When my family was planning this summer’s National Parks Extravaganza, I did a little research on local eating in the cities through which we were traveling as we moved from park to park – Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle. As expected, I was able to find multiple restaurants and often a farmers’ market open the day of our travel through each city. However, I figured the National Parks food service offerings themselves wouldn’t even be part of my search – of course there’d be nothing local there! It was food service food. Even worse, government food service food. Something to be avoided when possible and put up with when unavoidable. Certainly nothing promising for a fan of local foods, or any foodie for that matter.
Our very first stop forced me to rethink that assumption. Boy, did I underestimate the potential of the National Parks food service. The food was often very good, and several stops were a traveling locavore’s dream. Yellowstone was a standout.
By Kelly Rand •
June 2, 2008
This past week, I had the amazing opportunity to visit and enjoy Yellowstone, our nations first national park. I had never been and was completely amazed and overwhelmed by the vast mountains and wondrous landscape. I had the chance to see grizzly bears, wolves, bison, elk, otter, antelope and so much more.
Seeing such amazing wildlife just reinforced why I care so much about this planet and why we need to find a balance between people and wildlife. It solidified in my mind just how precarious that balance is and how precious clean air, water and land really is.
Like a typical tourist, I spent some time perusing gift shops at various points of interest throughout the park. I was taken aback by the amount of well, stuff, to put it politely, that I found in them. Much of the, ahem, stuff, was made from China, too. All I could think of was lead and the recalls. Ick. But I really wanted to bring back something special to the special people in my life.
Editor’s note: The fourth part of the “Human Interaction with Nature” series takes a look at efforts to recover endangered animal species. This post was written by Denzyl Janneker, and originally published on Friday, May 9, 2008.
Baraboo, Wisconsin and Basra, Iraq might have nothing in common, but fighting a war and killing endangered species has prompted a common human response - to do an about turn and nurture that which we have destroyed.
Baraboo is known for efforts in saving its whooping crane population, while Basra is emerging from the ashes of war with a skyline dotted with cranes, symbolizing the reconstruction and development initiatives under way. At least that’s the intention. Two words stand out in either respect: Reconstruction and reintroduction.
Wars aside, what is it about man’s insatiable desire to kill animals, whether it’s for hides, horns or a hunter’s trophy? If only animals were like humans, they’d be completely cynical and sarcastic:
“Well, sir you might as just save me the trouble of running off into the bush and hiding. So load your bolt-action rifle and oh, don’t worry about the telescopic sight since I’m just going to be a few feet away. And when my head’s mounted above your fireplace in say 10 or 20 years from now, you can brag to your guests what a tough contest it was.”
Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls… come right in for another edition of the Greenest Show on the Web: the Carnival of the Green! Fresh off of a stellar performance at Ms. Malaprop, the Carnival’s here at Green Options this week to amaze and delight you. But don’t wait around — the show has a limited engagement here, and then it’s moving on for a stint with our friends at Greener Magazine.
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When my family was planning this summer’s National Parks Extravaganza, I did a little research on local eating in the cities through which we were traveling as we moved from park to park – Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle. As expected, I was able to find multiple restaurants and often a farmers’ market open the day of our travel through each city. However, I figured the National Parks food service offerings themselves wouldn’t even be part of my search – of course there’d be nothing local there! It was food service food. Even worse, government food service food. Something to be avoided when possible and put up with when unavoidable. Certainly nothing promising for a fan of local foods, or any foodie for that matter.
