Officials from Badlands National Park in South Dakota are hosting open houses this week to consider a proposal to release bison on the South Unit of the national park.

Unless things change, it will take centuries for many national parks to have truly clean air, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, which wants the Obama administration to close loopholes that stand in the way of improving air quality.

Crews were gaining the upper hand Monday on a fire at Rocky Mountain National Park, while teams were dispatched to battle a backcountry blaze at Dinosaur National Monument. Meanwhile, a search for a missing visitor at Mesa Verde National Park was scaled back, and the Oglala Sioux Tribe was moving closer to managing the southern half of Badlands National Park.

While many national park lodges are on the National Register of Historic Places, not all lodges reflect the preservation and well-maintained appearance you might expect for such properties. In this, the second of our two-part series, the Traveler looks at why some properties are not as well-maintained as you might expect.