Happy Presidents Day Weekend!

Happy Valentine’s Day/Presidents’ Day weekend combo! In case you didn’t know, this is a fee-free weekend in most National Parks.  If you really wanted to mark the occasion, you could spend the day in a Presidentially themed park or historic site, such as Theodore Roosevelt National Park or one of the Presidential homes and birthplaces. Or, always free-of-charge, you could walk around the Presidential memorials of Washington, DC. Washington MonumentHere’s a couple from my trip a few years back:

Washington Monument

Still waiting to get the passport cancellation for this one. Someone (husband) convinced me I had to actually go up to the top to collect the stamp, and we didn’t wake up early enough to get tickets. However, if you have fewer scruples and/or forgot to stamp your passport book elsewhere in the National Mall, the lobby of the Washington Monument has (or at least had) quite the collection of stamps.

 

Lincoln Memorial and Ford’s Theatre

pres02A couple locations in the National Mall area are devoted to the 16th President. Of course the famous Lincoln Memorial is a must see, and just north of the Smithsonian is the infamous Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated. You can take a tour of the theater – or see a historical show – as well as visit the pres03Peterson House across the street where Lincoln died (closed when I visited so not sure if there’s a cancellation – or perhaps I passed uppres11pres10 the opportunity to stamp it at the theater on the same principle I mentioned above?).

 

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

pres06Thispres07 one was new since I last visited the area on that 8th grade field trip. A good stop if you’re walking around the Tidal Basin en route from the Lincoln Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial. There are four sections  to walk through dedicated to the president’s four terms, and the memorial gives a pretty balanced look at the highs and lows of a very eventful presidency. This memorial is also near the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, which was still fenced off before opening the year we were there.

 

Thomas Jefferson Memorialpres04

One of the top three most-recognizable memorials, it is patterned to look like Jefferson’s home in Monticello. My camera died before we got there, so I only have this not-so-great cell-phone pic. A nice stop on the tour of D.C. memorials, but if you really want to get in the Jefferson zone, I recommend a pres09visit to Monticello near Charlottesville, VA.

 

George Mason Memorial

Not a president, but George Mason was an influential “Founding Father” and Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention. I admit, that until I visited this small memorial a short walk from the Jefferson Memorial, the only reason I had heard of George Mason was because the name pops up occasionally around NCAA tournament time (including a final four appearance and, perhaps more importantly, second round win against UNC in 2006). Mason held the relatively progressive opinion at the time that the slave trade should be prohibited by the new constitution (although he was a slave holder himself), and he was influential in the adoption of the Bill of Rights. pres08

pres05

Beginnings

My husband and I honeymooned in Puerto Rico in May of 2011 while we were living in North Carolina. Ever the educational enthusiasts, we found ourselves not only enjoying the beach and indulging in the piña coladas and tostones, but also driving up winding mountain roads to check out the Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope at the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, and scampering over the 16th century walls that fortified Old San Juan. Due to Puerto Rico’s U.S. Territory status, the two major fortresses of San Juan are a part of the U.S. National Park Service, making up the San Juan National Historic Site.

25th Anniversary Addition Passport Book
My trusty Passport book and daypack.

Sometimes I wonder if my husband knew what he was getting into when we walked into the gift shop, and I picked up my “Passport to Your National Parks®” book. I had heard about the passport program, started in 1986 and celebrating its 25th anniversary that year, and what better time to start collecting passport stamps and cancellations while at one of the harder-to-reach destinations in the Caribbean??

What I like about the Passport program is that it gives you an opportunity to strike up a conversation with park staff, to get a historical perspective by visiting a site in a new city, and to get off the main highway to discover some of the more remote NPS sites, never a disappointment. Visiting the parks has also allowed me the ulterior motive of showing off the best the West has to offer to my East Coast-bred husband after our relocation to my native California in 2012. I hope to share some of our “adventures in stamp collecting” along with related topics on this blog!

Passport books are published by Eastern National and are available at http://www.eparks.com/store/ as well as in Parks stores.