April 2014 – Parks & Lex

Joshua Tree National Park

April 30, 2014January 3, 2018parksandlex@gmail.com

This February, I made my first trip to Joshua Tree National Park. I knew it was a popular park for people from Southern California and rock climbers, of which I am neither, but we decided to make the 8-9 hour drive from the Bay Area for a long weekend. Joshua Tree encompasses portions of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts and is fun for checking out desert flora and fauna as well as exploring geology (whether or not you are climbing on it). We spent most of our time in the Mojave portion of the park, but at some point I’d like to head back and check out the Cottonwood Spring area in the Southern part of the park, which we didn’t hit up this trip due to time constraints and trail closures.

Desert flora Of course one highlight of the park is seeing the eponymous Joshua trees in all their Seuss-like glory. In mid-February, we were a little early for wildflowers (perhaps worsened by the fact it hadn’t yet rained this year due to the drought), but we did get to see a few Joshua trees with their fluffy white pinecone-esque blooms, particularly as we drove up to Keys View, where you can see the entire Coachella Valley, including a quite ominous-looking San Andreas Fault line.

We spotted lizards of several varieties throughout the park, and the oases and more inhabited areas were teeming with birdlife – we saw hummingbirds, finches, wrens, and Bartlett’s Quail amongst others. I was keeping my eyes open for big-horned sheep and the elusive desert tortoise, but no luck this trip. One day I will find a desert tortoise!

View of the San Andreas Fault from Keys View

I picked up four cancellations plus bonus stamps of a Joshua tree and a desert tortoise. The Twentynine Palms and Keys Ranch were available in the Twentynine Palms Visitor’s Center at the Oasis of Mara; Black Rock Nature Center is at the campground; and the Joshua Tree, CA cancelation is at the Visitor’s Center in the town of Joshua Tree. I did not collect Indian Cove or Cottonwood this trip. More on our trip to Joshua Tree in later posts.

San Juan National Historic Site

April 27, 2014January 3, 2018parksandlex@gmail.com

Since my work schedule prevented me from getting out and enjoying National Parks Week, here’s a post about my first two Passport cancellations:

San Juan NHS in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, consists of 2 sites, the fortresses of El Morro, located on a point above San Juan Bay, and Castillo San Cristobal, located on the Eastern side of Old San Juan. As San Juan was a strategic position in the Caribbean, the initial structures were first laid by the Spanish in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, and the sites were utilized by the U.S. even through WWII. I thought it was cool to be standing in a modern city in structures with origins dating back to the earliest days of European settlement in the Americas, predating the Jamestown colony. The fact that you can still see shrapnel in the walls from the Spanish-American War drives home the importance of this port in the region’s history.

In addition to getting your history fix, El Morro and its large grassy bluff appeared to be a popular spot for picnicking and flying kites. Paseo del Morro, which can be accessed from gates within the city, is a nice walk (and stray cat repository, apparently) that passes along the water at bottom of the structure. San Juan deftly caters to tourism while maintaining the charm of the old city and a vibrant culture, so the city is well worth a visit. We stayed at Hotel El Convento, a charming hotel that used to be a convent, and ate a lot of good food, in spite of one major stomachache for this vegetarian after a seemingly innocuous (and admittedly delicious) breakfast mallorca (a sweet bun that is apparently chock full of lard).

Penguins on a catboat, of course. — Statue near our hotel. Enjoy strolling the flower- and tree-lined streets of Old San Juan.

Lardy yumminess. — Mallorca. Don’t eat this if you avoid pig… (or ask first as some bakeries may use butter or shortening).

Two cancellations are available, one at each of the San Juan sites. When I was there in 2011, the Passport 25^th anniversary cancellation was also available.

San Juan NHS Cancellations — Clearly I needed to work on my stamping technique.

Beginnings

April 22, 2014parksandlex@gmail.com

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 16^th 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 25^th 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.