06.12.08
Authorized to Retroactively Stamp our Passports
At 324 S. State Street, Suite 200, here in Salt Lake City, is located the National Park Service managing office for four National Historic Trails: the Mormon Pioneer Trail; the California Trail; the Oregon Trail (despite the fact that it doesn’t enter Utah); and the Pony Express.
Unfortunately (for stamp enthusiasts), it is an office occupying a suite on the second floor of an office building, and is not a visitor center per se. Therefore, obtaining the muffin stamps from this place is a M-F 9-5 affair. They have plenty of brochures and even the more detailed NPS books for these trails for free, the latter of which are normally sold for around $5 in visitor center bookstores. There was only one guy in the whole office at the time, as far as I could tell, and he was in a meeting, but he broke away from it long enough to get the 4 stamps out of a cabinet and set me up with an inkpad and a blank piece of paper for practicing on.
I was after all 4 stamps for multiple dates:
When I moved out to SLC, with the help of Sheryl, we were on all 4 trails on Thursday, March 27 and Friday, March 28, 2008 when we were driving along Interstate 80, between the Kearney, Nebraska exit to just about the North Platte, Nebraska exit (and a little further for some branches of the California Trail). At this point, all the trails headed NW to Fort Caspar [sic] in Casper, Wyoming before those headed on to SLC angled SW on their way to Fort Bridger. When Sheryl and I left Evanston, Wyoming, on March 29, we rejoined all but the Oregon Trail as they traveled through Echo Canyon, which is the stretch of I-80 between the Wyoming border and the I-84 junction. (The California Trail is complicated, with many branches, but those emigrants who visited the Salt Lake also traveled in this direction.) Therefore, I got all 4 stamps for Sheryl and I for March 27, when we first picked up the trails, and then the 3 stamps for March 29, when we rejoined them two states over.
When Mom came to visit in May, I took her to Ruth’s Diner in Emigration Canyon on May 9, 2008. As the name implies, this was the Canyon through which the Mormon Pioneers emigrated and the way that subsequent travelers arrived at Salt Lake City from points east. Actually, I was a little unsure about whether the Pony Express Trail stamp was valid; it goes in more of a north-south direction through the Salt Lake valley, rather than east-west and I was afraid that we merely crossed it rather than traveled along it, but in fact it passed through Emigration Canyon, as well. So, Mom and I earned the 3 muffin stamps for May 9, 2008 when we drove a few miles along this route.
Finally, I determined that I was going to travel to one of the “recommended” sites in Utah along the Pony Express NHT the next day, so I stamped my book for June 7, 2008.
After explaining all of this to the gentleman working there, I asked him if he would sign the index cards that I stamped for Sheryl and Mom, as well as my book, so that my backdating of our stampage was authorized by an NPS official. I think he was impressed by our enthusiasm for visiting national parks and was happy to play along.
06.07.08
Following the Pony Express
Today I decided to “validate” the Pony Express Historic Trail muffin stamp that I got the other day by visiting one of the Utah sites, called Simpson Springs, along the auto tour.
The Oquirrh Mountains define the western border of Salt Lake County. On the other side of this ridge is Tooele County and I thought that Simpson Springs was just at the southern tip of the Oquirrh Mountains in Tooele County. Maybe about 20 miles west and 30 miles south from where I live.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
Further south than that and halfway to Nevada. On State Highway 36, I head south, going through Tooele, then Stockton and make it to about Faust–but not as far as Vernon–before seeing a brown sign that informs me that the Pony Express Route travels off to my right.
Shortly after turning off of State Highway 36, you come across this sign:
Shortly after that the pavement ends and Simpson Springs is still 20+ miles away. Another sign warns of desert conditions ahead and advises vehicles have plenty of food, fuel and water. Maybe after about 10 miles, you go up and over Lookout Pass. At the bottom of the pass there will be a vandalized marker and the remains of another Pony Express station. A pullout at the top of the pass informs you that this area is still used to graze free range sheep, which reminds me of my trip to Yellowstone with Mom back in 1997, when we encountered a shepherd on horseback who was tending approximately 1,500 sheep. Will I see this many? Sadly, no, I saw 4 at one point and that was it.
Up ahead, alongside the road, I see two sticks poking above the scrub. Quickly, I recognize them as antlers and stop close to this little fella–a pronghorn (Antilocapra Americana):
A short distance down the road I see two males off to my left ramming heads, while a third (the female?) looks on. I see another couple of animals on the ridgeline behind them. The way they are seemingly running, instead of bounding, I question whether those are coyotes, but I see no trace of them as I go further down the road.
Finally, I arrive at Simpson Springs. It has been 10 to 12 miles since Lookout Pass; the maximum distance a mustang could travel at full gallop before wearing out. You’re looking out across a wide, desolate, desert valley.
Turning around I start making the long trip back to SLC and Goldenboy passes a milestone of his own: 100,000 miles.
(Notice that the speedometer is at 0 mph. I’m not recklessly flying down the dirt road as I try to focus my shot).
National Park Talk Radio
While looking into Karen Midkiff’s Got the Stamp? book series, I discovered “The Ultimate Talk Show About America’s National Parks,” hosted by…Karen Midkiff.
Hard to tell when “This week’s show” on Arches National Park was actually posted. I will have to check back “next week” to see if anything has been added. It’ll be interesting to listen to the entire thing and hear what she’s put into it.
Publish a Passport Stamp Collecting Book? It’s Been Done.
I was trying to find the *.pdf list of the parks with cancellation stations using Google and some combination of keywords pulled up this book by Karen Midkiff.
The description says that it’s part of nine-book series: one book for each region in the Passport. However, Amazon only lists three (North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic and U.S. National Capital Region), of which only the North Atlantic book is still available.
She used to have a “Got the Stamp?” blog on Blogspot and has a website! But what happened to her and this series? Now, I’m no scientist (scratch that!)…Now, I’m no detective, but maybe a $23 list price for one book of the series would have made the $207 nine-book set a bit expensive for the “avid collector.” Nevertheless, even her website store stops at three. Guess the rest of her stamp books got canceled. (Zing!) Seriously, though, if s working he is still working on these, I’m sure it takes a lot of time and work to collect that information on each park, especially from regions far away from her home.
How come we never saw these in the visitor center bookstores when they were out, though? Looks like there is potentially a lot of meticulously collected information for stamp fans like us. It would have been fun to flip through, at least.
P.S. That list I was looking for can normally be found at http://www.eparks.com. Just under the banner is a link for “Passport Cancellation Stations” and clicking on this will open up the list, provided you have the Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in.
