Happy 150th Birthday Yellowstone National Park! The central Wyoming hot spot, home to Old Faithful and Yellowstone Falls (shown in my photo from September 2019), was the first designated location for an American National Park.

Yellowstone was one of the first national parks that my parents and I visited when I was just 17 years old. We drove from our home in northern Virginia across America to see many national parks and other beautiful places. Luckily, I had just gotten my driver’s license so I enjoyed the trip much more by being behind the wheel about half of the trip.

Seeing Yellowstone’s incredible geology, ecology, and wildlife - as close to nature as I had ever been - motivated me to want to learn about the natural sciences. I vividly recall getting very close to a moose in Yellowstone next to a wetland but my Kodak Instamatic camera made the animal look far away.

I read a book on Geology of the National Parks that served as the foundation for my studying geology at Guilford College in North Carolina and in graduate school at the University of Wyoming.

I’ve been back to Yellowstone many times. One time during winter, I stayed with a friend at a West Yellowstone cabin and we cross country skied into the park. The fresh snow covered a harder icy layer so conditions were great for making new tracks. We skied into the park about 10 miles on a closed road. Unexpectedly, on the way back we noticed animal tracks following our ski marks - big prints made from a bear! Seemed unusual to have a bear coming out of hibernation so we imagined how good we must smell to a hungry bear which motivated us to return with alacrity!

Taking my wife and young son to Yellowstone in 2019 fulfilled a dream of mine to share my wonder for park. We could hear reintroduced wolf calls and see his excitement for huge bison herds.

I’m so grateful to our ancestors including Hayden, Grant and others to create and protect Yellowstone and many other national parks. Ken Burns aptly stated that National Parks are “America’s Best Idea.”