February 7, 2021

A New National Park?

By roads-rus

Only 7 states west of the Mississippi River don’t have National Parks–Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Missouri, and Iowa. The state most likely to join the list of states with National Parks is Idaho. Actually, it has one listed among its National Park Service sites because 1% of Yellowstone National Park is in Idaho. However, 96% of it is in Wyoming. This lack of a National Park within its boundaries can be easily fixed.

Idaho has several sites under the auspices of the National Park Service. These include 4 National Trails–The Oregon Trail passed through Idaho, a major settler’s trail to California did too, Lewis and Clark walked and floated through Idaho, and this state acknowledges the Ice Age Floods with a National Park Service designation. This hits close to home since Ruth’s Dad’s property in Oregon was impacted by these floods long before he lived there. The other states that share Ice Age Floods are Washington and Montana. There are 2 National Monuments already in Idaho–Hagerman Fossil Beds and Craters of the Moon. There is one National Historic Site called Minidoka in Jerome, where Japanese-Americans were held during World War II like they were in California’s more famous Manzanar. There is one National Reserve in Idaho called City of Rocks near the town of Almo. There is a National Historic Park devoted to the Nez Perce, a Native American tribal group. However, their story is shared with Montana, Oregon, and Washington.

Here is the solution to Idaho’s lack of its own National Park. The President can name Craters of the Moon, which is already a National Monument and totally within this state, as this country’s newest National Park. I have been there and this is an appropriate designation. There have already been 5 new National Parks created in this century. They are South Carolina’s excellent Congaree created in 2003, Colorado’s Sand Dunes, a National Park since 2004, California’s Pinnacles went from National Monument to National Park in 2013, The Gateway Arch in St. Louis became part of a new National Park in 2018, and The Indiana Dunes became a National Park in 2019. West Virginia’s New River Gorge is already listed as a National Park on nps.gov. Why can’t Craters of the Moon become our newest National Park in 2021?

Hank

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2021 at 11:06 pm and posted in Northwest, United States, United States' National Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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