markwoods's Posts

And now for the hard part …

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” — Stephen King’s “On Writing” I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot recently. Because if the idea of sitting down to write scares an author who seems to exhale written words, it makes sense that right now I am terrified. I’m about to begin an unpaid leave from the paper. This isn’t because I’m going to stop writing. It’s because I’m going to start. I’m taking this sabbatical to write a book. Just seeing that sentence on my computer screen scares me. I have a hard enough time piecing together 500 words...

Read more...

Clinging to the last sunset

I began the final day of the year in a place that is a long way from a ball drop in Times Square. It’s a place where people go to watch the sun rise and drop; a place that, according to data collected by sound experts, might be the quietest spot on Earth — the volcanic crater at Haleakala National Park in Maui. I chose to end the year in Haleakala partly because it seemed like a natural bookend to the start of the year — a New Year’s Day sunrise in Acadia National Park in Maine — and partly because of the story behind the name (which means “House of the Sun”). According to ancient...

Read more...

An old-fashioned, cross-country road trip

2,200 miles later

I went to Tucson in November, to gather with my sisters at my mom's house for Thanksgiving. While there, I worked on the project, finally getting a peek inside a part of the National Park System that I had been been attempting to see all year: the Western Archeological and Conservation Center, a place containing millions of pieces of American history, shipped there from parks all over the West to be preserved and restored. Getting a tour inside the nondescript building, located in an office park not far from downtown and typically not open to the public, was fascinating. And the story of some...

Read more...

October: the sound of silence

When I began this year, trying to think about the future of the national parks, I struggled with how to approach the idea of technology and its effects. Not because technology won't affect the parks in the future, but because technology is changing so rapidly that by the time I finish typing this sentence everything about it -- including the device I'm typing it on -- probably will be outdated. And unlike with my newspaper job, I'm not working on something that will be published tomorrow or the next day. The ultimate goal is to have a book published before the National Park Service celebrates its centennial...

Read more...

September: the Flight 93 National Memorial

the Wall of Names on the final path of Flight 93

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...

Read more...

August in Yosemite: hantavirus and Half Dome

John Muir Trail, view of Nevada Fall, backside of Half Dome in the distance

A few thoughts after returning from my latest stop: Yosemite National Park. I carefully chose each park this year. Not based on which national parks are the most beautiful. Or which ones I'd most like to visit. I picked each one because I thought it could symbolize a different issue for the future. With Yosemite, that issue was people, lots of people, and the age-old question: Are we loving our parks to death? When I met with NPS director Jon Jarvis last fall, he said he hates that phrase. In essence, he said that his concern for the future isn't about having too many people visiting...

Read more...

July: Camping in New York City

model planes soar over Floyd Bennett Field

When I started putting together a plan for the year, with a goal of focusing on one park and issue each month, I was thinking July would be Denali -- partly because I've never been to any of Alaska's national parks, partly because Mom wanted to go there. She has been taking a trip to a national park each year with a group of girlfriends. But for 2012, they couldn't agree on a place. Mom's friends wanted to go the Everglades. She already had been there. She wanted to go to Denali. Her friends didn't want to. So they were going to take a year off. I mentioned this to Dayton Duncan, the writer...

Read more...

Thanks for the kind words, flowers and rock stories

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who offered condolences about my mom. Thanks for the cards, calls, emails, donations, flowers and -- in many cases -- stories about your rocks. A few days after I wrote about my mom and Mia and the book, "Everybody Needs a Rock," I found a package on my doorstep. It was about the size of a toaster, but heavier. When I opened it up, beneath a card and in the middle of crumpled newspaper, there was a rock, slightly larger than a baseball and full of subtle colors. It was a from a friend who moved from Jacksonville to Maine a few years ago. On the bottom,...

Read more...

June: Yellowstone

Plaque at Madison Junction

First a confession: I had low expectations for Yellowstone. I included it in the mix of parks to visit this year not necessarily because it was a place atop the list of ones I really wanted to see, but because I figured if I'm trying to write about the future of national parks I really should visit the world's first one. I went to Yellowstone as a kid, as part of a long, cross-country journey. And while I have vivid memories of some of the other national places we hit on that trip -- Grand Canyon, Redwood, Lassen -- I don't remember much of anything about Yellowstone other than Old Faithful...

Read more...

Everybody needs a rock

Mom on rafting trip in Canyonlands NP

As her cousins raced down a path in Yellowstone National Park a couple of weeks ago, Mia lagged behind. She was upset. I don't even remember exactly what she was upset about, just that it was the kind of meltdown that is an age-old staple of family trips. Anyone who has ever gone on a Griswolds-like cross-country trip, either as a child or parent, knows about such inevitable drama. I'm still not sure how my parents had the will and patience to pile three kids in the back of a station wagon (one without air-conditioning or a radio) and drive a few thousand miles, hitting national parks, Wall...

Read more...