September: the Flight 93 National Memorial

Before beginning the year, I set up Google alerts for the words "national parks." So once a day I receive an email with news from the parks. I expected to read about battles over snowmobiles in Yellowstone, mining near the Grand Canyon and budgets in Washington D.C. What has surprised me is the number of stories involving deaths -- starting with the shooting of Mt. Rainier ranger Margaret Anderson on Jan. 1 and followed by drownings, falls, animal attacks and a rodent-borne disease. This probably shouldn't have surprised me. The national parks aren't Disney. And as I said when I started this...

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