Welcome!

Your national park experience can be a holy experience, too!

More than 400 national parks, historic sites, lakeshores, rivers, battlefields, and trails across the United States and its territories are protected by the National Park Service - "America's best idea." America's Holy Ground and America's Sacred Sites take you to more than 100 of these beloved sites, known for their inspiring natural beauty, unmatched diversity, historical preservation, and personal inspiration - but unlike a tour book, they will help you see God and the sacred everywhere you go.

Bonus
parks

Did you know entries for two new national parks and six other National Park Service sites are available free? You're just one click away!

Order
now

Order your copy of America's Holy Ground and America's Sacred Sites now - then order one for your favorite national park lover! Here's your one-stop shop!

Meet
Brad & Bruce

Brad Lyons and Bruce Barkhauer

We aren't backwoods hermits - we're normal folks just like you who  love national parks. We just happened to figure out a way to take it to the next level!

Front-page photos

A camera is perched to photogaph a rocky stream and a towering bluff

Curious where the photo at the top of the page is from? Here's a complete list of photos and their sources.

America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America5 days ago
As a child, did you have a special place that inspired your curiosity? Was it a school or a museum? An empty lot or a well-designed playground? For George Washington Carver, the meadows and creeks of southwest Missouri both entertained and educated him — nurturing his creativity and opening to his mind to the ideas that made him a groundbreaking scientist. Want to know more? Go to George Washington Birthplace National Monument.
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America1 week ago
The Waterpocket Fold from Panorama Point, Capitol Reef National Park (NPS/Nathan Gross)
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America2 weeks ago
In all likelihood, you have been to one of his parks, or at least one that was influenced by his design firms. He was a strict abolitionist, served the cause of the Union in the Civil War as head of the Sanitary Commission (responsible for treating wounded Union Soldiers), and believed deeply in public parks as the way to bring people of different social, ethnic, racial, and economic classes together. He also had a brief career as crewman on a Chinese merchant ship! Frederick Law Olmsted’s fascinating life and his stamp on public spaces is on full display at Massachusetts' Frederick Law Olmstead National Historic Site.
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America3 weeks ago
Harpers Ferry cemented its place in American history with John Brown’s raid, which aimed to instigate a rebellion by enslaved people but ended in Brown’s capture and execution. But Harpers Ferry was also the site of Storer College, one of America’s first colleges that was inclusive across lines of race and gender. From Brown’s violent approach to the college’s visionary mission, West Virginia's Harpers Ferry National Historical Park celebrates resistance in all its forms.
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America3 weeks ago
Moran Point, Grand Canyon National Park (NPS photo)
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America
America's Holy Ground & Sacred Sites: 112 Faithful Reflections for America4 weeks ago
More than 140 years later, it’s still hard to fathom what happened that July day in the ravine preserved today as Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. George Armstrong Custer made so many mistakes. Did he let emotion overpower reason? We have only oral tradition and shaky historical information to help us deduce what happened that fateful day on the Montana prairies. Maybe reason will help us make the right choices in our own lives.