canyonwalker | (Reply)

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You might have asked "Can I grandfather it in?" as a joke but it's a question I've already seriously considered. I'm very deliberate about how I compose lists. I still remember years ago how I told a cousin who visited us in L.A. that Diddy Riese had "the best cookies I've ever tasted". We stopped in for a snack while walking around Westwood, and he was totally blown away. "Wow, these are the best cookies I've ever tasted!" he exclaimed. "What," I responded in a flat tone, "You think I say 'best ever' casually?" 😂

I faced the question about grandfathering parks several years ago when Pinnacles National Park (link to previous blogs) was upgraded from Pinnacles National Monument. I'd visited it at least a dozen times when it was a Monument. The answer I landed on is that I do count grandfathered parks— parks I visited before they were re-designated as National Parks— in my simple number. Though I've since gone back to The Pinnacles twice since it attained National Park status, my 50/63 figure does count two other grandfathered parks, White Sands and Gateway Arch National Park. While I include them in my simple statistic, they've got a figurative asterisk next to their names. In my spreadsheet of parks I've annotated that my last visit was before they were granted Park status.