We have a sister site!

Check out Oceanographic Odyssey (formerly Oceanographic Oddysey)
(note the "Odd" spelling in Oddysey)

Frank (one of our intrepid NPU Adventurers -see his posts here) has started up his own blog to chronicle his recent trip (and future ones, possibly). In his Inaugural Post he states his mission:

"My goal is to provide some insight into my activities, both oceanographic and National Park-related, to friends and family who have given me the courtesy of acting like they care."

So check it out, if you haven't already!! And don't worry, he'll still post here (at least until he gets TOO famous)

edited June 27 2008 to reflect the changes in the OO site

South Florida National Parks

South Florida

January 5-7, 2008

8 stamps, 3 units

-FrankieT

I am hesitant to post an account of a solo trip for fear of sounding self-absorbed, but since there seems to be some relevance for upcoming trips by other members of the group, I will proceed. As I intend this to be helpful for others to plan their trips, I will compose this more as a reference than a narrative.

If you are flying into South Florida, your most obvious points of arrival are either Miami or Ft. Lauderdale airports. In my case, I flew into West Palm Beach International which is about 75 miles north of Miami International and 55 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale. The drive was a bit of a pain, but the airport was small and not crowded (a big plus) and they even had free wireless internet access throughout the terminal. Since I was already in Palm Beach, I drove about 15 miles north and visited the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse.

From here, I began my tour of the Everglades. FYI, Everglades National Park has four 'sub-units', Shark Valley, Flamingo, Gulf Coast, and Royal Palm, each of which has a unique stamp and visitor center. There is also a stamp at the main visitor center (Ernest Coe VC) as you enter the park's main entrance. My strategy was to visit the park's 'satellite' sub-units (Shark Valley and Gulf Coast) first. These are both accessible by taking Florida Route 41 (the Tamiami Trail) west from Miami, as is Big Cypress National Preserve.






My first stop was Shark Valley, located on the northern boundary of the park off SR-41. The main attraction is a 15-mile paved road through Shark Valley Slough, the famous "river of grass". You can walk, rent a bike, or take the narrated tram ($15). There are also two walking trails (Bobcat Boardwalk and Otter Cave) close to the visitor center. From my experience, this was the best place to see alligators up close (they were literally laying in the middle of the trails at times).

As I continued west on SR-41, I stopped approximately midway in Big Cypress National Preserve. The main attraction here is the Florida National Scenic Trail. This stretches ~28 miles north through the preserve, but you can hike shorter sections if you want. Alternately, there is a short boardwalk trail at the VC and a scenic road (accessible from the east at Fortymile Bend on SR-41) that leads to Tree Snail Hammock Trail. There is also free camping at several sites near here (Burns Lake, Mitchell Landing, and Pinecrest). Big Cypress also has free canoe tours (canoe and equipment included) and several guided hikes.

The Gulf Coast subunit is located on the western boundary of the park, just off SR-41. There are no hiking trails here, only water activities. The 10000 Islands cruise is a little steep ($26; the only activity I paid for on this trip) but I found it very worthwhile. As I arrived here at 4 pm on Saturday, I had no choice but to sign up for the last cruise of the day (4:30 pm). This turned out to be opportune as the captain took us out to the Gulf to watch an amazing sunset. On the way out, we cruised through mangrove islands and manatee habitat (didn't see any, though). Once we reached the Gulf, the captain spotted several pods of dolphins and circled around them hoping to coax them to play in our wake. Sure enough, the dolphins went crazy and played alongside the boat and in the wake for about 20 minutes (George would have been nauseated by this unabashed display of cute dolphin behavior). The captain's name was Paul and he came highly recommended by everybody I talked to in the ranger station. Turns out he was absolutely hilarious and seemed very knowledgeable.

The only way to get back to the main section of the Everglades on the east is to retrace your steps across SR-41. This is a long drive and is, IMO, best done at night when you have nothing else to do. There is a large visitor center at the main entrance to the park with a film and exhibits. Sign up for your free Bike Hike here (bike and official Everglades water bottle provided; you must reserve in person; if you can choose, try to get Kirk and not Rudy). From here, there is a 38-mile road going west to Flamingo, with numerous potential stops along the way. A little less than 5 miles down the road, there is a turnoff for Royal Palm. There is a stamp at the bookstore and two short trails here (the Anhinga and Gumbo Limbo trail). If possible, show up for the Starlight Hike at 7:30 pm on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays (same applies; ask whether Kirk or Rudy are hosting the hike). We saw owls, night herons and an alligator feeding frenzy on this hike.

All of the trails in the park are right off the road and relatively short. I did all but two (Coastal Prairie and Bear Lake) and these were closed because of hurricane damage and training, respectively. I recommend Mahogany Hammock, Pa-Hay-Okee, Pinelands and West Lake to get a good glimpse of hardwood hammock, cypress dome, slash pine forest, and mangrove habitats, respectively. If you do the Bike Hike through Long Pine Key, then you can probably eliminate the Pinelands trail if you are pressed for time. I do not recommend Snake Bight or Rowdy Bend trails. Not only are they not particularly impressive, but the mosquitoes are unbearable on these trails. As you drive toward Flamingo, I recommend stopping at Mrazek Pond if you have even a remote interest in birds. The assemblage of wading birds is world famous and it is right off the road. Eco Pond and Coot Lake are also right off the road and worth stopping at.

The Flamingo VC offers a boat tour similar to the one at Gulf Coast (same price, I believe). They also offer a free guided canoe trip, for which you can reserve by phone (239- 695-2945). Make sure and ask if the trip will be on 9-mile Pond (most of them are, apparently). If you go on 9-Mile Pond, there is a resident crocodile (relatively rare) and river otters, both of which we saw up close on our trip.

If you are camping, there are two sites in the Everglades, Long Pine Key near Royal Palm and the Flamingo campground, both of which are $16/nt. I camped at both, and Flamingo was more scenic but the scenery was offset by an abundance of mosquitoes.

Finally, Biscayne National Park is located 20 miles due east of the Everglades' main entrance. The only thing to do on land is a short nature walk at the visitor center. Everything else involves a boat. They have glass-bottom boat tours, snorkeling tours and island tours. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend one over the other because all I had time for was the nature walk.

In conclusion, it is possible to do justice to the Everglades in two days. Big Cypress and Biscayne, not so much. Although I absolutely loved it and hope to go back many times, I can honestly say that I feel that I have completely earned this unit already. Hope this helps everyone in their planning.

Southwestern Pennsylvania Trip

Southwestern Pennsylvania

October 5-7, 2007

6 Units, 8 stamps

Frank, Stefan, George, and Kelly

-FrankieT


Finally, the weekend trip to Pittsburgh becomes a reality. On or near the one-year anniversary of the epic Asheville trip, four of the five travelers from the Asheville excursion embark on a pilgrimage to the Riedinger estate in Plum, Pennsylvania. The impetus for this trip is that Kelly needs her dad to perform some steering and brake work on her car. Unfortunately, in order to reach our destination we must traverse treacherous mountains in this aforementioned mechanically-challenged vehicle. Aside from an ominous squeal by the power-steering belt, we reach Pittsburgh on Friday evening with no major mishaps.

Of course, our trip into Pittsburgh was littered with various National Park detours. The first stop was C&O Canal National Historical Park headquarters in Cumberland, Maryland. The visitor center for this unit occupied a retired train station, which I thought was kind of ironic since it was the railroad system that ultimately killed the canal. The exhibits were top-notch and very contemporary with numerous interactive opportunities. Although there was not much to see outside the visitor center, we took a short walk down by the canal and were greeted with several vistas of the historic skyline of Cumberland.

After dining at Wendy's (see picture to the right), we set out for Fort Necessity National Battlefield across the Pennsylvania state line. The history buffs in our group approached this site with great anticipation because of its significance as the first conflict in the French and Indian War and the first major battle in the military career of General George Washington. It would soon become clear why this 'fort' was named 'Necessity'. Consisting of a crude circle of upright hewn logs in an unremarkable field, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this fortification was the fact that its defensive cannons were located outside of the fort and mounted on swivels. One can see the strategic implications of such an arrangement if the enemy were to somehow encircle the fort. In contrast to the actual fort itself, the visitor center was very impressive with period artifacts and a well-articulated interpretive setting.

As is customary with our National Park outings, it was a race against the clock to reach our next NPU destination, Friendship Hill National Historic Site. Perhaps the most challenging aspect of our NPU quest is the fact that most units of the National Park system close at 5 pm local time. This means that we are invariably arriving at our last unit of the day with little time to spare. Fortunately, Friendship Hill did not require extensive investigation. Most of our questions were answered by the creepy representation of the house's former owner that we watched on the 15-minute video for the site (see picture to left). Speaking of whom, the significance of this site was that it was the estate of Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury under the Jefferson and Madison administrations and the man responsible for purchasing the Louisiana Territory and significantly reducing the national debt. The house was gorgeous, as one would expect from a rich dude, and the grounds were also spectacular, with nice views of the Monongahela River.

Saturday was a rare, unitless outing to the city of Pittsburgh. Activities included the Duquesne Incline and lunch at the famous Primanti Brothers restaurant, but I will not elaborate as these were not National Park activities and this IS a National Park blog. Despite our best efforts to avoid NPUs on this day, we still managed to visit a National Park-affiliated site, the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area. We were all impressed with this possible unit-in-the-making, both in terms of its potential and the dedication and passion of the staff. At the visitor center, we checked out the exhibits and watched a vintage film on the steel-making process. In order to fully immerse ourselves in the film, we all dressed up in the steelmaker's costumes located in a bin next to the TV. Although we are pretty sure that this was against the rules, we got some good pictures nonetheless. Saturday afternoon was spent on the Allegheny River where Kelly's dad keeps his boat. What started as a leisurely river cruise suddenly turned perilous as we realized we were running low on fuel as we approached the raging waters of a dam on the Allegheny. In all honesty, the dam was more of a spillway and we actually made it back to within sight of the dock before we ran out of gas, but it still makes for a good story.

Sunday was the most NPU-intensive day of the trip. It was also the most depressing as two of our stops were Flight 93 National Memorial and Johnstown Flood National Memorial, sites commemorating two of the deadliest days in American history. Flight 93 was particularly poignant because of the proximity of the event in our lives and the makeshift, personal nature of a still-evolving memorial (see picture to left). Johnstown was obviously more developed, with a fancy visitor center complete with an array of stunning (some may say disturbing) exhibits. In order to appreciate the magnitude of this event, I recommend that all visitors take the Johnstown Incline (touted as the world's steepest incline!) up Yoder Hill to gain a full perspective of the valley and rivers. Also located on this hill is the cemetery in which many of the flood's victims are buried. Again, the perspective gained by walking among tombstones, many of which have the same date of death, is overwhelming. In between our stops at these two tragic sites was a visit to Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site. This NPU interprets a more positive event, the connection of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with a portage arrangement that would allow boats to cross the Allegheny Mountains on a rail system that would interface with the canals on either side of the range. Of course, we arrived here at 4:30 pm and the ranger seemed less than happy to see visitors so close to closing time. Despite the ranger's scowl, we managed to check out the visitor center, walk an interpretive trail, and tour the structures associated with the pulley system that transported the boats up the side of the mountain.

In conclusion, this entry proves that the National Park units of SW Pennsylvania can be successfully during a weekend trip. Keep in mind that there are also stamps for Ohio Pyle State Park and Laurel Ridge State Park (parts of the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail) and the Path of Progress National Heritage Area, none of which we obtained on this trip.

Prince William Forest Park

September 21, 2007-September 23, 2007

5 Stamps, 3 National Park Units

After fighting a rare and deadly virus all week, I mustered up enough energy to return to one of my favorite DC area parks, Prince William Forest. This trip was rather difficult to plan since some of our NPU expedition is now based in Maryland while the rest of us are in Southern Virginia. But with the power of the internet we were able to hammer out the final details. So at about 1 p.m. on Friday, September 21st, Frank came over to the 514 Estate and we headed off to George Washington Birthplace National Monument.

As usual we arrived at the park with only minutes to spare until closing. We stamped our passports at the Visitors Center and then headed up to the house. The grounds here were surprisingly beautiful. There were pine trees planted all over the place and a gorgeous garden next to the house. There were also great views of the Potomac.

As we made our way to the main house, we were greeted by our tour guide, Pocahontas. My first thought as I heard her name was "Wow, this is going to be a great tour". Unfortunately, it did not even come close to an Andrew Buttermilch caliber tour. She was a nice old lady but gave us no insight into the life of George Washington. All we got were a bunch of stories about George’s relatives having crazy sex lives. The highlight of the tour, however, was when Pocahontas told us to look at the eagle flying overhead. My excitement quickly diminished when Frank shook his head in disgust and mumbled “It’s a turkey vulture”.

After the introduction talk, Pocahontas told us that we could tour the house on our own. Since the house was not a replica of the Washington House but simply a replica of a period house, we did not intensely tour the facilities. Instead we walked around the grounds where the original GW took his first steps. The sun was beginning to set and the entire estate looked incredible. I got some really great shots as we walked through the barn area. Frank was attacked by two different phyla as both a horse and a caterpillar bit his hand. We then checked out the new baby bull, talked some more with crazy Pocahontas, and then headed back to the car and departed for Prince William Forest Park.

With the help of Karen, we arrived with plenty of time to set up camp at the Oak Ridge Camp ground. We then joined KC and Joe for some camp fire ciders and I made my now world famous turkey sausages with onions and peppers. Stefan arrived at the park at 8:30 p.m. but did not arrive at the base camp until around 10 p.m. Apparently Emily was not as helpful as Karen was. We then drank into the night talking about the good old days.

The next morning we awoke with the sun and I immediately got to work brewing up an incredible pot of Sumatran Coffee with my French Press. After enjoying some egg beaters we headed off to our second death march this season.

This hike was nowhere near as difficult as the now infamous Shenandoah National Park Death March that Frank dreamed up this summer. There was no real elevation gain and the weather was pleasant. We started out with a warm up hike on the Laurel Trail Loop. However, we quickly got lost and ended up back at the Visitors Center. At this point Stefan took off to participate in some non National Park activities.

The rest of the group however, decided that we were warmed up enough and headed off on the South Valley Trail. Minutes into the hike, Joe found a snake and was able to catch and hold it just long enough for a picture. Frank was able to locate Pawpaws simply by smelling them in the air. He instructed everyone to stop walking and then sniffed the air, looked a few trees, and then shook one until a pear like fruit dropped to the ground. He cut them open and we all enjoyed nice fresh pawpaws. Now growing up on the streets of New York, I had never experienced a pawpaw. But since Lewis and Clark enjoyed them on their great journey, I had to try one. Needless to say, it was my first and last Pawpaw.

After another hour of hiking, we decided to stop for some real food. We enjoyed lunch on a nice outcropping along the creek. As Mandy and I dined on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, KC took this time to remove over 100 tiny ticks from her leg.We then continued our journey through the heart of Prince William Park. As we made our way to Fern Valley the sun finally came out bathing the entire area in perfect light. Of course a tripod was necessary for a proper exposure but, sadly, nobody in our expedition shared my excitement. I got a few good shots but nothing that was epic.

After the hike concluded we showered up and made some hot dogs for dinner. After a beer run to the Bottom Dollar, we sat around the camp fire and enjoyed some ice cold beers and ciders. We then waited for Stefan to show up. I’m not sure exactly when he finally did arrive but we had made a significant dent in our beverage supply by the time he showed up.

The next morning we stumbled out of our tents and made some strong coffee. As we were enjoying our breakfast, the camp site tsar came over and demanded that we pay her for the site. As KC and Joe calmly explained to her that we deposited the money in the drop box like the instructions told us to do, I sat there and enjoyed my egg beaters. But when she told us that we were liars and had to pay again because she had no way of checking the box, I lost it. I told her that it was retarded to have a drop box to deposit money if there is no way of checking it. I had a few other choice words with her and then she left (in tears I think).

Well a few minutes later a National Park Ranger rolled up to our site. He asked to see my license and I took it out of my National Park Passport. He was very impressed with the passport and wished us luck with our quest to visit all 391 units. He explained that the drop box was only checked once a week and that as long as our money was in there , we would be fine. I told him it did not make any sense and he agreed and said it was the government after all. We then offered the Ranger some bacon and coffee but he politely declined.

So after a morning of confrontations, we decided to cool down by hiking down to the old pyrite mine. The Cabin Branch Pyrite Mine was set up in 1889 and was a thriving mine until it closed in 1920 due to labor issues. Although the site sounded interesting, the main reason we wanted to visit the old mine had to do with the book Frank, Stefan, and myself were currently reading. In "The World Without Us", Alan Weisman describes what would happen to the earth if humans instantly vanished. So we were looking forward to see how the earth reclaimed the old mine. At first I was completely shocked how fast the land recovered in less than 90 years. Unfortunately, this recovery became a lot less impressive when we learned via a sign that the National Park Service helped the earth out in the 1980's and actually restored the site. While this was a little disappointing, the area really did look good and we enjoyed hiking through it.

After we finished the Pyrite Mine Loop, KC and Joe took off. Frank, Stefan, Mandy, and myself were not done NPUing. We decided to visit some more sites in Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park (see Frank’s previous Fredericksburg post for info on our first trip). FYI, I highly recommend using a car to visit Fredericksburg instead of a 21 foot moving truck.

Our first stop on this tour of Fredericksburg was Salem Church, which was used as a refugee center for the citizens of Fredericksburg during the Battle of Fredericksburg. Personally, I did not find this site to be appealing the first time I visited it, but Stefan wanted to get the stamp. Unfortunately the church was closed and Stefan still does not have this stamp.

Our next stop was my favorite location of the day. We toured Ellwood Manor which was used as a hospital by the Confederates during the Chancellorsville Campaign and as a headquarters and hospital by the Union during the Wilderness Campaign. The house was in bad shape but this is what made it so interesting. Since many of the walls had holes in them and most of the plaster had been removed, you could see the inner skeleton of the house. Ever since I helped to build America in Arizona during the mid 90’s, I have been fascinated by framing and I really enjoyed this tour.

Our tour guide at Ellwood did not share the passion that Ranger Andrew Buttermilch had when we toured Sagamore Hill but he constantly referred to Robert E. Lee as "Bobby". This took him up a notch in my book.

The grounds of the manor were also impressive and the afternoon light lead to some amazing pictures. The highlight for me was the gravesite of Stonewall Jackson’s amputated arm. After Stonewall had his arm amputated, it was thrown onto the ground outside the field hospital. Jackson’s chaplain, Beverley Tucker Lacy, noticed the arm and brought it to his brother’s house (Ellwood Manor) to bury it. We know that the arm is indeed there because a Marine Corps general named Smedley Butler excavated the arm. In 1921, he was conducting a military exercise at the nearby battlefield. He had pilots up in planes dropping bags of flour onto targets below to see how effective planes would be in a battle. When he heard that Jackson’s arm was allegedly buried nearby at Ellwood, he ordered his men to dig it up. Sure enough, the arm was there and Butler placed a plaque on the site. The original plaque has since been replaced by a tombstone.

We hiked down to the site to check out the tombstone. I was very impressed with the gravesite and laid down on the ground to get a good shoot. I then asked Stefan to take some pictures of me standing next to the grave but unfortunately they all came out blurry. I guess the auto focus feature on a Canon Camera is difficult to master.

After Ellwood, we stopped at a few more sites where we learned what it was like to fight a civil war battle in a forest fire and just how much Virginia loves Stonewall Jackson. We also purchased some Civil War Era Crotch Powder, purchased some magnets, and destroyed yet another National Park Bathroom. However our adventure was coming to an end. The Giants were getting ready to manhandle the Redskins and we all wanted to listen to that.

Current State of Affairs

Portsmouth, VA

August 31, 2007

-FrankieT


Well, maybe we should start with a little background information. It all started for me with a seemingly innocuous visit in October 2005 to Fort Frederica, an unremarkable NPS unit on St. Simon's Island in Georgia. I was visiting my sister and her family in St. Mary's, a town about 30 miles south of St Simon's and we were looking for a day trip that didn't involve Jacksonville. A brief deliberation ensued and we made the decision to drive to St. Simon's, not even knowing that a national park site existed there. After touring the local lighthouse and combing the beach for about an hour, we stumbled upon a sign for Fort Frederica National Monument. With little else to do, we made our way to the visitor center and, while the rest of the crew used the facilities, I started to make my way around the exhibits.

Now, I had been to several national park sites prior to this one and even made it a point to stop whenever possible in the event that I saw the telltale brown sign on the highway. However, let me make it clear that I had never made an organized effort to visit national park sites in my travels and, honestly, didn't even know what sites were affiliated with the National Park Service (for example, I did not know that the Washington Monument was a National Park site). As I made my way around this visitor center, nothing would suggest that my haphazard method of incidentally visiting National Park sites was about to change.

The exhibits in the center were informative and the story moderately interesting (the British and Spanish clashed here during the colonial days of Georgia's existence) but there was nothing remarkable about the site and certainly nothing that would spark a lifelong quest to visit all 391 National Park units. However, as I was making my way to the door, I stopped to ask the ranger on duty about touring the fort outside. In the process of getting this information, I noticed a small display on the counter advertising the Passport to Your National Parks. I proceeded to flip through the small sample book and examined the adjacent stamper, stopping to make an impression on a scrap piece of paper. I thought to myself that this was interesting and made a mental note to look this up on the internet when I got back to my sister's house. I had not yet purchased a Passport book nor had I even collected my first stamp, but I consider this to be the beginning of my quest to visit all 391 (and counting) National Park units.

For those of you that don't know about the National Park system, my subsequent research back at my sister's house revealed several things. At the time, there were 388 sites in the National Park system that were considered 'units' for the purposes of management and visitation (there are now 391). Each of these units (with a few exceptions) participates in the Passport to Your National Parks program in which they are assigned a unique stamp (and sometimes several site-specific stamps) that one can collect in their proprietary Passport book (or medium of your choice). These units preserve, protect and interpret the natural (my favorite), historical and cultural resources of all aspects of our country.

Now I realize that collecting impressions of stamps may seem boring and tedious and, in all honesty, this sometimes is the case. However, the framework that these stamps provide in which to visit some amazing places is the real reward. In the pursuit of collecting and, more importantly, earning these stamps, I have accumulated some incredible experiences and some pleasant surprises. The stamps act as a sort of philatelic travel agent for experiencing the United States and its territories while also providing an indelible record of these visitations.

In my quest to visit all 391 NPU's and collect their associated stamp impressions, I have unofficially anointed myself as a missionary for this program. My first convert was fellow blogger George Boneillo. He was an easy sell as he had just returned from Grand Canyon National Park and had actually visited more National Park sites than I had. As in my case, he shared an appreciation for the National Park system but also had previously lacked the framework from which to launch this interest. Of course, this noble pursuit soon devolved into a latent competition that persists to this day. More recent to the pursuit is blog creator Stefan Heinemann, also an aficionado of the National Park Service but less convinced about the Passport program (at least until recently). After intense peer pressure and several National Park trips in which he stamped random pieces of paper, Stefan finally succumbed and purchased a book of his own. That is where we stand now and the quest is just beginning.

First post

2007-AUG-31
Rockville, MD



This first post is just to get things started.

I have invited GB and FT to join and they should be able to post soon. I would like to collect the stories of our travels here, and some pics too. We should be able to post stories and pics pretty easily, but I am new to this whole scene, so we will have to work out the bugs together.

I would like to go back in time with these posts too, but I will need some help from better memories. The New York Trip, New Mexico, etc... I think we can assign dates by clicking on the "post options" at the bottom of the posting field.

Also, for the rest of the 427 crew... and any significant others or friends... PLEASE feel free to weigh in by commenting on posts. It will be the only way to keep our imaginations in check.

Here's to hoping this works out,
Stefan

----------------
Now playing: Kanye West - Stronger
via FoxyTunes

Great Falls, Clara Barton and the Potomac Heritage NST

12-AUG-2007

Washington, D.C. and Vicinity


Wow, so many rules for posting that I can see why George refuses to join. What about language? I heard mention of friends and family so I assume that some sanitation is necessary? Anyhow, I am getting off track here; my mind tends to wander in my advanced age.

After moving Stefan's thousand tiny boxes of random stuff (Kelly, all of your stuff was really nice and light as feathers:) up three flights of stairs in the dog days of August on the previous day, we approached this NPU excursion with some trepidation. Contrary to our usual 8 am sharp itineraries, we did not actually set foot in a National Park site until noonish (Stefan made damned sure that nothing was going to go wrong with that rental truck return process). Also, we banned hiking from the list of activities and agreed to proceed at a leisurely pace.

I found it appropriate that our first stop was Clara Barton NHS because I am pretty certain that Stefan's moving day qualified as a natural disaster (okay, it really wasn't that bad but it seemed that way at the time). We arrived at Clara's doorstep in the middle of the 11 am tour so we decided to detour across the parking lot to another NPS site, Glen Echo Park. This has to be the only National Park unit dedicated to protecting a former amusement park. We tracked down the stamps using the pedestrian mode of our GPS (an impressive feat, I must say) and rushed back for the 12 pm tour at Clara Barton.

When we returned to Clara Barton, our tour was slightly delayed as the ranger went to her car and fed her kids lunch or something like that. When she returned, she proceeded to tell us everything that was ever known about Clara Barton in exhausting detail. As usual with our tours of obscure historic sites, our tour group consisted of us and one or more elderly persons. The token elderly person in this group played the part as usual (i.e.-asked a bunch of questions; eyed the three of us suspiciously) until her cell phone (yes, elderly people apparently have cell phones) went off with a deafening ringtone (yes, elderly people apparently download ringtones) and she proceeded to answer it in the middle of the ranger's tour. The Clara Barton House, in addition to being historically significant as a headquarters of the Red Cross, was also very interesting in architectural terms because of its dual functionality as a residence and supply warehouse. At the end of the tour, we were treated to a list of stamps for the DC area published by Dandy Dan the Ranger Man, as close as there is to a celebrity in stamping circles.

From here, it was off to Great Falls Park. On the Maryland side of the Potomac, we took a short trail along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (part of the C & O Canal NHP) to a falls overlook. Along the way, we witnessed a dog taking the most massive and foulest defecation ever recorded for Canis domesticus. At the falls, Stefan fell for my falling-rail trick (to explain, the rails were less than secure considering that they were separating us from raging rapids that had claimed over 100 lives in recent years). George was too overcome by his fetish for running water photography to even notice the decrepit rails. After hiking through some sort of rare plant community only found on islands in the Potomac, we came to the overlook to the Virginia side. For some reason, Stefan was all geeked up about the number of great blue herons around the falls which is odd considering that I am supposed to be the avi-phile of the group.

Our attempt to collect 15+ stamps at the George Washington Memorial Parkway (another unit we 'visited' on this trip) headquarters at Turkey Run was unfruitful as it was closed on weekends. Undaunted, we drove up the Potomac to the Virginia side of Great Falls Park. This began our foray into the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail (to be continued...). We enjoyed the superior view of the falls from the overlook on this side of the Potomac and proceeded on to Riverbend Park, the site of our second Potomac Heritage stamp. It is here that Stefan revealed his man-crush on blue-necked woodpeckers (aka, belted kingfishers), yet another reason for me to suspect that he is a closet bird-lover. Although this account may be disputed by other parties privy to inside information, I will insist that I politely and persistently insisted that a stamp existed at this site until the clerk agreed to search for one. Lo and behold, he produced a stamper, still in the box and uninked. We broke it in and headed off for Harper's Ferry.

Harper's Ferry was our Waterloo on this trip. Slowed by a stop at the world's most expensive Arby's (where a Coke is $3 but they only fill it half full) and a boneheaded GPS screwup by me, we arrived at Harper's Ferry just past the 5pm closing time. Despite the fact that we were unable to acquire any stamps, we walked around the town and along the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers in an effort to begin earning the stamp for our return visit.