Happy National Park Week

National Park Week began yesterday, 18 April 2020, and runs through the 26th.  And unfortunately, most national parks around the US are closed, strange and difficult times.  But, this does not mean that we should not still celebrate "America's best idea", even if our visits must be mostly virtual these days.  Let us celebrate National Park Week regardless of whether we can visit these amazing landscapes, beautiful and majestic, filled with incredible species and habitat diversity, in person, or if only in photographs of past adventures.  These are special places.  I have been fortunate enough to visit 22 of the 62 national parks scattered around the country (plus a bunch of national seashores, monuments, lakeshores).  Over the next week, I hope to show you some of what I experienced and witnessed at a few national parks I have been able to visit, my way of celebrating National Park Week, but also my way of escaping our current situation, getting out to revisit some of our incredible national parks.

And of course, we have to start our visual journey at the beginning, our first national park, Yellowstone.  Yellowstone is huge, diverse, both in terms of species, and in terms of physical and geologic landscapes.  Yellowstone is all about geothermal activity, and is much more than simply geysers.  This is a busy place, though because of its size, it is relatively easy to escape the crowds, and explore.  You must visit Yellowstone National Park at some point in your life, it is a must, it is worth it.

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