Tino at Big Bend National Park (2007)

I am sharing this photograph with two purposes — to celebrate 100 years of the U.S. National Parks and to congratulate my friend Tino and his wife Christina on the recent birth of their first child.

My first visit to a National Park was to Big Bend in 2006 while I was a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin. I went with friend Marc (also a new father) to do some backpacking, and we returned with Tino a year later. That is when I took this image of Tino atop Emory Peak.