Which park is your Valentine?
I, frankly, love national parks.
(BTW the most important part of this article comes after the last picture of a Lattean, so feel free to scroll past the pretty pictures to read the more important stuff.)
Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise. I was born in one. Ok, I was born adjacent to one, when my parents lived and worked in Wupatki National Monument. I grew up in several. I have been fortunate enough to see many more, and to get a peak behind the curtains at how they work.
The secret was probably out when I began to write books about national parks. It’s safe to say they are in my blood. So, as we approach this holiday of love, I decided to write about some of the parks that I love the most. To be fair. I will avoid any parks where I have lived, and any parks which are currently part of The Junior Rangers Investigative Club Novels – published or in the works. * (although I plan to write about several of these in the future)
This is, simply a list of some of the parks I love the most, an explanation as to why, and a goofy Valentines message to go along with each.
So, here we go:
#1: Crater Lake National Park – Go for a ride with your dreamboat!
I first learned about Crater Lake National Park through The Story Behind the Scenery book about it. The cover spread showed a cylindrical volcano, bristling with pines in the middle of a deep blue lake. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the lake was more than a thousand feet deep and filled a massive volcanic caldera! That island in the center was a large cinder cone! And the best part, scientists could take a submarine down into the depths to learn more about the mysterious lake. This is a lifelong goal ahead of making it to Antarctica, and probably more unlikely.
#2: Denali National Park – Al ask a to be my Valentine!
One year, on the way home from visiting my Mema in Roswell, New Mexico, our flight was delayed. (Probably because of UFO’s.) We were given free tickets. These became an unexpected Alaskan Adventure! Dad and I spend weeks riding around in a truck bed camper. We saw bears, the tallest mountain in the US, and epic scenery. Frankly, All of Alaska was scenically amazing, and Denali National Park is a great representation of that truth.
#3: Glacier National Park – Flowers and Ice for you.
If you are looking for spectacular scenery, but want to stick to the lower 48, You’d be hard pressed to find a more majestic opportunity than Glacier National Park. The scenery is amazing, and as long as you are not named Nathan W. Landrum, there’s a good chance you will get to see mountain goats. (I have terrible luck with mountain goats, manatees, and basically any wildlife that isn’t a guaranteed sighting.)
#4: Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park – Marbled Cake in a marbled canyon.
It’s not as wide as the Grand Canyon, but this deep gash carved through eons old rock is amazing in its own right. As the sun rises over the valley, it exposes folds of ancient granites on both sides of the jagged cliff face. (no pictures because it’s been a while since I’ve been back. But check them out here. Basic Information - Black Canyon Of The Gunnison National Park (U.S. National Park Service).
This isn’t where this post was supposed to stop. There are 5 more parks on this valentines list. But My love for our parks is a love for the things that they preserve, the scenery, the nature, the wildlife, the beauty, and the history. Some of the best places on Earth are protected because people who tread through strong moments of time recognized the need to protect and preserve them. And to share them. Some of the hardest parts about our history are monumentalized, so that we can learn, understand and grow from them. Some of the best moments of our past are memorialized so that we can be continuously inspired.
Our parks are one of our nation’s greatest Treasures. And the nation’s ability to manage, protect, and share them is paramount to preserving and presenting one of the best faces we have available in the United States of America. They are public places which belong to all. And some stand as testament to specific people, places, and moments in time.
When those moments are changed and altered we are all lesser for it.
Wupatki National Monument has ruins left behind by peoples who have changed, moved, and are long gone. But because those buildings stand and can be seen, we know that they were were there.
Gettysburg National Military Park Preserves the site of one of the bloodiest battles in American History. And the stories of that terrible clash are still told because people work hard to document, archive, share, and continue to tell them.
Mindoka National Historic Site preserves a Japanese Internment Camp in an effort to preserve an important, but terrible, part of our legacy and as a testament to how hard we must strive, as humans, not to cede or take liberties simply because of fear.
The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park, The U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, The Statue of Liberty Historic Landmark. Yellowstone, Biscayne, Mammoth Cave, Everglades, Dry Tortugas. Each of these and so many more were recognized, valued, fought for, and pushed into the present as gifts of love from the past. Not always treats, but always treasures.
But Valentines Day, Which is over now, because I had a whole other plan for this article, and have been working hard instead to imperfectly make a point I could write about for a thousand pages and still never express well enough. . .
Let me start over.
Valentines Day is about Love.
But not the love expressed in a letter. Not just.
Not the love expressed in candy and chocolate. Not Just.
The Legend of St. Valentine is that he was preforming marriages against the law in Rome. He was arrested, refused to renounce his religious beliefs and was executed.
So, St. Valentines day is a day commemorating Love Fought For.
And there is a park that stands imperfectly for that. I write imperfectly because it is a work in progress, it’s newer than most. I write imperfectly because the moments in history it seeks to memorialize weren’t just about fighting for the right of people to love who they wanted, but to be loved and respected as they were. I write imperfect because it’s technically across the street from the place where it all started. And I write imperfectly because the park was broken just a little bit the other day.
Stonewall National Monument was established to commemorate the Stonewall Riots in 1969. Being openly gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or a drag queen was nearly impossible, was illegal, and was almost never welcome. Police were often sent to raid gay bars. But when they turned up in 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, not for the first time, but for one of the more momentous, people fought back. Riots became protests, became organized activist groups and a movement for recognition, acceptance, and ultimately the right to marry under the law. (This took so much longer than I can expound upon here, and has been written of so much better than I am now.) Visit Stonewall National Monument to learn more.
For now.
Because as I was writing my goofy Valentines article (which was really just an excuse to put off a longer thing I am still not finished with) the website for Stonewall National Monument was edited. Not by the rangers who work there. Not by the historians who comb through the archives and share the records of our history, and I doubt that it was done by the people who normally manage the park service websites. (from what I have read through several sources I’m fairly convinced it was not.) Instead, it was changed by people hoping to erase part of that history.
A brief paragraph written about Stonewall once read.
“Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGBTQ+ civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.”
Now it reads
“Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.”
Can you spot the difference?
The words transgender and queer have been removed, along with the TQ+ that are meant to represent them. This isn’t an attempt to correct the history, but to exclude people from it. It wasn’t done out of love, and it wasn’t done to protect anyone. These letters aren’t scary. The words that they represent shouldn’t be. The people who fought at Stonewall, and fought for the rest of their lives, (and are still fighting, it was only 51 years ago,) weren’t fighting to terrorize, and don’t stand for hate. They stood and stand for the exact opposite.
They were fighting for love, to love who they wanted, to be loved, and to be recognized and be loved by their countrymen and country. And honestly, it was awesome that our country thought that the Stonewall Riots, and the movement they (all the letters LGBTQ+) started were important enough to Memorialize!
I love our national parks. We should all love our national parks. Someone did. Behind every national park you will find countless stories of people who loved the places, nature, history, and stories they had to tell.
Not all of those stories are of easy or good times. But even for the hard ones, there are people who love the truth, and love the future enough to hope that we learn from the past.
Our parks are loved. And they were most definitely fought for. There are stories about all of those fights as well. And maybe I will share a few of those in the coming weeks. (part of that longer thing I was talking about.)
But for now, I want you to pick out one park you love,
And figure out how to fight for it, just a little, (because each and every park is going to need it right now.)
And even if the day is a little too late,
You can ask it to be your Valentine.
Oh. and if you want to help this one out, just a little, maybe let people know that they don’t have to be afraid of the letters T and Q, or of the words they stand for. If you want to get them re-included onto Stonewall National Monuments webpage, every national park site has a feedback section at the bottom, ask them to put the letters, and the history back. But please be kind. The person reading it is probably not the one who made the changes, and you can trust that the rangers who work at places like Stonewall National Monument. are busy trying to protect them, and their history, even now. Words of encouragement and requests can also be made to your representatives. It’s a good way to try and remind them that people do love our national parks and do want to fight for them.