“America’s Best Idea” Exhibit Opens

A new photography exhibit on America’s national parks has opened at the park.  Called America’s Best Idea, the exhibit features color panoramic prints of America’s fifty-eight national parks. All images in the exhibit were taken by photographer Stan Jorstad. The exhibit is being hosted by the Joshua Tree National Park Association, the non-profit partner of Joshua Tree National Park, at the Joshua Tree Visitor Center.

"National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst," wrote Wallace Stegner, a Pulitzer Prize winning author known for his writings on the American West. The America’s Best Idea exhibit was created by Yosemite National Park in partnership with the American Park Network, Nature Valley, and the Yosemite Fund. The exhibit opened at Yosemite in October and is now touring the United States at selected national parks.

While the National Park Service currently manages 391 sites scattered across the United States and its territories, only 58 are officially designated as “national parks.” Photographer Stan Jorstad, one of only a handful of professional photographers who have photographed every national park, hopes that all who see his images will come away with a renewed appreciation for our irreplaceable natural and cultural treasures. The America’s Best Idea exhibit will be on display through the end of June.

In addition to the exhibit, the Joshua Tree National Park Association will be selling the companion book – America’s Best Idea: A Photographic Journey Through Our National Parks. This book contains the same beautiful images by photographer Stan Jorstad and also provides the reader a history of names, dates and designations of all of our national parks.

More information about this special exhibit as well as information about Joshua Tree National Park  can be found by visiting the park’s web site at www.nps.gov/jotr, or by calling the park at 760-367-5500.