Sandra Ramos – Advocating for our parks
Episode Guest
Sandra Ramos
National Parks Patch Lady
What made you love the parks?
Park Rangers
What is your favorite thing about parks?
Park Rangers
What is your favorite thing to do in a park?
Junior Ranger books
What park have you yet to visit but is on your bucket list and why?
The entire upper Midwest. Because places like Isle Royale and Voyagers just look absolutely epic.
What are three must-haves you pack for a park visit?
My passport stamp book
“I break for brown sign” stickers
Refillable water bottle
What is your favorite campfire activity?
S’mores
Tent, camper, or cabin?
Tent
Hiking with or without trekking poles?
Always trekking poles
And what is your favorite trail snack?
Almonds and That’s It fruit bars
What is the best animal sighting that you’ve had?
The first time I saw a wild Honu in Hawaii. I’d never seen a large turtle like that. It was amazing.
What is your favorite sound in the parks?
The sound of rustling leaves.
What is the greatest gift the parks give to us?
Community. Hope.
Transcript
Missy:
At a time when headlines talk about staffing cuts and funding cuts to our parks, forests, and other public lands, we turn to friends and social media to learn how we can protect our parks. Join us as we explore these turbulent times and how we can all help. I’m your host, Missy Rents, and this is the Parks Podcast. I am so excited to have Sandra Ramos join the Parks Podcast with us today. Many know her as the National Park Patch Lady, but she’s had a long career in politics and conservation. And while her day job is with the National Park Conservation Association, we’re not talking about that today. Sandra has visited 257 national park sites and is a big advocate for the parks and the vital role that they play in all of our lives, even if you don’t go visit them. Sandra, welcome to the Parks Podcast.
Sandra:
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Missy:
So, Sandra, you and I were introduced when I was interviewing Gary for Biscayne National Park. And I was talking to him about what I do, what my passions. And he was like, you have to meet Sandra. And since then, we met. And since then, other rangers are like, you know who you need to meet. And now I can stop them and go, Sandra, I know. I know, Sandra.
Sandra:
Oh, my goodness. Well, that warms my heart because, you know, I think park rangers are the best part of a park. So that warms my heart that rangers say that. And it’s been a pleasure to get to know all of them in my travels.
Missy:
Yeah, they are absolutely wonderful. And when we first met and I was kind of dreaming up what this episode was going to be about, never in a million years would I think it’s going to be on the topic we’re talking about, which is how to advocate for our parks. I just couldn’t imagine. And I think if people are watching the news and everything, they know what’s going on. And we’ll get into it. But this episode is so important because of your experience in politics, in advocacy. And I think you’re going to help guide us on what in the heck do we do.
Sandra:
The pressure. I’ll do what I can. I hope I can meet expectations.
Missy:
OK, so first, I want to talk a little bit about you and your past. You’ve worked in politics. You’re an incredible photographer and you advocate for parks. How did you first connect with parks?
Sandra:
Sure. So I had a 20-year career in politics. I was mostly involved in the campaign aspect, but I also worked for elected officials and did a little bit of policy stuff. And so my background is in grassroots organizing and that type of politics. I’d retired from that in 2010, and I really didn’t realize how much of politics had been absorbed into my personality. I was so used to, for 20 years, talking about the people who I worked for, what their what they stood for and what their policies were. But I realized after I left that I didn’t even have my own. And so I really felt lost and had a really bad, bad depression. And a friend of mine that I used to work with in a congressional office said, hey, let’s go to Gettysburg and Antietam. And then this was in 2012 or 13. And I didn’t really want to go, but I went anyway. And it was my first recognition type of experience with the National Park Service. And And I’m a history buff and a history nerd. And I particularly love the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, not so much for what most people love them for. But I’m fascinated by the sociology of how our culture in America evolved since then, because I don’t necessarily think that it’s changed much. And I think we can learn from that part of history. But nonetheless, I digress. And so I fell in love. And not having a job and living in Washington, D.C. at the time, which was and trying to quit politics was crazy. But I learned that there were all these park sites around me and I just started visiting them. And I fell in love with being able to talk to really knowledgeable people about parts of our history that were not necessarily taught in schools or in our regular studies. And these amazing places and views and vistas and the connection of all of that just really spoke to me. And so I started photographing them and I started putting them on Instagram and that was that.
Missy:
And your handle is National Park Patch Lady. Yes. Now, if you are watching this, this is the first episode we’re going to launch with video. If you’re watching this, you might understand why. But if not, why are you the National Park Patch Lady? So
Sandra:
behind me is part of my patch collection. So as park enthusiasts, as parkies, we all find that one souvenir item that we like, whether it’s, you know, stickers or magnets or, you know, mugs or what. And I collect a little bit of all of it but my main thing is patches and a friend of mine had taken a picture of me in a barn as big black leather comfy chair and another friend of mine saw the picture and made a meme that said the national park patch lady on the history channel and i posted it for fun and a bunch of my friends chimed in and said hey i would totally watch that and it stuck and so that is how i acquired the handle national patches baby i love
Missy:
it i love it yeah you are right that everybody has something. Mine is Christmas ornaments. I do. And so, you know, every Christmas I just like relive it. But you see so much of that and it’s such a fun way, some fun memento of the park.
Sandra:
Absolutely. Because each of them have a story, right? Like I can look at each of these patches on my wall and I can tell you a story. And so it feels like a diary of my life that I see every day and that makes me smile.
Missy:
Yeah. And I feel that our experiences in parks, you tend to be so present that even been looking at one you can almost like feel what you were feeling the day yes you bought it which is
Sandra:
absolutely absolutely and you know and some of the patches there’s there’s probably a dozen or so of parks that i haven’t been to yet but folks who follow me online have sent me patches from places that they’ve been that i haven’t been in so even that story to me warms my heart when i think of them and makes me feel so much gratitude for this community of folks who love our national parks
Missy:
yeah totally so i mentioned in the intro that the national park conservation Association. And here in the parks podcast, we have talked a ton about like the confusing structure of parks and monuments and grasslands and whatnot. And now we’re going to we’re going to add to it. We’re going to add to the mix because people see the National Park Service, National Park Foundation and the National Park Conservation Association. Right. What do each of them do?
Sandra:
Right. So, OK. And this happens all the time. I get introduced as working for the Park Service. I mean, it just like it’s It’s hard to understand. So we have the National Park Service, NPS, which is the park service, right? And they are a governmental entity under the Department of Interior. And so all of their allocation and budget comes from the appropriations process of Congress, right? So that’s all government. Then you have the National Park Foundation, which is a congressionally chartered nonprofit. So they’re established by Congress, chartered by Congress to be the non nonprofit arm for the national parks. So part of their budget comes from Congress and then some of it because they’re a nonprofit, they raise on their own. And then we have NPCA, the National Parks Conservation Association. And we are a member-driven, nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization on behalf of our parks. And basically the best way to say that is we connect people, parks, and policy. Oh, wow. And so even though NPF does do a little bit of governmental affairs stuff, that’s really our gig, right? We do a lot of conservation work. We do a lot of science work that then ties into how, you know, how the parks then experience and do their science work. And so there’s a lot that goes into the work that we do on a lot of levels from, you know, organizing and community levels all the way up to, you know, national water policy and wildlife and air quality policy stuff. And so, yeah, we do a lot of stuff. So that’s kind of the breakdown of the three.
Missy:
And I think it’s important, especially as we dive deeper into the conversation, for people to understand because there There’s a different role people are playing right now.
Sandra:
For sure. And it’s so hard to describe what we do. And then people say, well, I want to donate. I don’t know who to give to. And it really depends on, I mean, that’s a personal preference, but you need to know where your money’s going and what it’s doing for you.
Missy:
Exactly. Okay. Let’s get into the meat of this because it’s such a crazy time. For anyone paying attention in the news, our public lands are taking a huge hit. hit with funding cuts, staffing cuts, how history in our country is being told. And then to add another layer to that, everything’s changing every day. So let’s spell out what people need to know. And I want to say, this is as of 4.10 Eastern time on Friday,
Sandra:
March 14th. Right? Because it’s going to change, you know, before five o’clock, I’m sure there’ll be three more executive orders doing something different.
Missy:
Right. Exactly. Exactly. So I think that’s so important. And I also want to point out that when you and I were talking about having this conversation, we’ve also kind of agreed that if and as things change and we feel we need to have another conversation to help people understand, we’re going to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Note, February 14th, or February, March 14th.
Sandra:
Yeah, I’m just going to put this in big, like super high level terms, just so it’s easier to digest because there’s so much coming at us and it’s so overwhelming. Okay, so let’s start at the… Let’s start number four times. When we entered this administration, the National Park Service was already down staffing 20% across the board. Okay, so we already were understaffed in all of our parks across the country. So then… the February 14th massacre happens, right? Where we have a thousand National Park Service staff, probationary staff are fired. Now, the thing to understand about this is just because they’re probationary, like there is a default expectation of, oh, that means they were in trouble and put on like some sort of, you know, watch list or whatever it is. No, no, no. What probationary means to the National Park Service is you took a new position And you had a one-year time period to acclimate to that position in order to be established as permanent. So what we have are 25-year biologists with the National Park Service who got promoted, but were in their probationary period of that job. But because they were probationary, were fired. You have archaeologists. You have historians. You have folks who have been on the ground. You have interpretive staff. You have maintenance staff. have all these types of folks across the board, fire staff across the board that are just illegally fired. And so that institutional knowledge is gone. So the administration, in my perception, the administration scrambled and said, okay, okay, we’re going to allow, what was it, 6,000 seasonals hired. And which is all well and good, and that’s a nice number, but take into consideration that on an average year, the National Park Service hires 5,500 seasonal staff across the board. So when they say, oh, let’s just hire 6,000 seasonal, well, 550 of 5,500 of those, are already like in baked into what we usually hire. So you’re really only giving us like 500 extra and we’re already 20% down. And then you just fired a bunch of folks. Okay. So right. Understaffing. So in the last 24, 36, 48 hours, two judges have said, no doge, you have to rehire from 18 different agencies, including the national park service. You have to rehire those. You have to offer reinstatement. to those folks who were probationary folks who were fired. As of right now, I have not heard of a park ranger who’s been reinstated. And that’s across fire service, BLM, park service. I have not heard anybody who has been offered a reinstatement yet. And there’s a rumor and there is talk and there’s the grapevine of folks that either today on March 14th or tomorrow, the administration wants to cut another 30% of staffing. Oh my gosh. And so that’s where we are. I will tell you that this has probably been the most heartbreaking three months of my entire life listening to former and current park rangers and their stories about their parks and their colleagues and their friends and their staff and detriment that this is causing. The fear and the chaos and the anger and just the ridiculousness of this all. So that’s where we are.
Missy:
Yeah. Sandra, I have a question and I’m springing this on you. If I can do it.
Sandra:
I know, right, all right. If not, maybe we’ll find out and figure out. One of the things that I was thinking about is Sure, there is an expense to running the National Park Service. Yet, there is also a lot of revenue that comes in through the parks and through the economies in the towns, cities where the parks are. And I would think that that number far surpasses the expense of running the national parks.
Missy:
Right.
Sandra:
Yeah, and I know the number floats around and I wish I had that really quickly on me, but I don’t. But what I will tell you is this, is the last numbers I saw were something like the Park Service takes in like $55 billion in revenue and only expends $5 billion, right? And I’ll put this in different terms, right? Okay, so let’s take a park that I work in pretty regularly, Big Thicket National Preserve in Southeast Texas.
Missy:
Okay.
Sandra:
You’ve probably never heard of that park. Most people haven’t because- I have, but okay. But 275, roughly, 275,000 people visit this park every year, okay? In the gateway community. So now you have to understand that Big Thicket spans seven counties in 15 discontiguous units, right? So it’s like, it’s a hot mess. And, which is something we’re working on, but you’ve got a park like this and it supports, The park itself supports community-wide 290 jobs in that seven-county region. And it brings in almost $20 million to those local gateway communities through lodging, restaurants, outfitters, all sorts of things that we do when we visit places, right? And so in a very rural region like where Big Thicket is, that the main employers here are the oil and gas industry. You have a place where the locals all know the Big Thicket. I mean, you can walk into any of these small towns and you can say Big Thicket and, oh, the Big Thicket. Not one of them understands that it’s a national park site. Not one of them understands that it’s a… a conserved area because of its biological crossroads. It’s nine ecosystems that it protects, the animals and the wildlife and the recreational opportunities that it provides. But it brings $20 million into that local economy. That’s nothing to sneeze at. No,
Missy:
no. And that’s one thing that’s fascinating to me. And I think the parks are worth keeping whether they make any money or not. But when we talk about funding being cut and staffing being cut, you’re also talking talking about revenue to the diners and the gas stations and the taxes to those to those communities. And so I don’t think the ripple effect has been communicated yet on what happens when you do.
Sandra:
d Right. Yeah. And in the big parks, they know, like in spring in Springdale, outside of of Zion, like they know the detriment that this is going to have for a variety. I mean, they’ve they’ve been protesting since the first day that this has been happening. The big parks know. Arches, Canyonlands. Right. They know what this is. Yosemite, Yellowstone. It’s the parks like Chiricahua in Arizona that looks like a big park but does not have the infrastructure of a big park but could be a big park if it wants to because it’s just that amazing. But now they’re down staff, right? And so if folks were then to detour in Tucson on their way to or from Suarez because Saguaro is now closed two days a week because of staffing cuts, right? The visitor center is now closed two days a week. So you make the 45-minute detour to Chiricahua, you know, what does that look like for those small parks, right? And so it’s, I don’t know. Yeah. I could go on. I know, I know,
Missy:
I know. Okay, the third thing I want to talk about, we’ve talked about funding, we’ve talked about staffing cuts.
Sandra:
Yeah.
Missy:
The censorship and the, what is, what history, what science is being done Deleted.
Sandra:
Yeah. So again, we’ll preface this by saying as of Friday, March 14th, because even in just the last 24 hours, I was reading that the website for Arlington Cemetery has scrubbed every mention of every woman or person of color who is buried in the cemetery or something like something crazy, like any mention of anyone who has any sort of diversity has been scrubbed. And it’s like, Wow. And so there is a list that the Washington, I’m sorry, that the New York Times posted earlier this week of all of the words that were banned. Female, cultural heritage, indigenous, tribal, all sorts of like… How… The Park Service can’t even do their work without a lot of this language. And the Park Service was just coming into doing a really great job of changing a lot of their very uncomfortable and written in the 1970s way sides and interpretive stuff. And so now here we are, right? There is a rumor that’s going around that any national monument that was established through the Antiquities Act that has anything to do with anything that’s other than what the administration approves is going to be nixed. And so parks like that are going to be like the recently established Francis Perkins National Monument in Maine or the Carlisle Indian School or places like Blackwell School in Marfa that was just established in September here in Texas. And so they’re really trying to wipe away a lot of the history. And, you know, that’s the stuff that I really care about. Yeah, me too.
Missy:
Me too. And I find one of the things I think that the National Park Service has, at least my experience so far, has done well, is owning up to the good and the ugly. And they just are telling the story. And I think they’ve done a nice job. Everybody can do better, but they’ve done a nice job. And it makes me mad and sad and all of those emotions to see that they’re just gone. I mean, I got an email the other day about there was a, oh, I can’t remember the name of the place now, but there was a, there’s a home in Raleigh. And because this priest was an advocate for LGBT, it’s gone.
Sandra:
Yeah.
Missy:
Just gone. Yeah. Yeah.
Sandra:
I mean, it’s fascinating to think that, How this administration thinks that they can just press a delete button and it wipes it away. I mean, and… That is really where it’s important for all of us to be involved and use our voices and us, you know, I’ve never been one to believe. And then again, I spent 20 years in political campaigns. I’m not one who believes that someone’s voice doesn’t count. I believe that everyone’s voices counts because if everyone who said my voice doesn’t count, then all stood in a room together, you’d have a full room, right? Right. my friends to do one thing every day. Do one thing. I mean, if it’s telling a person at the grocery store line about national parks, or you call your grandmother and you tell her to get, you know, her to call her representatives, whatever that one thing is wearing my t-shirt, right? I stand with park rangers. Yeah. I love it. Yes. It’s, it’s part of my new resistance wardrobe. I’m now just like rotating through resistance t-shirts. You’ve inspired me. So I’ve placed a few orders. But, but, You know, I mean, we have to fight back. We have no choice. And no one has an excuse not to be.
Missy:
Yeah. So that leads us to, like, what is currently being done? And maybe if you know, maybe we divide this into what’s being done by our politicians and what’s being done by citizens, park lovers. Yeah.
Sandra:
So the first part, what’s being done by our politicians, I couldn’t tell you. I
Missy:
was wondering because I was so mad the other day because I saw a post and it was about a candidate going sled riding with their kids. And I was like, I don’t want to hear about you sled riding. I want you to stand up and say what you really think. Right.
Sandra:
Do something. Exactly. Yeah. I don’t know what they’re doing. I mean, obviously everybody’s playing a whack-a-mole right now because the administration is purposely trying to create chaos because the more chaos they can create, then it’s sort of the smoke to what they’re really trying to do, which is overthrow the government. Yeah. Right. And so, cause this, that’s what this is. And my boss had recently come out with a statement that this could be the beginning of the end of our national parks, with Bybrick and ranger by ranger. And we need to take that really seriously.
Missy:
Yeah.
Sandra:
I remember… During the election, supporters of this administration would say they don’t really mean it. You know, that’s that’s not what they’re they’re going to do. And that is exactly what they’re doing. And now’s the time to get angry. Right.
Speaker 01:
And and, you know, and I. I really hate to put it in these terms, but I mean, it’s really the only way to say it because I’ve called out a couple of people recently about this. What that shows is their privilege, because what they’re really saying is. I knew that this was going to happen. It just wasn’t supposed to happen to me. It was supposed to happen to them. Yes. Right. I, you know, and so it’s it’s really sly how Fox News and and the the media echo chamber that those folks live in sort of totally spun this to make them feel okay because what they’re really saying and that is somebody else was supposed to get hurt it wasn’t supposed to be me and now that it’s affecting them it’s problematic
Missy:
yeah yeah so okay do protests work
Sandra:
yes if you if they’ve done well right so the I’m going to put this in political terms because that’s, it’s just the easiest way for me to describe it. My entire political career, what I noticed is Republicans, conservatives, whatever you want to call them, are really great at like all getting lockstep and going through the turnstile one by one, right? They all know the message. They all know what they’re supposed to do. They’re lockstep. Everybody’s boom. And that has, it’s good and bad to it. Democratic Party, progressives, whatever we want to call ourselves, antifa you know whatever whatever they call them uh we call ourselves are really great at including everybody but we’re really bad about getting behind each other for one message to be concise it super drives me nuts when i go to a women’s march rally and there’s like science and schools and and it’s like yes those are all issues but today is this issue right and if we do this well we’re not fighting each other i mean And it’s kind of funny because it’s sort of like the zero sum game, right? And I think that this is what Trump supporters and the administration’s supporters have fallen into is they believe that if someone else is getting some, that that means I’m not getting mine. And it’s sort of like the way a lot of progressives think of politics in our senses. Like if they don’t hear my message, then I’m not getting any. You know, it’s like my message or no message all the time. Right. And so we really need to be better about like show up to the women’s march, have a women’s sign. Show up to the parks march, have a park sign. Be inclusive in that community because the more you can build those communities and network them, the stronger we can be.
Speaker 02:
Right. Otherwise, we look and we feel scattered. It’s like, wait, what’s this message?
Speaker 01:
Right. And so I’ll put a second part to this. So two weekends ago now, I guess, we did the Resistance Rangers. Man, they are kicking some butt. These folks… I don’t know who they are or what they do or like, but there’s like… There’s this group and they are just on top of it and they are so great. Had organized the entire country and tried to host 433 rallies in 433 parks. I think they got up to like 175 and there were some parks, a handful of parks that only had like one person who signed up or showed up. And I mean, it was just incredible. And so those folks are really sort of organizing stuff. Now, As NPCA, I wasn’t allowed to participate in a protest, but as National Park Patch Lady, I certainly could. And so I put together the Big Thicket Rally, the middle of nowhere, Southeast Texas, an hour and a half from Houston. And in 72 hours that I put together this rally, 30 people showed up.
Speaker 02:
Yeah.
Speaker 01:
All over.
Missy:
I was at Shenandoah National Park, the south entrance. Same thing. 50 people showed up.
Speaker 01:
Yeah. But the more important part is, okay, so do rallies work? Well, I find that 30 people showing up to the middle of nowhere, Big Thicket, is a win. But even more important, I posted pictures on my Instagram and I think I’m up to 29.5 thousand people liked that particular post about my protest. Wow. And so I’ve got people messaging me going, I never heard of Big Thicket. Where is it? is it? What is it? What’s the deal? And so I’ve put, I’ve had more traction from the aftermath of my protest. And so do protests work? I mean, what’s my goal? Is my goal to bring visibility to my park and my issue? Absolutely. Did I do that? Absolutely.
Missy:
Yeah. I also think for me, I felt connected to like-minded people and therefore I was energized. I kind of got rid of some of the discouragement and I sort of feel like I left there filled with hope.
Sandra:
Yeah.
Missy:
So I think it gave me that. I think we all united a little bit more because now, you know, I’m friends and sharing more with people that were doing it. You know, I share your stuff. You share mine. I share Resistance Rangers. Like we’re all kind of getting the message out. And so we’re creating great content that gets to go out there. And it’s encouraging us to be louder. And I feel like like I I think I’m going to go to the DC one tomorrow and I’m going to revive to feel revived and to be there and be present and, you know, all of those things. Because I think it’s just so important, besides the noise that we make when you’re there, like you said, the aftermath, the connections, the hope, the spark that it lights for whatever’s coming down the road. Yeah.
Sandra:
Yeah. And I encourage you to go to that rally. John, who’s the guy who’s putting it together, is a former park ranger. I think one of his, I think his daughter was also a park ranger and she was fired. And so he did this train ride. He was doing a train ride across the country. I mean, really great story. I’ve been chatting with him a little bit on Instagram, and I wish that I could be there because he’s exactly the type of protest I want to support. So if you talk to him tomorrow, please tell him that I am giving him good vibes.
Missy:
Is he the Lego person or is somebody else the Lego person?
Sandra:
I think somebody else is the Lego person. He just has a Lego that he’s taking with him.
Missy:
I saw it and immediately went and was like, when I I need a, I need a Lego Ranger. I don’t, and they don’t have it, but I’m like, I want a Lego Ranger. I
Sandra:
want to take one too. Yeah. But there’s the Instagram account, Lego Rangers, which I’ve been following for a while. And they’re always very timely, very excellent. And I would love to get to know who they are. You should, you should interview them.
Missy:
Okay. I’ll try it. I’ll try it. Okay. So we’ve talked about what’s currently being done.
Sandra:
Yeah.
Missy:
People listening. Yeah. How do we advocate for parks?
Sandra:
Okay.
Missy:
Yeah.
Sandra:
How do we advocate for parks? You know, it has evolved. If you had asked me this question three months ago, it would be very different from what I’m telling you now. The most important thing is to use your voice every day. At least one time every day. Just make that commitment. I’m just going to do something like we were talking about earlier. You know, wear a t-shirt, talk to somebody in line, you know, at the grocery store, whatever it is. Use your voice on social media. I am extraordinarily disappointed that in a lot of folks who utilize our national parks and our public lands and post pretty pictures from them and talk about their trips who are not saying anything. And I am, but it’s important to do that. You don’t know everybody who’s following. You don’t know who’s there. You don’t know like why they follow you. And so if you can reach out to somebody who’s never done any type of activism before and get them to do something like you, you won the day. So send postcards to your representatives. Okay. If they support our parks already, fantastic. Thank them for their support. If they don’t support parks, tell them why it’s important. Okay. I have been encouraged folks in my region to call our Republican congressmen once a day, every day.
Missy:
What do they say? What do you say when you call?
Sandra:
So it’s, hi, I’m a constituent and I’m a supporter of our national parks. The national park in our backyard is the Big Thicket National Preserve. It is currently understaffed and underfunded. And I want to encourage our congressmen to support the the national park that brings in economic value and reparational value to our community. Perfect.
Missy:
I’m going to type that up for everybody and I’ll put it on our episode page so that there’s a script for them. You can find them online too. There’s tons of scripts, but I’ll type that up.
Sandra:
And here’s the thing. It’s like, you’re not there to give them a speech. Three sentences. Okay. I’m going to give you a little political prep real quick. Okay. Ready? It’s what I call a 27-9-3. It’s 27 words in nine seconds with three points. Okay. Okay. And so it’s not as easy as it sounds, but if you can craft your elevator pitch which is 27 words in three in i’m sorry in 27 words in nine seconds with three points boom that’s what you call with them and you call every and you call every day you call their congressional office in washington and you call their every local office that they have in the district and you call both um if you don’t like calling which i don’t blame you i ran you know phone banks for a long time send a postcard i recently went through all of my my park gear, and I found an entire sack of postcards that I never sent from national parks. Some of them are even stamped on the date that I went. And these are now going to go to elected officials. I love that idea. To support our parks. And so it’s like all different types of parks. I mean, from all over the place. You know, and so send a postcard. So it’s calling is most important. Call every day. Call every office. Whether it’s Republican or Democrat. Republican or Democrat. If they’re Democrat, call every day. Say, this is important to me because what that does is then that puts, for the Democrats who support your part, what that does is like, oh, we need to move that up to the priority list because everything right now can’t be a priority, but everything feels like it needs to be our priority. Social Security, Medicare, veterans, environment, you know, all these things. But if national parks are that important to you, put it on their radar. And so every day it’s at least phone call. Hey, I’m a constituent. Just want to say thank you for supporting our parks. It’s really important. Boom. That’s it. That’s all you got to say. And then just spread the word. You know, tell people why it’s important. Tell them your story about the parks. Tell them, you know, what it is you love about the parks. So that’s my spiel for the day.
Missy:
Okay, so April 19th to April 27th is National Parks Week. Yes. Do you know right now if anything is being done that we should be preparing for? I
Sandra:
I don’t, but here’s what I do every National Parks Week, and I would encourage folks to do this as well, is every National Park Week, I call my local county commissioners or city council or whatever local body entity there is, and I ask to be put on the public and citizens’ communication list. And you get three minutes to just talk about whatever. And I go in there and I say, I want to let you know about something that you probably don’t know about. And I want to wish you a happy National Parks Week. And I talk about the national park that’s in my backyard and say, thank you very much. And the reason why I encourage this is because you’re not asking them for anything. You’re giving them information and you’re showing your passion. A happy National Parks Week, CityCats. council, our national park brings in $20 million into our local economy, over 270,000 people visit here, and it supports 290 jobs in our community. Not to mention that, you know, the floodplains are protected. It leaves trees and forests for us for our hunting, which is part of our outdoor community. I mean, you can, you know, just talk about it, right? Just, if you don’t want to do that for National Parks Week, go to a small national park right post cards to send to park rangers to thank them for their service, right? Because right now they are feeling so beaten up.
Missy:
Yeah. So let’s talk about visiting a park. With everything that’s going on and things are just changing and situations are evolving and all of that. Should we still be visiting our parks?
Sandra:
I mean… It… It’s the individual’s call. I’m not going to say you should or you shouldn’t. Here’s what I will say. There are a lot of people who are not going to do and who usually don’t do the requisite investigating of a park before they show up. I mean, you hear about it all the time when people show up to glaciers. Like, I didn’t know there was timed entry. I didn’t know I was supposed to get a ticket to, you know, right? There’s going to be enough of that already. And even though you may know that the, you know, the park is understaffed or whatnot, like, what if you fall on the trail? What if you get into some sort of accident? What if like, you know, wildlife attacks you or something, you know? Lots of things can happen in the wild. So, sure, a lot of us are experiencing like, oh, that would never happen to me. You can never say never. So, My advice is skip the big parks and go to a small park. Yeah. Right. Most small parks still have trails and still have, you know, really great vistas and stuff to walk around. And except like, if you’re going to like Thaddeus to Cochescue in Philadelphia, though you still have to walk there because there’s no parking, but it’s the smallest national park site and there is no greenery, but Philadelphia is a lovely place to walk around. Yes. So, you know, if you get a lot of the same thing, you still get your flat hats. You still get your park rangers to talk to you. You know, you get all the things. You’re not creating more stress on the infrastructure. Yeah. And you’re not creating more stress on the park rangers. I mean, parks like Big Bend, and I may have this wrong, so don’t hold me to it, but, like, my understanding is, like, they only have, like, 85 park rangers, like, and that’s all the rangers and staff in Big Bend for a park that’s the size of Rhode Island.
Missy:
Well, and you see the lines that are all over social media.
Sandra:
Yeah, three-hour lines to get in. And so my advice… is like yeah, our parks need love right now. But here’s what you get if you go to a smaller park. Like instead of going to Big Bend, hey, go to Marfa and visit Blackwell or go to Guadalupe Mountains or go to Carlsbad. Well, Carlsbad Cabins just closed all their cabin tours because of the lack of staffing. But like go to Chamizal in El Paso because what that does is that increases their visitorship, which then allows for them to get more funding if we continue to have books in the future.
Missy:
Exactly. And I mean, news this week was that the visitor numbers were up. And so I think, you know, parks are popular. They are people.
Sandra:
People go to these parks. Yeah. And the one takeaway of like you want to know something to tell your your members of Congress, relative officials, it’s like there has been a 20 percent decrease in funding and a 16 percent increase in visitation.
Missy:
Oh, my gosh. It’s crazy.
Sandra:
OK. And so that those are the numbers. Yeah.
Missy:
So, okay, now, so we visit parks, be selective about which ones you’re visiting. What are ways to still support the parks if you’re not visiting?
Sandra:
Sure. So we talked earlier about the National Parks Conservation Association and PCA, and we talked a little bit about National Parks Foundation and PF. Obviously, those are donor-driven organizations that you can donate to. But there’s also like the friends groups and the park conservancies that do a lot of work in the park on the ground that are grassroots that don’t get the, well, I mean, you know, like Yellowstone Forever and the Glacier Conservancy are, you know, big, sexy parks that people below, but like, you know, Shenandoah Trust or even WNPA, the Western National Parks Association. They’re the folks who run all of the bookstores west of the Mississippi for a lot of the small parks and for Saguaro. WNPA is the one who puts together all the educational opportunities for the parks in the west. And so there are lots of organizations. If you have a specific park that you have an affinity to, see if they have a friends group and donate to them. Donate your time to the friends group. And, you know, if not, NPCA is always a good place to to park a good donation to help us out.
Missy:
And I also think about your gift giving. You know, let’s make our gifts in 2025 a little bit more cause-related and buy the T-shirt that you have on or buy a gift from a national park store.
Sandra:
Sure, absolutely. And, you know, and I’ll just give a plug to my group one more time. For $25 a year, you can be a member of NPCA and you can get a quarterly magazine specifically about national parks that is nationally award-winning, really amazing photography and you get information about the parks that we love. And so buy somebody a gift donation for National Parks Magazine.
Missy:
Yeah, and I’ll put a link to that in the bio too. How should we go about planning? Every episode we talk about how do you plan a trip to each specific park and our approach is going to be a little bit different for visits when it comes to planning and what do I bring and what do I expect?
Sandra:
Yeah. Yeah, so a lot of the websites of the parks have not been updated because of being understaffed. So I would highly recommend do not rely solely on nps.gov or the NPS app at this point. It may be worth emailing the park if they have an email or, you know, asking online to various online communities if folks have been recently, you know, check out what folks are saying on the ground or, you know, you can call the bookstore and just say, you know, you might be busy. I’m busy right now, but can I have someone call me back? I just want to, you know, make sure that I do this right.
Missy:
Yeah. And I was thinking, and you see a lot about this of things like, you know, maybe bring a trash bag and pick up trash while you’re there.
Sandra:
Oh, absolutely. going and complaining or writing a nasty review about that. You know, do something nice. Please make sure that you’re kind to your park rangers. Yeah.
Missy:
Yeah. I totally, I totally agree. And I just want to tell everybody, I mean, I think, well, I guess I should first touch base. Do you think we’ve covered most everything that is going on now and that can be done right now?
Sandra:
Yes. Though I do want to throw in one quick anecdote, if I may.
Missy:
Sure, sure.
Sandra:
When all this first started going down, I reached out to a bunch of park ranger friends just to see how they were doing and just check in. And one of them from a South Florida park had messaged me back and they said, the lines, you know, we lost a bunch of staff and the lines are pretty long this weekend and visitors are yelling at us that we’re taking too long and that they hope that Trump fires us. And Like my heart is breaking for these folks who are the most dedicated patriots that you could find who have a love of their job and a love of their country and a love of their parks and the land and the stories and the history. And they don’t deserve this. And they deserve so much better. And so, leave no trace policies, just be kind to rangers, to visitors, and to yourself in this process. That’s beautiful. I
Missy:
feel like that should be it for this. I want to remind everybody that this is as of Friday, March 14th, and that Sandra and I have made a commitment to one another that we will have more conversations as things evolve. You can reach and follow Sandra at National Park Patch Lady on all social platforms. You can follow the Parks podcast on all social platforms. We reshare information constantly that we are seeing from other credible sources. I encourage you to follow many others like the Resistance Rangers who are doing phenomenal work and are leaders in what is happening right now. So you can find information there in the meantime, but we are both very committed to making sure that we help everybody understand what we know, to the best of our ability. And if you have questions and stuff, ask us and maybe we’ll incorporate it in the next episode. Okay, as we wrap up every episode, we do a speed round and I want to do this with you. So just answer with what first comes to mind. Okay. What’s your earliest park memory? Gettysburg, 2012. What made you love the parks?
Sandra:
Park Rangers.
Missy:
What is your favorite thing about parks? Park rangers. What is your favorite thing to do in a park? Junior ranger books. What park have you yet to visit, but it’s on your bucket list and why?
Sandra:
The entire upper Midwest. Because, you know, places like Isle Royale and Voyagers just look absolutely epic. And I just have not gotten to anywhere north of Missouri.
Missy:
What are three must-haves you pack for a park visit?
Sandra:
My passport stamp book, I break for brown sign stickers, and a refillable water bottle.
Missy:
What is your favorite campfire activity?
Sandra:
S’mores.
Missy:
Tent, camper, or cabin? Tent. Are you hiking with or without trekking poles?
Sandra:
Always poles. I’m old.
Missy:
What is your favorite trail snack?
Sandra:
Almonds and That’s It fruit bars.
Missy:
What is your best or favorite animal s ighting?
Sandra:
Oh, the first time I saw a wild honu in Hawaii. I’d never seen a large turtle like that. It was amazing. Okay.
Missy:
What is your favorite sound in the park?
Sandra:
The sound of rustling leaves.
Missy:
What is the greatest gift that the parks give to us?
Sandra:
community, hope.
Missy:
Sandra, thank you for joining us today. I am so grateful to have met you, to have had conversation with you. I’m grateful to you for being a leader to me and how to lead this resistance lifestyle that is new to me. And so thank you for being here today. Thank
Sandra:
you. I appreciate it. It’s my pleasure.
Missy:
Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Until the next time, we’ll see you in the parks. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please be sure to like and share on your favorite podcast platform. Music for the Parks podcast is written, performed and produced by Porter Hardy. For more information, please follow us on Instagram at the parks podcast, or visit our website at the parks podcast.com.
