Shopping on Black Friday? You can still save by shopping local! 🎁 Save more by sharing experiences instead of shopping. I'll be out hiking. 🏞️ From Robert Reich ~ Black Friday reminder that in 75% of U.S. industries, a smaller # of companies control more business than 20 yrs ago. Shop small.

Your Black Friday reminder that in 75% of U.S. industries, a smaller number of companies now control more of the business than they did twenty years ago. We must stop the monopolization of America. Shop small if you can, please.

The era we are living in offers too many illustrations of greed, narcissism, and hatefulness. But I still believe we can recommit ourselves to serving the common good of all Americans. [Artwork by Jennifer Bloomer]

Today let’s thank the rangers at Great Basin National Park, #Nevada. Remote, dark and beautiful. Let’s thank them for preserving the Park and enhancing the visitor experience. #ParkChat

Q6 #parkchat Biscuit Basin, Peanut Pool, Porkchop Geyser, Lemonade Creek, Cucumber Spring, Cauliflower Geyser…. These are Yellowstone thermal features with culinary names. How many parklands can you recall that have features on their landscapes with “edible” names?

Q5: Where in the NPS system are you most thankful to be able to visit and hit the reset button when things just seem a little too much? How has this place improved your mental health? #ParkChat

Q4 #ParkChat Camping, hiking, roadtrip, vacation.... we get to and experience our #PublicLands in various ways. What is one item or piece of gear you are most #thankful for or can't imagine leaving behind when visiting parks?

Q3 Please tell us about a favorite pre-dinner or post-Thanksgiving hike or park visit. Was it a new hike or park, or an old favorite? #ParkChat

Q2 #ParkChat Tell us about one particular experience in a National, State, Provincial, or other Park that you are so grateful for having had any time in the past. What made it so special and memorable to you? @59nationalparks.bsky.social

Q1 #ParkChat Several years ago the topic of pies came up on the chat. Inexplicably and without warning something called #PieChatBot took over our chat with 4-5 pie Qs and has never reappeared. Since then we ask this Q for #Thanksgiving: What’s your favorite pie for the holiday?

Get in on the #ParkChat action today - last national park / nature themed question is coming up! You can also go back & answer the previous questions from this morning. That's what I'll be doing!

Breaking: Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, has died. She was 111 years old

It's National #Fibonacci Day! Celebrating beautiful fractals in nature: the spiral pattern in romanesco broccoli, pinecones, pineapples, ferns, seed heads of sunflowers, succulents, snowflakes, shells & more. Fibonacci's grave in Pisa, Italy. I expected to see ferns carved into the stone, but no.

Next week #ParkChat will operate on our “Holiday Schedule”for #Thanksgiving. We’ll ask one question an hour beginning at 9 AM ET six Qs total. In recognition of the legendary #piebot I’ll ask the #piechat Q at 9 AM. There will not be a 9 PM chat next week. Want to participate? 4 Qs available.

Q11: The best part of loving parks is always having another place to look forward to, whether it’s a bucket-list destination or a quiet, nearby favorite you haven’t visited in a while. What’s one park or landscape you really want to experience in the next year and what draws you to it? #ParkChat

Great choice! #ParkChat

Q10: Almost everyone has a “gateway” place — the park or landscape that sparked their curiosity, shaped their sense of wonder, or opened the door to caring about public lands. What was your gateway public land — the place that first made you care? #ParkChat

Q9: Some of the most unforgettable parts of a park visit aren’t the big landmarks at all — sometimes it’s a patch of wildflowers, the smell after it rains, or a glimpse of ancient petroglyphs tucked into a canyon wall. What’s a tiny detail from a park visit that has stayed with you? #ParkChat

Q8: Whether it’s delicate desert soils, crashing shores, ancient forests, or wide-open rangelands — big landscapes often depend on tiny, fragile systems to stay healthy. If you could protect ONE thing about wide open places for future generations, what’s the top priority for you? #ParkChat

Q7: Remote places mean different things to different people — canyon backroads, high mountain basins, desert mesas, quiet coves, long trails, or even a single peaceful overlook. When you think about the word “remote,” what do you picture first? #ParkChat

Q6: Southeast Utah’s parks are world-famous dark sky havens, but darkness is disappearing in many places. Even so, night skies remain one of the most universal park experiences. What’s a night-sky moment on public lands that you’ll never forget? #ParkChat

Q5: Parks often shift our sense of scale — whether you’re staring down into a canyon, standing beneath giant trees, or watching cliffs fade into fog. Have you ever had a moment on public lands where you suddenly felt very small (in a good way)? What caused that? #ParkChat

Q4: Out here, the desert has a soundtrack: ravens echoing in canyons, wind carving through fins, distant thunder bouncing off sandstone. But every park has its signature sound. What is a sound in nature that instantly teleports you into “park mode”? #ParkChat

Q3: People often picture solitude as standing alone under a giant arch, but solitude can look different everywhere — from quiet beaches to misty forests to early-morning trailheads. When you’re outdoors, do you seek quiet, or do you like hearing people around? #ParkChat

Q2: Canyonlands is known for horizons that just… keep going. But incredible horizons can happen anywhere — from alpine ridges to rolling grasslands to barrier islands. Where in public lands have you experienced the most jaw-dropping horizon? #ParkChat

Q1: In places like Arches & Canyonlands, scale can feel unreal, but the feeling of “vastness” isn’t just a desert thing. Forests, coasts, mountains, tundra… they all have their own version of “big.” What makes a park feel big to you? Is it the view? The silence? The sky? Something else? #ParkChat

It’s time! Welcome to #ParkChat! 🌄 I’m Noel, hosting tonight from Canyonlands Natural History Association here in southeast Utah. We’re diving into this week’s theme: Wide Open Spaces. I’ll be posting 11 questions over the next hour, let's dooo this!

Going on right now. Join us for #ParkChat

This week “Thank a Ranger” travels to Arches National Park. Of course. #ParkChat

Tonight #ParkChat welcomes @cnhamoab.bsky.special our third non-profit partner of public lands on Bsky. They work with Canyonlands, Arches, Bear Ears and more. Great job, hey! Please welcome them. @naturetechfam.bsky.special

Q11: To quote an internet meme, “what if the most important part of park transportation is the friends you make along the way?” Tell us a good story about a family or friends road trip, flight, park shuttle or other (weirder) transpo experience that you still remember to this day. #parkchat

Q10: Death Valley has horeseback rides, Grand Canyon the mules, Denali’s got dogsleds, and Big Thicket’s famous for their canoe/kayak trips. What’s your oddest / most unique transportation experience in the parks? #parkchat

Q9: Some parks don’t just require transportation, they’re ABOUT transportation. Have you been to one that preserves or interprets something to do with transportation of goods or people? (Bonus points if you know why this Junior Ranger book is important to recent NPS history) #parkchat

Q8: Did your answer to Q7 include sustainable, inclusive, and accessible aspects of transportation to make our parks “parks for all”? It's okay, here's a 2nd chance: how can parks build transportation that is environmentally friendly, economically friendly, and disability friendly? #parkchat

Q7: Lets keep playing “superintendent for the day”! If you could design a dream way to get to and around in a park (realistic or not), what would it be? #parkchat

Q6:The Mission 66 cultural shift had a dark side: overcrowding. Regale us with your most epic parking / traffic fail in a park. Then play “superintendent for the day” and explain how you would fix it. #parkchat

Q5: The “scenic grandeur” parks aren’t the only ones with driving tours. Some (especially battlefields) have interpretive history drives. And most have audio tours with them. Tell us about one that stands out to you as a favorite or maybe one that needs more love. #parkchat

Q4: Rangers dismissively call it “windshielding the park,” but some parks’ scale and vistas lend themselves to cruisable (or cursable?) scenic roadways. Tell us about your favorite (or least favorite) park scenic drive experience. #parkchat

Q3: Automobiles and the NPS’s embrace of them through the Mission 66 program made parks car-dependent. 1st car question of four: which park has the best drive TO the park? What makes it special? #parkchat

Q2: Trains were instrumental in early development of the National Parks. There's still a few railroads that serve national parks, including Grand Canyon Railway, Alaska Railroad and of course Amtrak. Ever ride the rails during a park trip? Or stay in one of the lodges the early RRs built? #parkchat

Q1: In honor of our air traffic controllers getting paid for the first time in 6 weeks soon, first Q goes to airplanes: have you ever flown commercially specifically for a park visit? How’d it go with your gear? Or if you deliberately keep your wheels on the ground, why not? #parkchat

Welcome to a special “planes, trains, and automobiles... and ferries, kayaks, mules...” edition of #ParkChat featuring @blackhillsparks.bsky.special Let’s quickly take advantage of our valet parking and get this thing on the road. If you got here tonight anyway besides auto, we’d like to hear how.

Let’s thank our rangers today at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. When you go, make an effort to stay for an evening bat flight. There’s nothing like it really. We at #ParkChat hope that all National Park Service employees are being paid by the time we reconvene next week.

Almost time for #ParkChat 🤩 We love our #PublicLands and all the dedicated people who work in the national parks, national forests, national recreation areas & more. Thank you! 💙

Records obtained by ProPublica indicate that food banks across the country were expecting more than 27 million pounds of chicken, 2 million gallons of milk, 10 million pounds of dried fruit and 60 million eggs that never arrived. (Published October)

Marion Nestle says we need to rethink how we eat. She recommends "real food, processed as little as possible, with a big emphasis on plants." Her new book is What to Eat Now. n.pr/47BoJUw

Tomorrow at 9 PM ET our good friend @blackhillsparks.bsky.social presents “planes, trains, and automobiles... and ferries, kayaks, mules...' on a moving episode of #ParkChat. Use any means you need to get here. Don’t allow us forge ahead without you @naturetechfam.bsky.social @camarowrx.bsky.social