Budget Includes Increases for National Park Service, EPA – Staff Report – WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s hard to remember a time when a president’s budget plan was greeted with more enthusiasm than the $5.8 trillion budget proposal issued by the Biden Administration on Monday. The last time this happened was probably 1999, in Bill Clinton’s…
“Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.” – John Muir, 1869 The Yosemite (1912), page 256. Staff Report – WASHINGTON, D.C. – In reporting annual visitation numbers to America’s national parks for 2021, the…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. — Well, truth be told, it’s not exactly a secret. This is one of the well known national parks, one of two Crown Jewels of the East along with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. Yet it always feels like an amazing…
Staff Report The National Park Service will provide free admission to all national parks on September 26 for National Public Lands Day — one of the nation’s largest annual celebrations of the great American outdoors. Established by the National Environmental Education Foundation in 1994, National Public Lands Day encourages environmental stewardship and access to public…
By Glynn Wilson – PENSACOLA, Fla. — If you are feeling cooped up or claustrophobic and locked up in your suburban home glued to the bad news on cable television about coronavirus, you may want to consider another way to get away from other people: Visit a national park during this time of national crisis.…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Here’s what you get when you combine the wisdom of Aristotle and Henry David Thoreau. You’ve heard the idiom, “nature abhors a vacuum,” right? So what does that mean, how does it apply to the current state of our democracy, and why am I…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – It was a cold day in the nation’s capital on February 21, 1885 when the Washington Monument was finally dedicated on the National Mall after decades of fits and starts and problems finding matching stones and money to build it, according to the National Park Service, and there…
Friend, friend Here you come again Empty handed like A pauper in the cold You found, my friend That lonely road again Where the world has left Your wounded soul I have said I will be with you till the end But sometimes the weight Is more than I can hold Forgiveness comes But not…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — So you’re a patriotic American or an international admirer of the United States and you’ve always wanted to visit the nation’s capital city? The Neo-classical architecture? All the buildings, memorials and other sites related to the United States federal government? All the Smithsonian museums? Maybe you’ve hesitated, thinking…
By Glynn Wilson – APPOMATTOX, Virg. — We didn’t make it here in time for Memorial Day, but National Park Service rangers and volunteers say nearly 500 people showed up for the playing of “Taps” and holiday weekend programs. I don’t know for sure, but considering that Confederate sympathizers seem to generate more engagement these…
Trump Declares All Out War on the Poor, the Environment, the World – By Glynn Wilson – The hour grows late. The situation dire and dark. The proposed fiscal 2019 federal budget unveiled Monday by President Donald J. Trump, which is certain to draw criticism and debate in Congress and massive acts of resistance…
By Glynn Wilson – YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – The snow was coming down pretty hard October 5 when we pulled into the Old Faithful Geyser compound, grand central station in the world’s first national park. That’s where private concessionaires Delaware North and Xantara operate the Old Faithful Inn and Lodge, a general store and…
By Glynn Wilson and Walter Simon – On a mission to investigate what’s going on with the pipeline protest in Cannonball, North Dakota and the privatization of the national parks out west, we departed from Mobile, Alabama on Friday, Sept. 23, and drove for about 8 hours to Jonesboro, Arkansas, where we hooked up with…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – It’s Sunday morning in the deep South, so my thoughts inevitably turn to breakfast. How do you like your eggs? Hard boiled or soft? Sunny side up or scrambled? It’s not clear why this is the case, exactly, this thing I have with Sunday breakfast. It has…
By Glynn Wilson – Reading the national press coverage on the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, even listening to the reporting on National Public Radio, you would think the biggest problem the parks face is a lack of visitors. The entire story is framed as if the parks were just another capitalist tourist…
President Barack Obama took a few days to go on a working vacation this week and, to help celebrate the 100th anniverrsary of the National Park Service, the first family visited Yosemite National Park, one of the nation’s most popular national parks. In a brief speech on Saturday at Sentinel Bridge with the 2,425 feet…
A leaf, a flower, a stone – the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Born April 21, 1838, Muir has become America’s most famous naturalist and conservationist. He shared his love of the outdoors through writing and inspired people to protect our country’s wild places like Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Sequoia and…
WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Barack Obama released his proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2017 on Tuesday, calling for significant increases in funding for the National Park Service as the agency celebrates its centennial year. “The president’s proposed budget, which significantly increases funding for national parks, further shows the president’s commitment to protecting and restoring…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – My eyes and my soul are drawn to one event in nature more than any other. Autumn color. I could play the innocent and talk about this natural beauty like describing playing in mud puddles as a youth and wax eloquent about the uniqueness of…
By Glynn Wilson – HOGBACK MOUNTAIN, Va. – It’s officially summer now in the Shenandoah National Park, although you wouldn’t know it from the cool nighttime temperatures in the mountains, compared to the rest of the South. But it’s true. The summer solstice occurred Sunday, the longest day of the year. For a few weeks…
