National Park Love

I LOVE national parks! Why, you may ask? Let me count the ways (in no particular order).

1. There's something deeply significant about the concept of setting aside natural and cultural resources as public lands held trust for the everyone to enjoy. National Parks provide beautiful spaces for recreation in the now and preserve them for future generations; countries that establish them are able to look at the environment beyond the short-term possible benefits and see the bigger picture of the importance of preservation. Ken Burns has made famous historian Wallace Stenger's quote:

"National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst."

2. National Parks are incredibly beautiful. Google the phrase "national parks slideshow" and you will be treated to some amazing images of the beauty that awaits you. Some of it is wilderness, remote and difficult to access; many more sites are easier to visit, and more rewarding, than you may think. 

3. National Parks are cheap to visit, especially if you're willing to rough it. An annual National Park Pass-called the America the Beautiful pass-costs $80 and gets you and all the passengers in your car into participating parks for an entire year! If you're only going to visit one park, most charge around $20 per car for an entire week! And campsites run around $20-30 a night in the parks, with great reservation systems online for more popular spots.

4. National Parks give you the chance to experience a different quality of life, if only for a little while. They can expand your horizons and give you an inkling of a different you that is possible. At the Eielson Visitor Center at Denali National Park last summer, there was a lull in the shuttle bus traffic, and I was able to sit at a table and contemplate Denali, in all its snow-capped grandeur, basically alone for a moment, just me, my rice cakes and the mountain.

In that moment, I began to understand the lure of the back-country. Yes it's remote and inconvenient and possibly dangerous. But it's also peaceful, tranquil and quiet, a place where you can go for solitude and reflection. Be a different (and arguably better) you, even if it's just for a few days. Your experience will slowly creep inside you and change you.

5. National Parks are everywhere! There are 394 different properties in the NPS system, comprising over 84 million acres. And the Park Service publishes a nifty "passport" that you can take to each site and have stamped with the date of your visit and the name of the park (for free, once you pay $8 for the booklet). Go today and visit one. You'll be glad you did!

My List: This summer, I'm going to have the opportunity to visit many, many NPS sites. (This post actually came about because I was trying to count exactly how many stamps I'll be getting-the geek in me like to quantify things). In fact, my list could be categorized as ambitious. Some sites end up in the "been there, saw that, glad I went but never again" category, while others go straight to the top of my "camp here for a month with my RV when I'm old and retired" pile.

So here's my list-as you read it, start thinking about yours:

1. Ft. Sumter National Historic Site, Charleston, SC
2. Biscayne National Park, Homestead, FL
3. Everglades National Park, Homestead, FL
4. Gulf Islands National Seashore, near Pensecola, FL
5. Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve, New Orleans, LA
6. New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park, New Orleans, LA
7. Great Smokey Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, TN
8. Cuyahoga Valley National Park, near Cleveland, OH
9. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Empire City, MI
10. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Munising, MI
11. Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Stanton, ND
12. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Medora, ND
13. Yellowstone National Park, northwest WY
14. Grand Teton National Park, near Jackson, WY
15. Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, CO
16. Arches National Park, Moab, UT
17. Canyonlands National Park, Moab, UT
18. Mesa Verde National Park, Cortes, CO
19. Canyon du Chelly National Monument, Chinle, AZ
20. Petrified Forest National Park, Holbrook, AZ
21. Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, near Flagstaff, AZ
22. Wupatki National Monument, near Flagstaff, AZ
23. Grand Canyon National Park, Tusayan, AZ (north & south rims)
24. Joshua Tree National Park, Twentynine Palms, CA
25. Channel Islands National Park, Ventura, CA
26. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Three Rivers, CA
27. Yosemite National Park, Yosemite Valley, CA
28. Death Valley National Park, Death Valley, CA
29. Zion National Park, Springdale, UT
30. Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, Ganado, AZ
31. El Morro National Monument, Grants, NM
32. Pecos Bill National Historic Site, Santa Fe, NM
33. Ft. Smith National Historic Site, Ft. Smith, AR
34. Kansas Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Strong City, KS
35. Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, Topeka, KS
36. Homestead National Monument, Beatrice, NE
37. Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Springfield, IL
38. Ft. Necessity National Historic Site, Farmington, PA

I get all warm and fuzzy inside when I look at that list (except for the small part of me that wants to make it a nice round forty)--and not just because I'll be getting heaps of stamps in my NP passport and checking parks off my "I absolutely want to see these someday" list. (The money I'm saving by travelling from NPS site to NPS site helps, too). But really, it's the opportunity to experience the diversity-of climate, environment, culture, history, people, food, region-that excited me. We are America, and our parks represent little parts of the collective "us" that have been preserved for our use and for our children's children.

Civil War Weekend: Antietam

Having been obssessed with the movie "Gettysburg" as a teenager, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect as I toured the area. I knew next to nothing about Antietam, however. I chose to visit it because it was a National Park Service property in the area, and because it was a Civil War battlefield.

I arrived at Antietam just as it opened and checked out the small yet interesting museum and the film "A Visit to Antietam," which chronicles Lincoln's visit to examine the army and express his displeasure at Union General George B. McLellan's failure to pursue the Confederate army. Having a narrative thrust made the film more interesting than the typical NPS documentary-style film.

After collecting my NPS Passport stamp and a map of the auto tour route, I headed out. The first stop is the Dunker Church, which ended up being sort of in the middle of all the fighting.

As I traveled the battlefield, I became slightly obsessed with cannon. They are so interesting to photograph. Today they stand as proud, silent, almost beautiful, sentinels marking the places where two armies battled. In reality, of course, they were instruments of death.

The most striking thing about Antietam is how bloody the battle was. In college I had the opportunity to do a project on Matthew Brady, who photographed many battles and their immediate aftermaths. The Civil War was the first war to be documented on film, and some of the pictures, especially those I've seen of Antietam, are quite graphic. The memorial below stands along "Bloody Lane," a sunken road occupied by the Confederates during the battle. Many, many soldiers met their end in this trench, as the Union sent regiment after regiment, in long lines, across an open field towards the road.

Today the area is so peaceful and bucolic, especially on a sunny, blue-skied day like this one. It's easy to forget that you are walking where young men, some really boys, gave their lives for country and cause.

The Antietam tour, like the Gettysburg one, send you through the events of the day in a basically chronological fashion, ending up at the Antietam National Cemetery. One of the final skirmishes of the day was at this bridge over Antietam Creek, where Union General Ambrose Burnside finally succeeded in pushing the Confederate army back. The bridge now bears his name.

I skipped the cemetery but made a brief stop outside the Pry Field Hospital museum, which was unfortunately not open that early on a Sunday morning. (I was able to visit the Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, MD, of which this is a satellite. More on that in my next post).

I would definitely recommend spending a few hours at Antietam if you're ever in the Sharpsburg, MD area. The relatively small size of the battlefield and the excellent visitor center museum and film make it a good place to get an overview of a battle and even to stretch your legs as you head up I-81.

Civil War Weekend: Gettysburg

A few weekends ago, I used a personal day that was about to expire to visit some Civil War battlefields (and test some camping gear for this summer's trip). I visited Gettysburg, Antietam and Harper's Ferry, as well as Cactoctin Mountain Park in Maryland. I'm currently doing an interdisciplinary Civil War unit with the social studies teacher, and the kids are going to ultimately have to make a museum exhibit about a Civil War topic. So I wanted to get a first-hand view of some battlefields and museums in order to make it more personal for them.

I'll start with Gettysburg. I've lived in Pennsylvania forever now, and I can't believe I've never made it here. The best place to start your visit is at the brand-new museum and visitor center, which costs about $9 bucks and is worth every penny. (No National Park passes accepted). The museum has several interesting exhibits that trace the war (including its causes and resolution). There's an entire wall that shows the numbers of Union and Confederate troops from each state. New York and the most, many of them new immigrants. Only South Carolina and Virginia had no Union regiments; the rest of the Southern states did.

The star of the Gettysburg visitor center is definitely the cyclorama. Painted by French artist Paul Philippoteaux, the 360-degree scene of Pickett's charge is over forty feet tall and illuminated by lights that change as they narrate the battle.

Outside the VC, which resembles a barn, there's a neat sculpture of Lincoln and a plaque that contains the famous Gettysburg Address.

The auto tour route is well-marked through Gettysburg. It starts out northwest of town and takes you through all of the Confederate lines and positions before bringing you up to the Union positions south and east of the town, ending at the National Cemetery. The first place I stopped was at the Eternal Light and Peace Memorial near the upper part of the Confederate line. I saw this brown-headed cow bird frolicking in the field.

It surprising how tranquil the fields look now, when you consider how many people died during the battle.

There are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of memorials scattered all around Gettysburg, placed and dedicated by the different states and regiments following the war. This is the Virginia memorial, which depicts Robert E. Lee on his horse Traverse, looking over the field where Pickett's charge would occur.

The auto-tour eventually takes you up to Little Round Top, which gives you a pretty good view of the area and helps you understand why the Union position was so strong. The rocks in the left middle ground are called Devil's Den, where Confederate sharpshooters hid to take shots at Union troops up on the hill. The area immediately below Little Round Top is referred to as the Valley of Death because so many soldiers were killed charging up the hill.

This is the memorial to General Grant, which is situated near his headquarters at the rear of the Union line.

At the National Cemetery, the graves are arranged in semi-circles by state, with many of the headstones numbered to indicate where an unknown soldier lies.

The main memorial is on the spot from which Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg addressed.

The auto tour of Gettysburg takes several hours, but by reading all the signs, as well as getting out of your car at the stops to walk around, you get a sense of what the battle was like. I'm glad I finally took the time to visit.