Staying Close to Home

Hello and welcome back to my blog park people!

Ever since I started writing these blog posts, I have mentioned three different parks. The first was Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which I unfortunately did not get to see due to COVID-19. However, when one door closes, another one opens. Instead of traveling to the West Coast, I have been able to discover new opportunities in parks close to where I grew up. The second park I have mentioned is Independence Hall National Historical Park. Growing up in the Philadelphia area, I have been to this park many times for school trips, and just to walk around and learn by myself. This is why I was so excited when I was given the opportunity to spend some time working there. The third park I have mentioned is First State National Historical Park. This is a park only an hour away from where I grew up and had never heard of until I was given the opportunity to work there. By not going over to the West Coast, I have been able discover this new place right here on the East Coast.

Last week at Independence Hall I worked on my conservation project. The goal of this project was to clean and organize a basement in a building that used to be the Regional Office and law enforcement office for Independence Hall. There were a lot of old tools, parts, etc. that needed to be organized. It took about 4 days to clear everything out and clean out all of the different areas of the basement. It was a fun (and very messy) job. After finding out what needed to be thrown out and kept, the group of us worked on organizing everything we decided to keep and created an inventory list so that everything could be easy to find. Overall, this job was very fulfilling and eventful.

Workbench in the basement before it was cleaned and organized

Workbench in the basement after it was cleaned and organized

After the first day of cleaning the basement

I spent my time over the weekend patrolling alongside Ranger Fernandez at First State National Historical Park. Since the park was founded a few years ago, there have been some issues, and without the presence of Law Enforcement, those issues have not been able to be fixed. Some of the biggest issues we saw were parking violations, littering, and graffiti. We decided to focus our time on the parking violations. The parking lot at First State fills up very early in the day, which causes people to park in places where they are not allowed. There are signs that say, “No Parking,” but people will park right in front of the signs and completely ignore them. This causes unsafe traffic patterns and erosion of the land. The park was eventually given the go ahead to start towing cars. What Ranger Fernandez and I decided to do was walk around the area and tell people to move their cars before they were towed. Within 10 minutes, all of the cars had cleared out, which I thought was really cool. It showed that the presence of Law Enforcement in the park could make a difference on people following the rules set by the park.

Graffiti at First State

Car parked right next to the "No Parking"sign

During my weekend at First State, I also worked on the online portion of getting my certification to drive the UTV the park has. When I go back this week, I will take the practical portion of the test so I will eventually be able to drive the UTV. In the meantime, I rode in the UTV while Ranger Fernandez drove. We used it to drive around on the trails, and to patrol the parking lot. By sitting in the passenger seat, I was able to talk to park visitors while Ranger Fernandez drove. It was very cool getting to travel around on trails after spending time in an urban park.

Overall, last week was very exciting. It was interesting being able to work in two different parks in one week. The coolest part about these parks is that they are two different environments. One is urban while the other is rural. Come back next week after I spend more time at both of these awesome parks!