The geothermal features in Yellowstone National Park were largely responsible for its designation as the world's first national park in 1872. These features are a global treasure. Nowhere else in the world can you find the array or number of geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles found in Yellowstone. More than 75 percent of the world's geysers, including the world's largest are in Yellowstone’s seven major basins.

A Russian volunteer helps round out the Cold War story at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in South Dakota.

For more than a century the United States has been in the national park business, and for nearly a century the National Park Service has been guided in managing those parks by the National Park Service Organic Act. Some groups, though, question whether another road map of sorts, a declaration of principles, should also be referred to when managing the parks.

When I think of wildlife in Grand Canyon National Park, I typically think of condors, lizards, and mules. Mountain lions are not high on the list. But apparently they should be, as park biologists have just placed tagged three five-week-old lion kittens.