My grandparents took big cross-country trips every couple of years. Two years ago, my parents got me the box of their old slides and I started digitizing them in anticipation of heading out west and seeing the same sights that they saw. I digitized the slides myself, and they weren’t in great shape to begin with, so unfortunately there are a lot of details lost.

We didn’t end up making it out west two years ago, but better late than never! As we cross paths, I look for the same landmarks to photograph. We’re not specifically recreating their footsteps, but if we happen to find ourselves in a slide location, it’s a fun hunt to find their exact viewpoint and snap a photo.

The very first slide that I replicated happened by accident! I was perusing our New Mexico photos and realized that one of the landmarks I photographed from the highway is also in a slide from 1962. What a coincidence! It may seem like a mundane photo, but this is right as the landscape changes get more and more interesting.

The first slide I replicated on purpose is in the Petrified Forest National Park – my grandparents were there with two of their kids in 1962, which is the same year this became a national park.

I love their 1962 travel rig – they bought this car brand new in 1958 and hauled a tiny pop up camper behind it. Traveling in style!

In 1970 they explored southern Utah, now with four kids in tow. They stopped at Bryce Canyon National Park. These slides were incredibly difficult to find, because so many hoodoos have toppled. There is a small portion of rock in the foreground of both shots indicating that this is about where they stood for this photo, and you can see how much has changed over the last 50 years. It is pretty much unrecognizable besides the background cliff. The fact that I came so close is pure luck.

They took this trip with my Grandpa’s sister’s family. We managed to find the spot in Zion National Park where they stopped for a photo. This was really tough to find because the landscape all along the east entrance of the park looks exactly like this, but I also found this photo to be more meaningful because we were standing almost right where my family stood 50 years ago. So crazy!

We stopped at the north rim of the Grand Canyon (only 10% of Grand Canyon visitors come here). Since we were so late in the year, almost the entire park was closed, but fortunately all the 1970 slides seemed to originate from the one viewpoint that was open.

I like this slide comparison because I genuinely think we might have caught the same tree to the right of the photo – albeit slightly deader during our visit.

Back to the 1962 trip for the south rim of the Grand Canyon. They had tons of slides from the south rim and believe me when I say we trekked all over trying to find them. Because so many of the viewpoints are so close together, it took some trial and error to figure out exactly which location each slide was shot from. Some we never found at all because they seemed to originate from between two overlooks, and we didn’t have the time or energy to do that hike.

In particular, this shot is really interesting because of the clear difference between them – often the landscape hasn’t changed at all, but here erosion caused a rock to fall.

If we ever make it to Yellowstone, we’ll have our work cut out for us. They went there in 1965 and 1973. We also have a bunch of slides from Yosemite and the Sequoia National Forest, so if we end up in California we’ll have to see what we can find.

It’s a lot like having our own personal scavenger hunt when we visit these places. From what I can tell, most of the slides seem to come from the main viewpoint of each park, which makes things much easier. There’s been very little hiking required, but we still traipse all over looking for the exact perspective for each photo.

What do my grandparents think about all this? They’re both gone, so I’ll never get the chance to ask them, but I’m sure they’d be absolutely delighted.

One thing is for certain: it’s pretty clear who I got the travel bug from!