My first memory of a National Park … as a National Park … has to be Yellowstone. As a baby 'Boomer' in the mid 1950's, I remember being packed in the car for an arduous drive 'pre-Interstate' from Cleveland, Ohio to Modesto, California, almost annually. Yellowstone was almost always on the agenda. Seen through the eyes of a 7 or 8 year old and before the mass migration of tourists, it was super sized and wondrous. Buffalo are big, but HUGE when you are short enough to walk beneath one and a moose is a monster. The sulfurous smell and gentle 'plop' of the mud pots, the steaming scream of a geyser and the roar of the falls are indelibly inscribed on my childhood. So indelibly, in fact, that it became a bucket list item to see that our children should see as many parks as I saw … and more. The national treasures that so impressed me also impressed our kids; so much so that our son is trained as a National Park Law Enforcement Officer and now lives within a few miles of Mesa Verde. He and his wife spend as much time as they can in the National Park heavy state of Utah; just an hour away. I'm confident that our grandson, Bryce (yup, named after the park) will grow up to know and love the parks as well. Thank you, President Roosevelt for Yellowstone National Park.