snakes. I’ve gotten really into logging my snake sightings the same way that I do my bird sightings. I used to be one of those people who were terrified of snakes. So, I get it. If somebody’s thinking “snakes, oh my gosh. No way, I’d run the other way.” Once I’ve learned to appreciate them and realize that there’s nothing to be fearful of now, I just really get excited when I see one. And there are so many different species of snakes all around Virginia that I keep track of them in my guidebook.
What is your favorite sound in the parks?
Hmm, I’m gonna go with birds again because I have learned over the years that just the sound of birds is enough to calm me down. When I need a break in the middle of the day, if I step outside and hear the birds singing, my mood lifts immediately.
What is the greatest gift the parks give to us?
I think if we look back at where parks originated from, they originated outta the 1930s New Deal era and this idea that the common “man”, the “common working man,” and I put that in quotes because that was the thinking at the time needed a place to recreate and needed a place to take their families.
And this idea was very much just an idea until one or two parks opened. And then they realized just how much these public lands were needed for our mental health and our physical health. And now also because of conservation reasons. And so when I think about what those people, what those visions, gave us, I’m really, really grateful and those parks are now here for us to benefit from hopefully, if we take care of them for a very, very long time.
So I think the gift that those people gave us and the gifts that the park gives us are one and the same.