Have your kids spend part of the coming summer working in one of the most beautiful places on earth as a member of the Youth Conservation Corps at Yellowstone National Park.

If you've always dreamed of visiting a national park, and wanted to take your family along, here's your opportunity. Three grand-prize winners of the Traveler's first Take Your Family to the National Parks essay contest will win lodging for four members of their family in one of the country's national parks, and some gear to help to help them enjoy the trip.

Perhaps sensing a drastic change in the weather, roughly 300 bison left Yellowstone National Park during the weekend and headed to lower ground in Montana, where they were met Monday by hazers who forced them back into the park and into a "capture facility."

The list is long, more than 200 names stretching over a century and then some. It's a somber one, as well, tracking the deaths of National Park Service employees from a wide range of fates, from heart attacks to rockfalls to cold-blooded murder.