Okay, the past few RSWL entries have admittedly been related to my recent road trip…and this one is no different! I still have some residual fuel from that adventure! If you read Nate’s Notes, you may remember we stopped at a few National Parks, National Monuments, and National Historic Sites on our journey to and from Minnesota. We LOVE, not just like, National Parks.
It’s August! You may wonder what August has to do with National Parks. Well, it just so happens the National Park Service turns 97 on August 25th! Since 1916, the American people have entrusted the National Park Service with the care of their National Parks. That’s 97 years of protecting land, preserving local history, celebrating local heritage, and creating close-to-home opportunities for kids and families to get outside, be active, and have fun. Together with volunteers and park partners, the National Park Service safeguards more than 400 places to share their stories with more than 275 million visitors every year.
Death Valley National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park
Since we here at The Transmogrifier are kind of number obsessed (i.e. how many photos can we take, how many photos can we upload in a day, how many brick textures can we amass…), I thought I’d break down the National Park Service by some numbers.
11,700,000,000 visitors
121,603,193 objects in museum collections
97,417,260 volunteer hours
84,000,000 acres of land
4,502,644 acres of oceans, lakes, reservoirs
2,482,104 volunteers
85,049 miles of perennial rivers and streams
68,561 archeological sites
43,162 miles of shoreline
27,000 historic structures
2,461 national historic landmarks
582 national natural landmarks
400 endangered species
401 national parks
49 national heritage areas
1 mission: The National Park Service cares for special places saved by the American people so that all may experience our heritage.
Preserving history, protecting nature, and creating opportunities for people of all ages to learn isn’t just some “Random Stuff We Like”. It’s something we are extremely passionate about. It’s something we support on every level. Seriously. That’s why our team decided to offer our images for free to National Parks, as well as State Parks, Non-Profit Museums and any other Non-Profit Organization whose purpose is to educate people about history or nature and preserve it. That’s how much we believe in supporting these organizations. Seriously.
Have you checked out our Gallery of National Park images? We have 16 of the 401 represented so far. Never fear, we aren’t even close to done visiting, photographing and uploading our Nation’s parks and landmarks.
So, bet you can’t guess where I’ll be with my family on August 25th! Any guesses? I’ll give you a hint: It starts with “National” and ends in “Park”…and sounds like “Yosemite”. **Big Smile**
Sources: wikipedia.org & nps.gov
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Amanda, I couldn’t agree more. You could not possibly mention everything at the National Parks, so I will mention one more thing: the ranger led walks/talks. We have taken advantage of many of those educational opportunities, and they have been wonderful. Quite a few years ago (last millennium) a ranger said that only 2% of the visitors to a national park take advantage of the ranger walks/talks. We have learned things from the local geology to protecting from hypothermia to an after-dark demonstration of cooking biscuits in a Dutch oven over a wood campfire. We got to share – they were good. National Parks are wonderful, and they are a bargain price.