01.30.08
Seasonal Stamps
Some stamps are only possible to get during the summer season, because the park they are in is closed during the months when there is snow.
Some examples:
The Logan Pass Visitor Center on the Going-To-The-Sun Road in Glacier National Park, Montana, gets dug out from the snow sometime around late May or the beginning of June and is usually already closed by the beginning of October, I believe.
Timpanogos Cave, near Salt Lake City, is at the top of the Wasatch Mountain Range at an elevation approaching 6,700 feet above sea level. It has a limited season, too; opening in May and closing in mid-October.
A final example is Cedar Breaks Monument in Utah. Mom and I attempted to go to this park in late May of 2006. It was amazing to watch the temperature drop from 70 degrees to near 40 as we approached the park’s entrance and to see a pretty thick layer of snow still on the ground. Alas! the roads were still closed for snow removal. Very sad.
So, if I accept a job in Salt Lake City, one of my early goals will be to get that muffin stamp at Cedar Breaks (though I might wait for my Mom to come out for a visit, since she deserves it, too).
Update: Apparently, Boss Hogg, Rosco P. Coltrane and Enos must be on this road crew. They have taken the trouble to let us know that they are clearing trees felled by Bo, Luke, Daisy and Uncle Jesse Duke of Hazzard County. Oh, those trouble-making Duke boys have created a real driving hazard!
01.29.08
Past Winners
The names currently on the trophy are as follows:
- 1999 – Mike, Mom
- 2000 – Mom
- 2001 – Sheryl & Eric
- 2002 – Sheryl & Eric
- 2003 – Mike
- 2004 – Sheryl & Eric
- 2005 – Mom
- 2006 – Sheryl & Eric
- 2007 – Mike
I’m sure Mom feels “due” to win it this year. If so, she had better get going. Those passport books don’t stamp themselves!
01.28.08
On a National Park-related note
I’ll post my first substantive muffin-related post soon, but I figured I better get on board with something Park-related as soon as I could. Just to prove I could post the same as everybody else!
I just wanted to mention that it looks like my group project in my Digital Libraries class in library school is going to be a NPS-related digital library of some nature. Maybe something tracing the history of a park through various documents (photos, manuscripts, etc.) or tracking environmental change through time. The details have yet to be worked out, but everybody who signed up for my group liked the idea of doing something related to a National Park. Our professor (from China) also likes visiting Park units.
The fact of the matter is, we’re surrounded by parks and can’t escape. Who’d want to?!
01.26.08
How it Started
Well, my offspring don’t seem to think I can figure out how to do this without their help. I’ll show them.
My recollection of the beginnings of the contest go back to our trip out west. After stopping in a few visitor centers at National Park sites, we decided to get the stamp books to keep track of where we had been. I casually commented that we should have a contest to see who could get the most stamps in one year. Of course the “young’uns” wanted to know what the prize would be. Trying to figure out what would be the most ridiculous thing I flippantly suggested a special muffin for breakfast on New Years day. Thus the beginning of the “Muffin Contest.”
Mike will have to post the past winners because the trophy, with the winners names engraved on the plaque, is now in his possession.
(Sheryl, note paragraphs on my posting, it it “submits” in this format.)
01.22.08
The 19
A couple of years ago, when the Konstanski’s were visiting, we went downtown to see the recently completed World War II Memorial. As we passed by the Survey Lodge/Ranger Station, Sheryl and Eric went inside and hit the muffin stamp jackpot! 19 muffin stamps, arrayed in an impressive storage box. Mom and I didn’t have our passport books, so we somehow managed to convince Sheryl and Eric not to get the stamps that they would’ve qualified for that evening (4, by my count). Anyhow, they had a scrap piece of paper on which they collected all 19 stamps (unofficially). Since then, we thought it’d be a challenge–worthy of lore–to get all 19 muffin stamps in a single day.
top to bottom: Survey Lodge where The 19 were originally located; Washington Monument ticket center where they’re located now; The 19 in the ticket center.
So yesterday I decided to give it a try. The battery of muffin stamps was relocated to the Washington Monument ticket center and bookstore along 15th Street after the security perimeter around the Washington Monument was completed. The 19 muffin stamps located at this bookstore are:
- Washington Monument
- West Potomac Park
- John Ericsson Memorial.
- John Paul Jones Memorial
- National Mall & Memorial Parks
- District of Columbia World War Memorial
- Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
- National Capital Region
- Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence
- Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site.
- Lincoln Memorial
- Korean War Veterans Memorial
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- Thomas Jefferson National Memorial
- George Mason Memorial
- World War II Memorial
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Memorial
- Ford’s Theater
- Ford’s Theater & Petersen House
(Also at the Old Post Office Pavilion; Also at the Lincoln Memorial; Also at the Jefferson Memorial; Also at the FDR Memorial; Also at Ford’s Theater)
Yesterday, I managed to get 16 out of these 19. I walked at least 6 miles and maybe further in the process. The Washington Monument was impossible, because I needed a timed ticket to go up and I hardly think that just standing outside of it really would qualify for a stamp–make the ticket center your first stop, as close to 8:30 AM as possible, to guarantee getting a time the same day, or reserve a “free” ticket online for a $1.50 service charge. I could’ve done the two Ford’s Theater stops, but I forgot that those were on the list and my feet were dog tired by then, too.
Sheryl says that the current “19″ aren’t the same as “The 19″ stamps that she has on her sheet. Specifically, the two Ford’s Theater stamps aren’t among them. What are the differences? Which 19 would make the tougher challenge? The greater legend?
01.21.08
Martin Luther King Day on the National Mall
I made good on my promise to go to the Lincoln Memorial today, even though the high temperature was only expected to reach the freezing mark. Traffic was relatively light and parking was great. The picture above is of the spot on the plaza–between the first and second set of steps– where King delivered his famous speech. In case you can’t read the fine print:
The March on Washington
For jobs and freedom
August 28, 1963
These three wreaths were nearby. I don’t know what time the apparent ceremony was supposed to take place. The ribbon of the first one reads: “Department of Interior” and I know a second one was from the Department of Labor. Not sure about the third. Can’t find a press release regarding any event that happened today.
It being the Lincoln Memorial, the tiny exhibit room downstairs really deals with Lincoln and construction of the Memorial. However, there was one quote of Lincoln’s that I felt was in the spirit of the day and of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s memory:
Let us discard all this quibbling about this man or the other man, this race and that race, and the other race being inferior and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. . .
Let us discard all these things and unite as one people throughout this land until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.
I went on a vain search of the sight where they had broken ground for the King Memorial. It is to be located on the tidal basin, about halfway between the Jefferson Memorial and Lincoln Memorial, along Independence Avenue. Supposedly, there is a plaque currently at the site, but I can neither confirm nor deny this, since all I could find was a bum under a cherry tree.
Finally, in the TV Guide, I had seen that on Oprah Winfrey’s MLK Day Special she was going to be at the Lincoln Memorial, standing where King delivered his speech. However, since I’m normally at work when her show is on the air and have never seen her show, I had no idea that she tapes her show in advance until later in the day. So, when I was in the Lincoln Memorial’s bookstore, I unknowingly made an ass of myself by saying to the cashier, “What? no legions of Oprah fans here this morning?” I must have seemed like a complete mental patient! Why on Earth is some bundled up middle-aged guy coming into the Lincoln Memorial bookstore looking for Oprah Winfrey fans? She chuckled and wished me a good day.
Anyhow, the Reflecting Pool is currently drained for maintenance and in the picture on her website, regarding this episode, you can see a filled Pool in the background. Besides, she doesn’t look cold enough to have been there today.
