It was almost sunset when we reached Zion National Park in Utah earlier this week. And this was the point; not that our national parks are better off during a period of austerity and government shutdown, but that experiencing them is different, more intimate. Don’t get me wrong, our national park system is overcrowded, in need of major repairs in many places, and a prolonged stretch of unsupervised tourism is unwise and unsustainable. Overall, the national park system, an essential part of our country’s fabric, sees over 330 million visitors per year. A knee jerk shuttering of our parks because of the shutdown is a mistake that the Trump administration is wise not to make.

Source: Fox News January 05, 2019 23:03 UTC