Time to update your list of units in the National Park System. Not to add another, not yet, but to shorten a name and perhaps make it easier to remember.

The setting -- North America's tallest sand dunes against a backdrop of the snowcapped Rocky Mountains -- makes Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve both unusual and spectacular.

High above the roadway between Norris and Madison in Yellowstone National Park is a wheezing thermal area seemingly on its last gasp. The Monument Geyser Basin is heading towards dormancy, and draws comparatively little attention from visitors. But as it continues to fade, another thermal area is starting to emerge in the park, the first entirely new area discovered in the park in 20 years.

David Vela, once nominated to be director of the National Park Service but never confirmed by the Senate, is heading to Washington, D.C., just the same to serve as the agency's acting deputy director of operations.