Back from a Park Visit in Time for Blog Hop!

Hard to believe it's another weekend and blog hop! Where do the weeks go?

This is Bear Creek Lake that the park is named after

Well, I do know where mine went this time. On Wednesday mom, dad and I packed up a rental car and headed 3 hours west to Bear Creek Lake State Park. Most of my pals probably know by now that mom works for Virginia State Parks. Mom had to go there to work but dad and I got to hang out and have a good time. We felt a little sorry for mom, but not too much.

This is the Bear Creek Hall where mom had to spend the whole trip working.
It is great for meetings and special events.

The new cabins they have built in the last five years at mom's parks are really great for me because they have a porch that goes around on two whole sides. Mom can lay down a rocking chair to block the stairs on both ends and I can play on the porch while they sit out on the deck and enjoy their pursuits. Mom likes to read a book and dad played his guitar. It was really hot while we were there but dad and I still went hiking around the park. We had a good time. Even though mom was working, she seems more relaxed.

This is a 2 bedroom cabin like the one we stayed in and you can see how the porch is.

Here I am admiring the view as dad enjoys an adult beverage on the porch.

Mom was there helping train mostly college aged young people who will be supervising kids 14-17 who will be living and working in her state parks for three weeks this summer. The program is called the Youth Conservation Corps. The first session of this program begins next week, and with a week in between, mom will be pretty busy traveling around visiting those programs the next seven weeks. I think she gets done with that just in time for Bark World Expo!

Get the link for the hop list by clicking the picture above

Trees Are Good

Odwalla is giving $200,000 to plant trees in state parks around the country and since my mom works for Virginia State Parks, she asked that I help her get some votes. Virginia is behind three other states now but we can catch up to California. I know you probably live in other states and if you want to vote for those states it's okay, but we would love for you to vote for Virginia. You can vote once for every email address you have (you may have to clear your history/cookies out to do that though). Vote by clicking here.

Thanks for helping vote to get more trees planted! And, now for the Blog Hop!

Sad for Arizona

Many of you know that my mom works for Virginia State Parks. She does the social media stuff for them in addition to a lot of other stuff. She works hard for them because she thinks parks are very special places. Other than to talk about how much I love parks and my visits there, we don't talk business on this blog or my Twitter very often.

But yesterday we heard some sad news I wanted to share with everyone. Seems like Arizona will be closing many of their state parks - maybe even all of them - by June. That makes us all sad - those that work for all parks and their families like me. Three hundred people will lose their job. Communities who rely on the tourism that the parks bring in will lose that. Like Virginia's state parks, Arizona raised a lot of their operating money with their own fees, about 40%. Like Virginia I bet that the Tourism and economic impact of the parks more than bring the state and local economy the balance of the $13 million.

Times are tight. The states face horrible budget cuts for essential services and things have to be cut. This same state is selling all of their government facilities to lease them back. But are parks a luxury? We don't think so, but you might have your own opinion. Parks make people feel good and I sure think they need to feel good now. Parks help people be more healthy and we certainly know that this generation of children need to learn healthy pursuits. But when you also consider the parks support the economy, well even a dog has to scratch his head.

My family has all their park staff families in our prayers. We also mourn for the park supporters and volunteers who work so hard and even offered to run the parks as volunteers. Now that's love. And we mourn for the people of Arizona and the state's visitors who won't have the parks to recreate in and to connect with the natural world.