With everything that's been going on these days, you wouldn't think that the National Parks’ Facebook page would be among the most depressing, but it is. I usually love seeing posts of peoples’ National Park vacation pictures and hearing about their trip plans - they're gorgeous pictures and the trip plans give me inspiration for future trips. But these days, it's served as an almost constant reminder of how this country is failing to take this pandemic seriously.

Trips to National Parks are hardly the idyllic vacations you might imagine, as many of our National Parks are extremely crowded, as are the bordering towns. And this is to say nothing of the human contact people have at busy park locations, ranger stations, gift shops, restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, campgrounds, and so forth. Moreover, people travel from far and wide to visit the parks, either via long road trips or by airplane, so that seeing these Facebook posts is like watching the virus spread in real time.