In our quest for Junior Ranger Badges the family hit up George Washington Carver National Monument south of Joplin, MO. I knew in advance the visitor's center was closed but evidently they had the Junior Ranger books and passport stamp out over by the bathrooms which were opened and the outside trail was open. It said you could find a Ranger somewhere there to have them sign off.

We get there today and it was drizzling a bit, but we were the only visitors there. We hit the bathrooms and got out booklets and pencils and walked the trail and just decided to mail them in. There had to be 10 employee looking cars there, but I saw not a single other living being. This is in a county with an average positivity rate of 9 new cases a DAY.

A couple weeks ago we were at Homestead in Nebraska and they were open with arrows and masks and plexiglass and etc etc. Its a real hodgepodge of which place is open and which isn't. Why doesn't NPS order them all to open up or set some sort of local positivity metric?

This marks one year from when we were at Truman Historic Site in Independence, MO where I watched a Ranger get handed a N95 mask near closing time. This was back when the CDC was telling people masks are only needed for medical people.

The NPS is like every other federal agency at the moment; only essential employees like myself are required to physically report to work. The rest are allowed to “work from home” and have been doing so since day one of this charade. Interpreters are supposed to be the face of the agency in the field. But guess who else is considered essential? Fee collectors. Gotta keep the revenue flowing

Some parks have brought them back with sun shelter style contact points and the like but many nationwide have not. I can tell you that with the exception of the LEO’s, the agency as a whole leans about as far left as you can imagine.

Biden just told us the other day that maybe by July the people can come out of their homes and see their family. Maybe things will get better by then.

The all caring and benevolent government of the people say there can be no fireworks at Mount Rushmore during the 4th of July either. Why? Because the NPS cited risks to the park as well as health and safety risks to the public. I hope Kristi Noem tells them to pound sand.

Link