Wow. 100 years. Can you believe it? What do you think Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir are feeling, somewhere in the ethos, about this day? How do YOU feel about this day?
I have a lot of feelings about the National Park Service. It’s been a huge part of my life for longer than I can even remember. My childhood was filled with trips to national parks, monuments, seashores, and memorials all over the West, and even a few back east when my brother attended law school in Virginia.
Brady grew up spending a lot of time in national parks as well (but I’m a bad wife and can’t find many of his photos from national park visits… but not everyone is as sign-obsessed as we are), so getting him totally on board with the national park obsession was pretty easy. Honestly, it should be for anyone. We own this land. All of us. It’s yours, it’s mine, it’s your Auntie Jemima’s way down in Texas. The national parks are so special and so sacred that they belong to all of us, rather than one person or family. Isn’t that just incredible?
The national parks have been such an integral part of my life, relationship and marriage with Brady, and every aspect of who I am today. I am so incredibly grateful for the men and women who worked so hard to make the National Park Service a reality one hundred years ago. I’m even more grateful to have had a lifetime of experiences in these incredible places, and a lifetime still yet ahead of me.
Ken Burns refers to the national parks as “a treasure house of nature’s superlatives.” Even after the small amount that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing with my own eyes, I couldn’t agree more.
#BrenNP 