If you were Interior secretary, how would you respond if seven former National Park Service directors lobbied you on an issue? In the case at hand, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is being urged not to allow national park visitors to carry weapons.

Journeying to Isle Royale National Park is almost as difficult as visiting a foreign country, perhaps more so, due to its remote location. An island fortress in Lake Superior, the national park has endured so magnificently in large part thanks to its remoteness.

Even though the world as a whole is getting smaller and smaller, Alaska still manages to cast an image of being that rugged land far, far away to the north. And yet, quite a few folks are managing to head to Alaska to visit the national parks there.

Development pressures, cellphone towers, and mining threats are among the concerns that landed the Antietam and Monocacy national battlefields, a portion of Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, and seven other battlefields on the 2008 list of "Most Endangered" Civil War battlefields.