Seems like an aging population explains most or all of the post-2000 downturn, no? We're currently at a 20 year high of the 25-54 age group's employment: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060
As someone who frequently books campgrounds at the county, state, and national level, Recreation.gov provides by far the best user experience for browsing sites on a map and viewing calendar availability that I've encountered. Its fees don't seem noticeably higher than fees I encounter on other government booking systems. Maybe I'm being naive, but it doesn't seem too important to me that Booz Allen is collecting some of its payment as a part of booking fees rather than directly from government contracts. A government website that works this well seems worthy of praise to me!
I replaced my Fitbit Versa with a Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music and have been a huge fan. Many day battery, GPS for runs etc, can play music and podcasts from the watch.