Yellowstone has Old Faithful, in Yosemite looms Half Dome, and Arches has Delicate Arch.
Those are just three settings that are readily identified with national parks. But which view in the National Park System do you think is the most iconic of all when talk turns to parks?
Do you think of the bison that is on the Interior Department logo or on the National Park Service shield? What about the presidential images chiseled into Mount Rushmore?
Tell us, what is the most iconic image of the National Park System?
Comments
Well - it's been hinted already that the US Forest Service has also adopted the "campaign hat" in its dress uniform. It's still part of the drill instructor uniform in the US Armed Forces.
It's not unique to the NPS, but I suppose that's where the general public is most likely to see it.
The California Highway Patrol uses the campaign hat (although its use depends on area), as well as several other state law enforcement agencies and county sheriff departments around the US.
And of course there's the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Neat stuff, y_p_w. And since you've brought Canadian Mounties into the picture, you've given me an opening for one of my favorite little anecdotes. The recently-deceased actor/comedian Leslie Nielson (the "Airplane" and "Naked Gun" guy) was born in Saskatchewan and his father was a Mountie. OK; that's the trivia line; here's my story. While on a business/pleasure visit to to Hawaii some years ago (thank you, South Carolina taxpayers), Sandy and I were at the Four Seasons on Maui waiting to be seated. Suddenly, a very loud -- how shall I describe this? -- "embarrassing sound" reverberated through the restaurant foyer. The cute 'lil greeter standing in front of us turned a brilliant red and looked like she was fixin' to die on the spot. We all looked around for the perpetrator, and lo and behold, there stood Leslie Nielsen looking innocent as a lamb. We later found out that he carried the working mechanism of a whoopie cushion in his pocket nearly everywhere he went and used it every chance he got. Lord, how I will miss that man.
Leslie Nielsen?
I remember one of the Naked Gun movies featured a "Canadian restaurant" where the waiter was wearing a Mountie uniform and served "chocolate moose".
Since this is an unrelated set of comments, that reminds me. I love the comments sections, which assorted readers use to vent. However - how come there's no general forum here?
YP, a lot of the real fun of Traveler is the wide variety of comments from so many varied readers. It provides a lot of entertainment and a host of viewpoints that might be severely diminished if there was some kind of rule regarding posts. Sometimes the comments are vents, sometimes they are educational, sometimes they are humorous and sometimes downright solemnly serious.
But the VERY BEST THING about it all is that the vast majority of comments are civil and usually in reasonably good taste. Maybe that has something to do with the quality of people who have become fans of the Traveler.
This gray headed old fossil would absolutely hate to see anything change here.
Y_P_W, there's no general forum here because we lack the workforce to fight all the spam. A couple years ago we had a whole section of forums on various topics, and every morning we'd awake to dozens of spam filings. Requiring manual approval of comments doesn't solve the problem, it just transfers it to our in-boxes.
No doubt in my mind:
National Park Foundation already uses the Ranger Hat. I think the arrow head is iconic but I bet if they were to choose a new symbol they would avoid the arrowhead for its native American reference.
Lee - I wasn't suggesting any sort of rules other than maybe the obvious civility, profanity, etc. I've noticed that a lot of comments venture off-topic, which doesn't really bother me. I frankly enjoy the venting.
I was just wondering why there weren't any general forums here, which could get interesting. Now that would be a place to vent. I do suppose the problem is increased bandwidth used, as well as the problems with general spam postings.