Juan Bautista National Historic Trail (San Juan Bautista State Park)

7/20/15. We started our Northern California road trip today! We left Burbank early in the morning with our goal to reach San Francisco by evening. We took the coast road up to Santa Barbara and stopped at El Capitan State Beach for a short walk on the beach.

We then followed the Juan Bautista National Historic Trail all the way to San Francisco. According to the National Park Service website, "In 1775-76, Anza led some 240 men, women, and children on an epic journey to establish the first non-Native settlement at San Francisco Bay. Today, the 1,200-mile Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail connects history, culture, and outdoor recreation from Nogales, Arizona, to the San Francisco Bay Area."

Along the way, we stopped at San Juan Bautista State Historic Park to get one of the National Park Stamps that we didn't have yet. We were surprised to find a lovely museum and period buildings surrounding a large central plaza. The main building was a hotel with period furnishings and a very bad video. Among the other buildings were the Plaza Hall, the jail, the Mission, and a Livery that had a wonderful collection of horse-drawn carriages. There was a wide range of styles from plain ones that families might have used to very fancy ones that would have been driven with coachmen.

There were also beautiful views of the surrounding hills and the summer fields.

All in all, this was a little gem of  historical park that we were pleased to find. We continue to realize that collecting the national park stamps has led us to an amazing array of interesting places that we would not have otherwise visited!

Parks 54 & 55: Hamilton Grange and General Grant National Memorials

5/10/15. Today, for a special Mother's Day treat, Catherine and Brad and I visited two national park units on our way to the New York Botanical Gardens where we spent the afternoon with the family.

First we drove up to Harlem to visit Hamilton Grange, the country home of Alexander Hamilton. The size of the home was quite modest, with a little museum in the lower floor. We learned a lot more about the controversial life of Alexander Hamilton, and the political happenings of his time period.

Next we headed over to the General Grant National Memorial. Sunday morning was a terrific time to go since there was parking available and not a lot of people. According to the National Park website, "The final resting place of President Ulysses Simpson Grant and his wife, Julia, is the largest mausoleum in North America. It testifies to a people’s gratitude for the man who ended the bloodiest conflict in American history as Commanding General of the Union Army and then, as President of the United States, strove to heal a nation after a civil war and make rights for all citizens a reality."

The memorial is a very impressive building in an impressive location. I'm surprised that I don't remember ever having visited before. We toured the inside of the building thoroughly and walked down by the river overlook before heading back to the car. It was a nice little piece of history to experience!

Park 47 Reprise: Death Valley (Part 2)

1/3/15. Last summer, Jason, Catherine and I traveled through the western part of Death Valley (the Panamint Valley area) but we gave up going any further because of the extreme heat and our worries that Catherine's car wouldn't make it up the mountain range without overheating. We promised ourselves that we would return to Death Valley from the Nevada side.

I'm thrilled to say that today we got to do that! We took a full-day tour out of Las Vegas so that we could enjoy the day without driving or navigating and it was a great choice. We left early in the morning and spent the entire day until dark in the park. It was a scenic tour so we stopped at many places and got to see a great variety of geological formations that were amazing, alien, and overwhelming. It was truly incredible!

We started at Dantes View which is a high point on the eastern edge and has a view of the entire canyon. There are no words to describe the scale of the park.

Next we drove down towards the valley and stopped at the Twenty-Mule Team Canyon that was filled with badlands where Borax had once been mined. I had never seen anything like this so it was absolutely fascinating. The ground was soft and covered with a hard crust -- like at the beach after a rain. We climbed to the top of one of the mounds to get a view of the badlands.

We drove into the valley next and stopped at the an area called "Devil's Golf Course". This had crazy looking salt crystals that were "floating" on top of an underground lake. The salt leaches up from below. The rocks were hard and very sharp. We were warned not to try to walk on them.

We then stopped a few other places, including Furnace Creek for lunch. The temperature was just around freezing when we left Las Vegas but in the valley it rose to about 60 degrees. We were able to shed our coats and enjoy the clear sunshine.

Next we went to the Badwater Basin which has the lowest elevation in North America. Here the salt flats have dried up and curled into patterns across the land.

After that we stopped at the Devil's Cornfield that had rows of desert plants across a wide plain.

It was now late afternoon and we spent a short while playing in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. These looked like Hollywood kinds of desert sand dunes and the sand was extremely fine and powdery having been blow here through the mountain pass. The sand was soft as quiet as we walked on it and it clung to everything. Truly remarkable views!

We left the park and made one more stop at the Rhyolite ghost town on our way home. The sun was setting and there was a full moon that beautifully lit up the sky. What an amazing adventure!

Park 53: Lake Mead National Recreation Area (and Hoover Dam)

1/2/15. Catherine, Jason and I drove into Las Vegas from California on New Year's Day and got settled into our hotel. This morning we drove to the Hoover Dam. I had been here as a child, but Jason and Catherine had not yet seen it. We walked across the dam and admired the impressive American ingenuity and engineering. Catherine thought it was so cool that the towers looked just like those in the game Riven.


We also went up to the new Tillman Memorial Bridge and crept across, hugging the inner wall because the height is so terrifying! You can see the amazing views of the dam:

Next we drove to the Lake Mead Recreation Area, which really surprised us with the beautiful colors, especially the blue water. We stopped at the Alan Bible Visitor's Center for an overview of the geography, flora and fauna in the area (including snakes and tarantulas- yikes!!) and we got a lot of park passport stamps to add to our collection.

This area was so amazing with all the different colors in the mountains, hills, water, and shore, that we decided to take a drive around part of the lake. We headed north along the shoreline, and the scenery just got more and more beautiful.

Compared to our national park trips this summer, the weather was delightful - in the 40's most of the time, with lots of very bright sunshine.

We suspect that the drought in the southwest was the reason that the water level was so low. You could see the bands of light color where the highest water level reaches. By the time we got to the Lake Las Vegas area, there was no lake at all. The ground was extremely dry. Once again we were impressed with the rainbow of colors in the hills, canyons, and mountains in the area.

We returned to Las Vegas mid-afternoon, really pleased with our little day trip and amazed again at the beauty in the desert. This really got us excited about our trip tomorrow to Death Valley!

Park 52: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site

8/4/14. What a gem of a park we found today! Catherine is in town visiting and we had a free day so we tried to find a park site that we could do in a day. We headed off for Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site in eastern Pennsylvania.

View of the "Big House" from top of hill

We arrived in the park and drove through a beautiful section of woods with delicate light green leaves - like a cathedral of trees. Then we arrived at the visitor's center and watched the film and looked at the exhibits to get a feel for the site. According to the NPS website, " Hopewell Furnace showcases an early American industrial landscape. Operating from 1171-1883, Hopewell and other "iron plantations" laid the foundation for the transformation of the United States into an industrial giant." At this site, there was a furnace that created cast iron using the iron ore in the area as well as the trees for charcoal to heat the furnace.



The site is well-restored so that you can get a good feel of what the process was like and on certain days they actually use the facilities to demonstrate casting iron. Hopewell provided armaments like cannons to the revolutionary war, but they later became famous for the high-quality Hopewell Cast Iron Stoves.

Company store

The owners mansion

Front of the furnace where the iron exits when hot enough

Ladles used to fill the molds with melted iron

Water wheel that powered the bellows to increase the furnace heat

Tables where the molds were filled with sand to make the casts

The Charcoal Pit where the wood was slowly burned to make charcoal. They were making charcoal while we were there.

Interior of the mansion of the owner who in the beginning was Mark Bird

Today, there was a self-guiding tour with audio guides. The site is just big enough to be interesting, but small enough to visit in a couple of hours and feel satisfied. Catherine and I learned a great deal of information that we may never use again, but it was really interesting and enjoyable. The farmland was beautiful and lush and we ate a picnic lunch on the porch of the "Big House". We highly recommend this park for a nice half-day outing!

Park 51: The First State National Historic Park

8/3/14. We were looking for something fun to do this weekend so John, Catherine, Jason and I took a day trip to Delaware to visit The First State National Historic Park. We started out at the Newcastle Court House Museum. "Built in 1732, this building served as Delaware's first court and state capitol. Here in 1776, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex counties declared their independence from Pennsylvania and England creating the Delaware State." We enjoyed a tour of this courthouse, learning about the many important cases hear here, and examining the old paintings, building techniques, and other historical artifacts.

We spent some time walking around this area of Newcastle, enjoying the colonial buildings and architecture. It was especially pretty and interesting down by the waterfront. There was enough of interest in the town to keep up busy most of the day. There are various other sites throughout Delaware in this national historic park that we hope to all visit some day soon!