In June of 2015, two University of Virginia alumni set off on an American odyssey. Darius Nabors and Trevor Kemp decided to honor the 100th anniversary of the National Park System by visiting all 59 parks in 59 weeks.

UVA Today spoke with them shortly before their departure, and this month we caught up with the pair to find out how their grand adventure turned out.

Before the trip, Nabors, a 2007 graduate of the College of Arts & Sciences, and Kemp, who earned both his B.A. and his Ph.D. from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, only knew each other as inner tube water polo teammates from their undergraduate days.

“Our team won the intramural championship that year, but other than that, we didn’t know each other very well,” Nabors said. “That changed after a lot of hours on the road.”

Together they experienced some of the nation’s greatest wonders: a sunset on the Grand Canyon, the untamed landscapes of the Arctic and night skies illuminated by bright lava flows in Hawaii. They watched herds of buffalo and horses run across the Great Plains, narrowly missed colliding with a moose as it jogged up alongside their car and caught a few rare glimpses of bald eagles perching in the trees above them.

Below, Nabors and Kemp offer a window into their unforgettable experience through photos they provided from the trail.