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Welcome to my e-book trilogy "The Best Idea" (subtitled "A wander through some of America's less famous National Parks").

My name is Jim Morrison, I am a Scot living in England, and together with my wife Maggie we have made annual road trips to various parts of America since 2010. We have visited, albeit briefly in some cases, all 48 Continental States and seen some very special places. We both like stumbling across the unusual, and have been very impressed by the National Parks system in the USA. I was inspired to document some of the sites we had visited, initially in the form of a PowerPoint presentation and then as the 3-volume e-book you find here.

The trilogy consists of 3 geographically-based volumes, as shown in the map below. The name of each volume is explained within its pages while the name of the trilogy is taken from a quote by Wallace Stegner, who said:
National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.
(In case you don't know, Wallace Earle Stegner (1909 to 1993) was an American novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and historian who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972.)

Please click on the links below to access each of the parts, which will open in new tabs. As each part of the trilogy is meant to be read in isolation there is a small amount of repetition in the opening pages. It is probably also fair to say that the slideshows will not be particularly easy to see and read on mobile phones or small tablets.

Part 1, 93 to 96, can be accessed as follows:

As a slideshow   As a downloadable pdf file

Part 2, 4 corners, can be accessed as follows:

As a slideshow   As a downloadable pdf file

Part 3, Greasy grass, can be accessed as follows:

As a slideshow   As a downloadable pdf file