Our National Park Service oversees nearly 400 National Parks, Monuments and Sites and we have visited over one third of them with plans to visit many more this summer. They are varied in size and scope from the majestic expanse of Yellowstone National Park to the multi-state Natchez Trace Parkway to the home of Franklin D. Roosevelt to a building called the Washington Monument.

These are our national treasures as they tell about the geographical formation and the history of our country. We have sat atop mountains in these parks for hours marveling at their uniqueness and beauty and studied displays in museums learning more than we every learned in schools.

But there are saddening things happening in our parks as they are being trashed and stolen away from not only us, but from our grandchildren's grandchildren. We must do more to safeguard and preserve our parks for future generations.

In Everglades National Park we saw McDonald's wrappers and pop bottles floating in water where alligators live. Throwing trash from cars and on trails is a common occurrence and if we can safety get to the trash we pick it up and deposit it in a trash receptacle even if we have to carry it a mile.

The most ignored sign is "Stay on Trail" as apparently people thinks that means other people and not them. Recently at Yosemite National Park we saw a fence around a giant sequoia tree warning people to stay outside the fence to protect the delicate roots of the 2700 year old tree. A young woman jumped the fence and ran to the truck of the tree, stomping roots along the way, just to get her picture made. Then she ran stomping the roots again and jumped the fence making her escape and laughing the whole time.

In Rocky Mountain National Park's higher elevations there are signs telling people to stay on paths to protect the delicate tundra. Each footstep destroys minute grasses and plants that took decades to grow and will take decades to recover. We witnessed a group of inconsiderate people running across the tundra chasing deer and yes, there were also signs to not disturb wildlife. That happened five years ago and the tundra destroyed that day is still trying to recover and my grandchildren may be drawing Social Security before those footsteps have fully recovered.

Two weeks ago we visited Montezuma Castle, an ancient pueblo built in a cliff hundreds of years ago and learned it was nearly destroyed by treasurer seekers who dug in the ruin looking for treasures to sell. One man even used dynamite to blow a wall away destroying it forever.

I decided to write this article after we visited Petrified Forest National Park. Exactly ten years ago we visited the park for the first time and we learned between our two visits 240,000 pounds of petrified wood had been stolen from the park. In the late 1800's people hauled away wagon loads of the beautiful wood and sent most of it back east where it sold for high prices. Local residents realized there was not an endless supply and petitioned congress to help preserve the land. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt made the forest a National Memorial with federal laws prohibiting removal of the logs. But there were no Park Rangers at that time and the army was in charge of protecting federal land and they had more urgent things to do. From 1910 through the 1930's enterprises and tourists alike removed most of the petrified wood and even today informed and supposedly educated tourist remove more each day. A few years ago Park Rangers placed a number of pieces of beautiful wood in an easily accessible area and planned to count the pieces on a routine basis to see if any were stolen by tourists and within a week every single piece was gone. The petrified wood was formed 220 million years ago and it can not be replaced. Today the park is beautiful, interesting and educational, but so much petrified wood has been stolen it is a ghost of what it was 100 years ago.

So what can be done to save our national parks, memorials and sites? Below are some ideas for anyone caught trashing or stealing.

- Be fined $1,000 AND sentenced to 30 days in jail.

- Be banded from entrance in any park for ten years with their names placed on a list for public view.

- Be required to volunteer 500 hours of service to the National Park Service.