 
This summer, I've been fortunate enough to enjoy a month-long journey from our home in Arlington, Virginia, to a dozen national parks, including Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde, Dinosaur, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Rocky Mountain. I was thrilled to share this trip with my wife and three children.
You may have enjoyed some of the same parks and activities we did, all of which will live with us well beyond the summer of 2004. We enjoyed the incredibly dark night skies at Great Sand Dunes, and we had a great evening camping near Phantom Ranch after hiking into the Grand Canyon. We also enjoyed a 17-mile bike ride at the park, and we listened to an evening talk given by a ranger about John Wesley Powell's journey down the Colorado River.
We toured Timpanagos Cave and explored the wall of fossils and dinosaur bones at Dinosaur; we took a ranger-led tour of Balcony House at Mesa Verde. We enjoyed spectacular views of the Grand Tetons at Jackson Lake Lodge and reluctantly finished our vacation at Rocky Mountain with a climb up Longs Peak followed by a celebration dinner that included a campfire and s'mores.
Although we had some spectacular experiences, one story remained the same throughout our journey. Fewer rangers are available to educate the visiting public about the history and significance of these special places. Of the 12 parks we visited, 11 of them had reduced the number of staff. Dinosaur has reduced its seasonal interpretative staff from 12 to three over the last three years. Twenty of Yellowstone's staff positions were vacant. Olympic is reducing its seasonal interpretative staff from 130 to 20. As a result of these budget woes, many of the legendary educational programs are being reduced, and the agency's primary mandate to protect the parks "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations" will be harder to maintain.
Some officials have repeatedly said that the Park Service is receiving more money than ever before. This past summer, administration officials toured the parks to repeat this message. Although these statements are technically accurate, the modest increase has been more than eaten up by inflation, Homeland Security expenses, and mandated salary increases. Consequently, the money available to park superintendents has declined significantly.
On our journey, my children learned more about this country than I expected. Our trip demonstrated that the national parks work to tell the whole story of America - both our proudest moments and some of our most shameful. We would hope that rather than spinning the numbers to their best advantage, this administration and Congress would work to bolster them to ensure that our national parks remain the world-class resource they should be so that your family and mine can continue to enjoy them as they were meant to be enjoyed.
Thomas C. Kiernan
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