Reminder: On Tonight, Saturday
Love in Glacier National: A National Park Romance at 8pm ET on the Hallmark Channel
Starring: Ashley Newbrough and Stephen Huszar
Description: An avalanche forecasting expert brings her new technology to Glacier National Park where she faces push-back from the Director of Mountain Rescue who's trained in intuition and common sense.
Fun Facts:
• If this movie is based on the real Glacier National Park, the park is in northwestern Montana. (Meanwhile the majority of this film was actually shot in Fernie, British Columbia, Canada at Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort.
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• The first national park, Yellowstone, in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho was established on March 1, 1872. It has so many iconic features it's almost impossible to list them all.
• Documentarian Ken Burns created a wonderful series on the history and development of the U.S. national parks and national monuments called
The National Parks: America's Best Idea. 
It usually airs in the spring on PBS-TV.
• The difference between a national park and a state park is
the governing body that oversees them. State parks are operated by state governments and national parks by the federal government. State parks also often have more amenities to offer than national parks.
• 20 states don't have any national parks at all. These include Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
• Of the other 27 states, America’s 58 National Parks blanket an amazing 84.6 million acres of American soil. That’s a full 3.4 percent of the United States. The largest, St. Elias National Park, takes up a vast 8.3 million acres in South Central Alaska. The smallest, Hot Springs in Arkansas, covers a mere 5500 acres.
• Sequoia National Park in California is home to General Sherman, the largest known tree in the world. While General Sherman isn’t the tallest or the oldest tree on Earth, at 52,500 cubic feet in volume, it is the largest. To put its size in perspective, an Olympic sized swimming pool has a volume of 88,500 cubic feet—that means General Sherman is a little over half the size of a swimming pool. At a mere 2000 years old, however, it’s just reaching middle age. Scientists say it’s still growing.
• In Colorado’s
Great Sand Dunes National Park, visitors can not only view the highest sand dune in North America, they can sled down it. Called the Star Dune, the giant 755 foot dune is perfect for adrenaline junkies with a need for speed. Great Sand Dunes National Park allows visitors to race down all its dunes on custom made sand boards and sleds.
• Seventy miles from Key West, Florida, Dry Tortugas National Park can only be reached by boat or airplane. Most of the 100-square-mile park is open water, though it also encompasses seven tiny islands. Known for its amazing scuba diving and snorkeling, the park features hundreds of shipwrecks visitors can explore. It’s also home to five species of sea turtle.
• Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado is the largest archaeological preserve in the United States, with thousands of archaeological sites. These include 600 cliff dwellings, where the Ancestral Pueblo people lived thousands of years ago.
• While all of the National Parks are full of breathtaking views and amazing historical monuments, Great Smoky Mountains National Park—which straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee—seems to be the most popular. Last year, it had more guests than any other park, attracting 307.2 million visits.
(Some of the National Park facts are from a
Geico article.)
it was possibly going to be a series, but when Reba got cast instead, on ABC's Big Sky, that plan went out the window. It has all the bones for a long running series, great, smart writing, strong, intelligent female lead, great supporting cast which includes Melissa Peterman. It's set in the southwest, perfect environment for Reba.
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