What The National Parks Mean To Me
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What The National Parks Mean To Me

Reflecting on a lifetime spent with America’s best idea

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What The National Parks Mean To Me
Huckberry

One of the major features of my childhood was my family’s annual summer vacation. Every summer from before I can remember to high school we’d pack up the family car and drive cross country to see the rest of my family in Missouri. On these long car trips I came to see a large part of the country, from the stunning deserts of the southwest to the majestic mountains of the Rockies to the sweeping plains of the Midwest. I have many fond memories of these trips, but some of my best come from visiting national parks along the way.

It’s a long drive from where we live in Los Angeles to where my family is in Kansas City, Missouri, 1,586 miles to be exact. By car it takes about two and a half days to make it. Now, that’s a lot of time to be spent cooped up in a car and stopping in a national park on the way became a great way to alleviate boredom on the road. Over time stopping in national parks and monuments shifted from just being a diversion from the trip to becoming a feature. We’d plot our route along places we wished to visit even if it added extra time to our trip. This culminated in what is probably my favorite family vacation of all, one we took just to visit a few national parks in Northern California.

Becoming a runner has changed my view of the outdoors from just a place to go to the source of one of my greatest pleasures in life. Finding new and ever more scenic places to run has quickly became a favorite activity of mine and I use any vacation as an excuse to indulge in it. National parks soon became a special treat for this endeavor. Every summer I anticipate what new and exotic locale I will get to sample and run in and so far I have not been disappointed. I’ve run through forests both of wood and stone, around the rim of volcanoes and canyons, past streams and steam vents, across plains and up mountains, and so much more. I count these runs as some of my absolute favorite and cherish them as among my best memories.

The national parks are also one of the things that make me proudest to be an American. To me they embody some of the greatest American values such as egalitarianism, a commitment to our future, and a belief that ideas can change the world, values that I try everyday to live up to. The national parks are unique in that they provide a way for every citizen rich and poor to share in the beauty and natural wonder of this great nation regardless of status. They are a space where we can achieve a sense of belonging to something greater, not divided by class or color or creed, but united in our love and care for this land, committed to seeing its treasures passed on from generation to generation. They are the promise of democracy delivered.

They also provide the best showcase to the world of America’s rich diversity and unrivalled natural majesty. Going to so many different national parks one thing that always struck me was how many foreign tourists were there from Asia and Europe, they sometimes even outnumbered the Americans there. I used to think nothing much of it, but an event my freshman year of college demonstrated just how profound this is. My team had just finished a meet back east and we were flying back to San Francisco when we passed over the Grand Canyon. As soon as they realized what we were flying over every international student on the team jumped up and scrambled to a window to try and get a glimpse. As someone who had already seen the canyon, and numerous other examples of the rugged beauty of the southwest, I was initially puzzled by this until I realized that to a person coming from the UK or Germany they have nothing to compare this to at home, to them it this something extraordinary that has to been seen to be believed. Whereas I can take this for granted as a part of my heritage as an American.

It disturbs me greatly that there is a group of Americans so unfeeling that when they look at these places they are unmoved and see not the natural wealth that surrounds them, but only wasted space and future profits. Worse yet these greedy men are able to find or buy politicians who agree with them and conspire to destroy these places or design them to fail. They are a dangerous group out to take away the rightful inheritance of all Americans for nothing more than to line their already overflowing pocket books. We cannot allow this to happen and must stand up for our rights to these places. Thankfully there are more of us then there are of them.

The national parks spread across many aspects of my life from my childhood to my hobbies to my political beliefs and have shaped my life in many profound ways. I am fortunate to have visited so many national pars from the crown jewels such as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon to hidden gems such as Great Basin and Mt. Lassen. I one day hope to visit all the national parks along with countless other monuments, battlefields, sites, and river ways. I truly believe that the national parks are America’s best idea and I’m glad I get to be a part of it.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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