奥巴马效仿前总统畅游黄石公园

President Obama and his family decided as part of their summer they would actually visit national parks because it is a unifying American idea, fundamentally democratic, and very much a part of our future.

I have great memories of being here. My grandma, my mom, and my sister, who is with us today. She was two at the time, and we traveled throughout the country the entire summer. Our last stop was our favorite stop.

The National parks, I think, are studies in leadership. How presidents have related to the national parks have been in some ways defining aspects of their larger leadership quality.

Well, I think it's always special when a president visits anywhere. Chester A. Arthur was the first to visit Yellowstone in 1883. President Theodore Roosevelt, Roosevelt came in 1903. Then in 1923 Warren Harding. In 1927 silent Calvin Coolidge visited us. Then in 1937 FDR, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, came.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, swinging through the west on a campaign tour, took time out for a visit to Yellowstone National Park. An exponent of conservation, Mr. Roosevelt backed many measures aimed at enlarging our national forests and preserving wildlife. This was a moment of relaxation amid the scenes he loved.

This is a moment that I have been looking forward to for a long, long time. To return to Yellowstone where I spent one of the greatest summers of my life.

Gerald Ford was an interesting example of a President, because he had been a park ranger in Yellowstone. Then after Ford, Jimmy Carter came to Yellowstone and was again fishing, was his primary focus. After Carter, George Herbert Walker Bush who came to Yellowstone in 1989. Bill Clinton was here twice.

Yellowstone is the symbol of our national parks because it's the oldest one and the first one in the history of the world.

And then after Bill Clinton, of course, we had President Barack Obama.

You know, the thing I remember most was, you know, driving by and seeing--it was elk. And I remember bison. In fact, I ran up close to a bison and took some pictures of him.

It's never a good idea to approach bison closely.

The Recovery Act has been a real boon for us. It's been welcome dollars. The great thing about the way the National Park Service in Yellowstone approached the Recovery Act, the funding with that, was we wind up a variety of projects that we already had in the queue of thing that we wanted to do.

The notion that collectively we come together and we say, you know, we're going to preserve some things that last beyond our individual lives that we're going to pass that on. And we have to do it together. You know, that's part of what is hopefully best about our government. And so every once in a while we need the ability to step back from our personal wants and project something finer and better for future generations. That's what the park district is all about.