Oh I realize the history, hence why I said "inextricable from the humanity and the history" -- so true. I guess it's just a different way of looking at land, an

Oh I realize the history, hence why I said "inextricable from the humanity and the history" -- so true. I guess it's just a different way of looking at land, and the history is a big part of it. The parks of the west existed before the land was touched, so they have an air of wilderness about them. The East Coast was largely settled, so the National Parks here (what few there are) had to be slowly cut from owned lands like you're talking about. It's no better or worse, just different. I'm glad that Acadia is reclaiming the private lands for the public good, and I'm glad that Yosemite has reserved them to prevent them from ever being privately owned. Both are a net positive. But I still can't shake the difference in attitude about the land on the east coast versus the west. In the west, the National Parks are for the land itself, and I feel like a visitor being allowed to set foot as a privilege and an honor granted by the great wilderness so much larger than myself. On the East coast, National Parks and beaches and forests somehow feel like they exist for people and the land is there for us, and has no greater purpose than that. I find this in how people treat them and think about them and talk about them; it's why I said "Disneyland parks" before, it feels like people go to them for their own benefit. It's a subtle but remarkable difference, and it's pervasive in the culture, I find. No one will probably read this, but I find it interesting all the same.