With the calendar about to run out of days for October, the folks at Acadia National Park are getting ready to transition out of their summer mode and into winter mode.

If the National Park System is to expand, and it surely will continue to do so, National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis believes his agency should recommend a more methodical approach, one that takes into consideration not just natural resources but also human stories.

More than 60 years after U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mexican President Manuel Avila Camacho envisioned a conservation partnership to manage the rich region along Big Bend National Park, and Mexico's Rio Bravo region, efforts are under way to bring that vision to fruition.

Valles Caldera National Preserve is an ecologically rich 89,000-acre swath of land in New Mexico, one with a long human history and with a spectacular history of volcanism. And it's an area that National Parks Conservation Association officials believe would best be served as a unit of the National Park System.