I can never go home again. The land that I grew up on, an estate not far from NYC that my parents cared for, but that belonged to someone else, is now in the hands of a new owner and a new family entrusted with its care. That land, to some degree, told me who I am. The trees, the ground beneath my feet and the wildlife provided the details to a family story that grew and changed over time, as family stories do. It held the particulars of my parent’s journey from a small, southern town to New York in the 1950’s, as a poor black couple with big dreams for themselves and their children. Without access to that story, it would be easy to feel unmoored, rootless, and insecure about my place, my past and my future. Who am I? Where did I come from? What does the future hold?

For the first time in more than a year, vehicles were allowed to drive into the Elwha Valley of Olympic National Park on Thursday when Olympic Hot Springs Road reopened.

A young female mountain lion was recently struck and killed by a vehicle on State Route 118 to the north of Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in California, marking the third time a mountain lion was hit by a vehicle on the same stretch of freeway since December, according to the National Park Service.

For 20 years, a double-wide trailer has served as the visitor center at Cottonwood Springs near the southern border of Joshua Tree National Park in California. With visitation climbing rapidly, the park hopes to renovate the visitor center and surrounding facilities by 2022.