Furloughed ranger starts making videos of national parks for the public

It's been over a month since the government shutdown first started and some federal employees have been, well, available.

Zack Frank, a 35-year-old National Park ranger is one of them. Parks have been largely unstaffed for over a month, jeopardizing worker's incomes, threatening park security, and ruining vacations -- among other completely avoidable consequences.

The mood is grim. So Frank decided to do something good with his free time: make educational videos of the 418 national parks he loves.

Frank was a photographer before he joined the National Park Service. He always dreamed of creating a project like this, he just never had to time to do it. Now he does, for better or worse.

"Since the parks are closed, why not use my knowledge to educate the public on where they can go and what they can see," Frank said in a phone interview.

Frank used footage he captured independently as well as footage available in the public domain. Since posting his videos to YouTube, Frank has gained over 700 subscribers and racked up more than 15,000 views.

These videos are good, folks. They're educational, they're thoughtful, and they're so damn pretty:

Frank is operating this project independently of his job (and yes, with a Patreon to support it). He just loves the parks that much. Who loves anything this much? I love Panera, but I'm not about to make a whole video series to bring more people to Panera. You'd be lucky if you got an Instagram story of my broccoli cheddar soup.

"We have 418 of these parks and collectively they tell the story of American history. We made the first national park. We have the largest ecosystem and the most diverse national environment," Frank boasted. "The parks tend to skew older. [Videos] are a way for people to engage with the parks."

While Trump announced on Friday that a deal has been reached to reopen the government, these videos will continue to serve the public, regardless of the government's status.

You can sob while you watch all of Franks' videos here.