It’s important to take time to get away, see America

It’s never a wrong move to take some time away from your job, your hometown and your commitments for a week or two and see this beautiful country of ours. We had the opportunity to do just that last week to attend a family reunion just outside of Montana’s Glacier National Park.
            Wow! Magnificent! Beautiful! Those words hardly describe this section of northern Montana and its striking landmarks. I wasn’t aware Montana had so many lakes, but they do and their beauty forces you to just stop and stare.
            Then, on the way home, we traveled through Yellowstone National Park and passed by Grand Teton National Park as we headed south into Wyoming.
             There are 62 National Parks across the United States, and a lofty goal of mine is to visit all of them. I’m not quite there by any means, but it’s good to have goals. I have a lot of specific parks at the top of my next excursion list.
    Roosevelt Arch at one of the Yellowstone National Parks’ entrances reads, “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” On March 1, 1872, Congress established Yellowstone as the nation’s first national park, which began an effort to authorize additional national parks and monuments, many of them on federal lands of the West.
    Then, on Aug. 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service, a new federal bureau in the Department of the Interior responsible for protecting the 35 national parks and monuments  managed by the department at the time, and those yet to be established.
    What foresight our former leaders had in establishing the national park system. It crossed my mind more than once while in the midst of them last week—What would these spaces be today if they hadn’t been set aside for our enjoyment more than a century ago?
    Getting away is good for the soul. Seeing our national parks is good for the soul, too. You don’t need to leave our country’s borders for a “real vacation.” We’ve got some of the most beautiful spots anywhere in the world right here in our own country—our national parks.