Our final stop within the Petrified Forest National Park was at the Giant Logs Trail; I’ve shared some of my photos from this spot previously, but I shot all these with my phone. We arrived around 12 noon local time — although keeping track of time on this trip got a little confusing, especially since the park doesn’t observe Daylight Savings. And while we both enjoyed the short hike at this location, despite the heat, I believe my sharpest memory has to be the experience of getting pinched on the top of my left foot by a giant black ant. I didn’t let it stop me from shooting photos, but wow, was it painful! Still totally worth it.

There are a total of 70 “Mather Plaques” covering the continental U.S. and Hawaii

He was the founding director of the National Park Service in 1916. Prior to his involvement with NPS, he was an influential industrialist who had become personally wealthy from his involvement with Twenty Mule Team Borax. Mather was a dedicated conservationist, a member of the Sierra Club, and friend and admirer of John Muir; and an avid mountain climber. On a trip through Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks in 1914 he was shocked by the conditions he found. Mather wrote Secretary Franklin Lane a highly critical report on the mismanagement of the national parks. He and Lane were friends from their student days at the University of California. Quite succinctly Lane responded, “Dear Steve: If you don’t like the way the national parks are run, why don’t you come on down to Washington and run them yourself” — Historical Marker Database