"America's Best Idea" - President Obama on National Parks | National Geographic

Two of your predecessors felt very much the same thing, didn't they? Teddy Roosevelt walked these very trails through these redwood trees along with John Muir, the father of the American conservation movement, and these granite mountains. They lit a fire in it.

Yeah, well, Teddy Roosevelt, one of my favorite presidents, certainly the president I envied most because back then he would go to Yellowstone or Yosemite with a guide, maybe with one Secret Service agent on horseback. He'd spend a month or two just wandering around in the middle of his presence.

Yeah, so it's a little harder for me to move than it was. I did, but you know, it's been said, and it's absolutely true, that this was maybe America's best idea. Yeah, the idea that these spaces are sacred; they are for everyone, not just for the few, and that you preserve them for future generations.

And so for us to be able to celebrate a hundred years of the National Park Service and all those who had the foresight to leave this behind here, it's a great time.