LEGO Park Ranger

On a completely unrelated note, the very popular Angels Landing trail at Zion National Park is in some places no wider than a couple feet with frightening drop offs on both sides and almost no room to comfortably pass other hikers. Please plan accordingly.

It is that time of year when we remind everyone that June 21st is recognized as Hike Naked Day, offering a chance for bold hikers to discover nature in their birthday suits. Cont.

There’s fast, and then there is hearing that there are donuts in the break room fast.

The Battle of Bunker Hill would mark the first time the patriots of Boston were told “Do your job,” and overwhelmed an overconfident opponent.

Legend tells, in the early morning hours of June 17, 1775, 250 years ago today, William Prescott, still in his bathrobe and drinking his Dunks coffee, surveyed the newly built redoubt on Breed’s Hill. Cont.

“Sorry folks, if you are looking for Old Faithful you just mist it.” May your Father’s Day be filled with Dad jokes both awful and awfully good!

Rustin is best remembered as the deputy director behind the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, overseeing the monumental logistics and planning for the event. Rustin later became a leading advocate for gay rights until his death in 1987.

Among the celebrated titans of the civil rights movement, Bayard Rustin is often forgotten. As a gay man, Rustin was sidelined and instead worked behind the scenes. This included as an advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. who he instructed in the nonviolence strategies that became his signature. Cont.

It was Friday the 13th and there was a new ability to correct National Parks that misrepresented American history. Jason Voorhees was more than happy to take this opportunity to restore sanity to Crystal Lake National Park that had disparaged his name for far too long.

With Great White Sharks returning to Cape Cod National Seashore for the summer, the park’s order of shark repellent had arrived just in time. Be careful out there!

Unfortunately, at the weekly Astronomy Program, Great Basin National Park rangers discovered stars weren’t the only thing that mostly come out at night…. Mostly.

Today, Murray is remembered as an activist, teacher, poet, and as the first Black and queer woman ordained as an Episcopal priest.

A decade later, Murray’s paper, unbeknownst to them, would be used to form the basis for the pivotal Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court case that abolished segregation in public schools. Cont.

In 1944 Pauli Murray was a law student at Howard University when she wrote a paper arguing that the best way to test the constitutionality of segregation was to focus not on the “equality” of separate but equal laws, but on the “separation.” Murray’s idea was mocked by both the teacher and students.

Taking a quick rest along the trail, Ranger Charles awoke to find two of the Pinnacles National Park condors checking on him. He quickly assured them he was not dead yet.

Recent rain and floods have created the perfect conditions for an overwhelming scourge of mosquitoes at Congaree National Park. If you feel lightheaded while visiting the park, it is probably from the blood loss. We would suggest sitting down to rest, but that would only make it worse.

It was always a challenge when the annual inventory of the park’s archives included a random sample from the wilderness file cabinet.

Despite this, Gerber was honorable discharged in 1945 and continued to advocate for LGBTQ rights for the rest of his life. Today, his home in Chicago where he started his activism is designated a National Historic Landmark.

Later, he moved to New York City where he reenlisted in the Army and was stationed at Fort Jay, now part of Governors Island National Monument. Continuing his advocacy by writing essays on homosexuality, Gerber was again investigated in 1942 and held for weeks in the guardhouse of Castle Williams.

In 1924, 45 years before the Stonewall Uprising, Henry Gerber founded The Society for Human Rights, the first group in the United States dedicated to homosexual rights. Gerber was soon arrested and the group was disbanded within a year. Cont.

Today, she is specifically remembered at two National Parks, Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Maryland and Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in New York, but that said, we are pretty sure all 433 National Parks would assure you that she was a real person.

Over a decade, Tubman would make about 13 trips, leading an estimated 70 people to freedom in the North. She is pretty much the closest example of an actual superhero that we have in American history. Cont.

Harriet Tubman, a real person, was many things, suffragist, soldier, nurse, spy, but she is best known as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad. Cont.

While it is the geologic splendor of the three giant natural bridges that bring visitors to Utah’s remote Natural Bridges National Monument, the park should also be considered one of the best spots in the NPS to watch the elegant dance “Searching For a Cell Phone Signal”. So majestic, so futile.

As morale continued to slide, the park’s bouncy castle became a respite from the madness. Hang in there. #FindYourRespite

As the chorus of “Mine!” rose to a crescendo, Ranger Angela instantly regretted ordering the large ice cream cone.

Sue Kunitomi Embrey became a driving force behind the establishment of Manzanar National Historic Site, and today her family continues her legacy with the annual pilgrimage and other educational and advocacy events.

From this first event the Manzanar Committee was formed with a focus on education and the preservation of the incarceration center. Cont.

Sue Kunitomi Embrey was 19 years old when in May 1942 her family was forced to move from their home in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles to the Manzanar War Relocation Center. Years later, she would return to Manzanar as part of the first pilgrimage in 1969. Cont.

A year later, these same well fed influential leaders would rally congress to establish the National Park Service. We obviously owe a great deal of thanks to Ti Sing and his amazing food.