As of yesterday, the US has added a new National Park to the NP system, bringing the total up to 61. The spending bill signed yesterday included a provision to change Indiana Dunes from a National Lakeshore to a National Park. Not sure if there is funding for a better sign. I guess Indiana was feeling left out in the NP department so their legislators lobbied for this change. Frankly, the other three National Lakeshores are much better than ID. I wonder if MI and WI will also lobby for this "upgrade". MI already has IRNP, but that is only "sort of" in MI. WI has none so AINL could be next. At only 15,000 acres, IDNP it is one of the smallest NPs so there won't be many hiking opportunities. With a few new NPs coming on line in the last few years, I thought I should do another accounting of how many I've been to. For me I've been to Badlands, Bryce, Everglades*, Glacier, Glacier Bay, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Great Smokey Mountains, Haleakala, Indiana Dunes*, Isle Royale, Joshua Tree*, Kings Canyon*, Mesa Verde, Mt Rainier, Petrified Forest*, Rocky Mtn, Sequoia, Shenandoah, Wind Cave, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion. That's 23 out of 61. Only 38 to go. Of those, I'd maybe put Arches, Acadia, Denali, and Hawaii Volcanoes at the top of the list. I marked in Bold the parks in which I have spent the night. I marked with italics the parks where we stayed outside the park and took day trips in. The rest were ones we visited while driving on the way to someplace else. Also, in honor of Roger Maris, I put an asterisk by a few in my list. If I went to JTNP, IDNP, and PFNP before they were classified as NPs can I still count them? Also there are two I think I've been to, but am not sure. In 1970 we took a family vacation and visited Sequoia NP. We then drove to Sacramento, so we probably took the road north out of the park which would have gone through a little bit of KCNP (but I was only 11 years old at the time). Also about 10 years ago we visited some of the Everglades, but I don't recall if we were actually inside the borders of the NP or not. But I'm counting it an you can't stop me.
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