A Sea Arch Fell, Harvest Hosts Got Bought, and Tarantulas Went Looking for Love

Good morning! It's Wednesday, October 7. One signature stands between Arizona and America's 64th national park, a hotel giant just paid $130 million for your free winery overnights, and if your parked RV still has water in the lines after last night, read fast.

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— OK WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING —

> The 64th national park in America is currently sitting on the President's desk. The Senate passed the Chiricahua National Park Act by unanimous consent on September 30, and one signature turns southeastern Arizona's "Wonderland of Rocks" from a monument it's been since 1924 into Arizona's fourth national park, joining the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest and Saguaro.

Chiricahua is 12,000 acres of balanced rocks and stone spires that most road-trippers blow past on I-10 without knowing it's there. That ends the moment the word "park" goes on the sign, because a name change is the best advertising a place can get. Know the numbers before the crowds learn them: Bonita Canyon Campground inside the monument takes RVs up to 29 feet, the scenic drive caps at 24, and bigger setups can camp outside and day-trip in. If you've ever wondered how a monument becomes a national park at all, this is the process playing out in real time.

— OK BUT A LOT MORE HAPPENED —

> Harvest Hosts just sold for $130 million. Take it as a compliment. Choice Hotels closed the deal September 30: same brand, same CEO, and no changes announced to pricing or perks. When a hotel giant pays nine figures for RV overnights, it means the fun you've been having is officially a market. (More)

> A tropical storm will likely be in the Gulf by Friday. The system has 90 percent odds of becoming Tropical Storm Isaias, with flooding rain expected across the already-soaked Southeast. The Florida Panhandle through Louisiana is on watch; keep an exit route in mind. (More)

> The bison jam on Custer State Park's Wildlife Loop is about to get 600 animals shorter. Drought left the range able to winter only about 900 head, so November's auction runs at least 600 bison, 38 percent more than last year. (More)

> Towing with a diesel? Budget for the pump through next season. Goldman Sachs expects diesel to stay expensive into 2027 as refining capacity shrinks while demand holds. And the gas-tax holiday being floated might not be the relief you were hoping for. (More)

> The thing saving California's giant sequoias is more fire. Wildfires killed a fifth of all mature sequoias in 2021 alone, but trees that had seen a prescribed burn in the previous decade proved four times more likely to survive, and crews have now treated 44 of the 94 groves left on Earth. How the biggest trees alive got this close to the edge is a long read worth the detour. (More)

> The 550-year-old sea arch in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is now in the ocean. Rangers found it collapsed after Hurricane Nolo battered the Big Island. The famous drive still ends at the Pacific; the postcard at the end just changed forever. (More)

> You haven't missed peak color in Shenandoah. It hasn't started. The park says Skyline Drive is still several weeks out, with just the first golds showing, so a mid-Atlantic leaf trip can still be booked rather than mourned. The park posts a color update every Thursday, and if you'd rather chase the color than wait on it, there's a whole list of routes to pick from. (More)

— OK BUT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS —

> Last night brought the season's first widespread freeze to the Great Lakes and interior Northeast, with a hard-freeze risk running from Pennsylvania's northeast corner across the Adirondacks into interior New England. If your RV is parked for the year with water still in the lines, this is the week, not "sometime this month": winterizing takes one afternoon and a couple of gallons of antifreeze, while a cracked fitting discovered in April takes your first spring trip instead. Here's how to winterize without cracking a pipe, step by step.

— OK NOW HERE'S SOME RETAIL THERAPY —

> Water Heater Bypass Kit is the little valve kit that lets winterizing antifreeze skip your six-gallon water heater instead of filling it. For anyone who read the freeze story above and felt their stomach drop: this turns an eight-gallon job into a two-gallon one.
Buy on Amazon

> Heated Drinking Water Hose keeps city water flowing on nights a regular hose freezes solid, with a thermostat that turns the heat on only when the temperature calls for it. For full-timers and late-season holdouts staying hooked up past the first frost.
Buy on Amazon

> Outdoor Camping Blanket is a weatherproof camp blanket for the one thing antifreeze can't protect: you. For the fire-ring diehards who refuse to call the season until the firewood runs out.
Buy on Amazon

— OK BUT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GO HERE —

> Route 66, as painted by Bob Dylan — The Mother Road turns 100 this year, and New Mexico's stretch now comes with an art hunt to give the drive a plot: Bob Dylan has spent years painting its faded motels and gas stations, and Travel + Leisure drove San Jon to Santa Fe to stand where he stood at six of them. The Blue Swallow Motel's neon in Tucumcari made the series; so did a dead gas station in a town of 130 people. Base in Tucumcari, where the motel neon still works, and day-trip the rest.

> Schoodic Woods, the quiet side of Acadia — A gear company crunched 111,000 reviews across 136 campgrounds and crowned Schoodic Woods the most peaceful campground in America. RV sites come with power, the woods swallow generator noise, and the season ends October 11: go this weekend, or book late May and be first through the gate.

> Lassen Volcanic, before the snow — Lassen just landed on a national roundup of parks most travelers overlook: steaming hydrothermal basins like a pocket Yellowstone, no timed entry, and October elbow room. The 30-mile park highway is open now and closes with the first serious snow, some years with almost no warning, so this one is a now-or-next-July decision.

> The Blue Ridge Parkway, lost on purpose — Garden & Gun built a three-day Parkway drive around the radical idea of not having much of a plan: a mountain-music center at milepost 213, an apple orchard halfway, a grassy bald near milepost 420 with views in every direction. Base the trailer once, drive the ridge in the truck, and stop wherever the view's worth it.

> The Everglades, where the boardwalk does the work — Islands ranked the park's ten most scenic trails, and the headliner is a paved path under a mile long with the densest alligator viewing in the park, four miles from the main entrance. One trail leaves straight from Long Pine Key Campground, and dry season (translation: the mosquitoes leave) starts in December. Book it now, drive south when the bugs do.

— OK BUT DID YOU SEE THIS —

> The 2026 Comedy Wildlife shortlist is out, and the early favorite is a caiman in a wig.

> A Colorado bull elk won a rut fight by holding his rival underwater.

> It's tarantula season at the Grand Canyon, and the males are out looking for love.

> A Grand Teton guide filmed hundreds of stampeding bison going straight through a fence.

> Yellowstone and Grand Teton have quietly hosted seven employee ball fields.

> Smokies rangers seized nearly 700 poached ginseng roots, a crop that sells for $500 a pound.

> Lore-tripping is this fall's travel trend: skip the city, go find Mothman country.

> The New England Travel Awards are out, and the glamping crown went to a sauna-equipped camp in the White Mountains.

> Seven years of RV travel with two little dogs just became a children's book series.

The Dump Station For once we mean it literally: ten of America's most beautiful parks were once landfills and industrial sites.

The Odometer Nearly 76,000. That's how many lighthouses one digital cartographer pinned to a single interactive world atlas, every one of them a road-trip excuse.

— OK BUT WHO EVEN IS THIS PERSON —

> If you've RVed through South Dakota, you've probably driven through Custer State Park. But the guy on the sign? He spent about a week in the area.

George Armstrong Custer led a U.S. expedition into the Black Hills in 1874, on land the government had promised the Lakota. The expedition found gold in French Creek, the rush that followed brought thousands of settlers into the Hills, and the U.S. eventually took the land anyway. Custer was killed at Little Bighorn less than two years later.

The park itself came much later, thanks in large part to South Dakota governor Peter Norbeck. He pushed to establish Custer State Forest in 1912, which became Custer State Park a few years later. The first 36 bison arrived in 1914, purchased from the herd of South Dakota bison conservationist Scotty Philip. Today, roughly 1,300 roam the park.

So, technically, Custer got the name. Norbeck helped build the park. And the bison are doing most of the marketing.

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