The opportunity to visit units of the National Park Service started in Nebraska. The two we stopped at in Northern Nebraska were a bit of a disappointment - the first was in flood stage so very little was open and we viewed the river from a high bluff at Mulberry Bend. The second one included an historic bridge that we made our target for the park, it was underwhelming. In fact, it looked like an ordinary bridge and the superstructure that might have been interesting was not really visible from above and there were no paths to get under the bridge. However, from that point on, the parks were excellent. We visited 31 parks for the first time and revisited an additional eight including Olympic, Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Some were challenging, Wrangell-St Elias requires a drive of 59.8 miles on a pitted, bumpy, dusty, bone shaking gravel road, a walk across a long bridge over rapids and a five mile ride in a van to arrive. Lake Clark, Katmai are accessed by air in little four passenger planes, Inupiat Heritage Center requires long commercial flights to the edge of the Arctic Ocean and others, Glacier Bay, Kenai Fjords & San Juan Islands you take ships while Sitka we used both - three plane rides and a ferry. It was good to drive to most of those in the lower 48. We enjoyed more than we expected most every park, save the two in Nebraska and, perhaps, the Agate Fossil Bed and the Hagerman Fossil Beds. Simply not that interested in the fossils. We were touched by the Minidoka Park and the birthplace of George Washington Carver. Pea Ridge, Whitman Mission, Wind Cave and Fort Union were surprising. The Alaska parks are simply breathtaking and magnificent. We now are at 253 of the 419 parks.
The parks in order as we visited:
Missouri National Recreation new
Niobrara National Scenic River new
Wind Cave NP new
Mount Rushmore NM
Jewel Cave NM new
Badlands NP
Minute Man NHS new
Devils Tower NM new
Theodore Roosevelt NP, South and North units
Knife River Indian Villages NHS new
Fort Union NHS new
Klondike Gold Rush NHP Skagway and Seattle units new
Glacier Bay NP new
Sitka NHP new
Wrangell St. Elias NP, North and South units new
Denali NP new
Katmai NP new
Kenai Fjords NP new
Inupiat Heritage Center new
Lake Clark NP new
Olympic NP
San Juan Islands NHS new
Whitman Mission NHP new
Nez Perce NHP (four of 38 sites) new
Hagerman Fossil Beds NM new
Minidoka NHS new
Craters of the Moon NM new
Grand Teton NP
John D Rockefeller Memorial Parkway
Yellowstone NP
Agate Fossil Beds NM new
Nicodemus NHS new
Fort Scott NHS new
George Washington Carver NHP new
Pea Ridge NMP new
Buffalo National River new
Wilson’s Creek NB new
Ozark NSR, Big Springs and Alley Springs new
Natchez Trace Parkway
Looking down from the top of the stamping mill at Kennecott - 15 stories high, in Wrangell St Elias NP
Looking Up, the first photo was taken from that rickety open platform on the top of the mill.