I was surfing the web late a few nights ago as I often do, looking for interesting tidbits, and stumbled on a U.S. map that showed all the counties of every state. I was first amazed that any single image could contain such information in readable form, and then I thought it’d be neat to figure out how many of these counties I’d actually visited, and see that visually on the map. The shrunk-down results are included here for you to see (click on the image for a larger version — the original version, not included here, is 5 times larger than this one and I can read the county names).
I think I’ll easily manage to visit all the National Parks well before I even come close to visiting all the counties in the United States.
So many counties, so little time.
Parke Diem!
— Jon
The kids also got an opportunity to roll beeswax candles, practice their handwriting with real quill pens, and play some colonial games while we were there. Kudos to the gentleman who played John Adams. He seems to have the names of all the delegates and their states memorized and led the event effortlessly, steering the audience participation in the right direction regardless of the responses he was getting from the crowd. We all learned a lot about the less-famous signers of the Declaration of Independence and had a great time. If you can find some of these special events at a park near you this summer and during the September-May traditional school year timeframe, we highly recommend it! Huzzah!
Visitors who have the “liberty” to stop at the White House Visitor Center on Friday, July 4, 2008, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. may experience what it would be like to be a “Signer of the Declaration of Independence for a day” with the help of National Park Service rangers and volunteers from President’s Park. The White House Visitor Center is located near the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets, N.W., on the north side of the Commerce Department building.
Patapsco Valley State Park
After stopping at the Visitor Center to get oriented, we set out on our Junior Ranger mission around the fort’s grounds and planned on visiting most of the buildings that were still in a decent state of repair. EXTREMELY IMPORTANT LOGISTICAL TIP: If you’re doing the Junior Ranger booklet with your kid(s) at Fort Laramie, don’t attempt to rent one of the audio tour units at the same time. The audio tour leads you from building to building in a counter-clockwise manner while the Junior Ranger booklet leads the kids around in the opposite, clockwise, direction. Talk about confusing and frustrating! We quickly abandoned our earplugs and decided to interact with the nice soldiers instead, and what a great decision that was!
Particularly clever was the park’s sneaky communication methods by which they informed every living history character on the grounds of my daughter’s presence, so everywhere we went, we were greeted by name. Very nice touch! Of course, all the people on staff were well aware of the Junior Ranger requirements and were armed to the gills with information and hints to help us complete the mission.
In fact, even if you’re not planning on completing that Junior Ranger book, and even if you don’t have kids along on the trip — forget the headset and numbered information points where you hit the Play button to learn about the park. Save your money and have a real conversation with the wonderful people who work at Fort Laramie. You’ll be glad you did.
Educators, we welcome your reservations to attend the Seventh Annual George Washington Teachers’ Institute, which will take place on July 21-22 at Mount Vernon. 2008’s Institute will focus on the Constitution and feature the usual array of noted historians and authors, including Cokie Roberts, Woody Holton, John Kaminski, Katherine Allgor, Harlow Unger, Ken Bowling, and Linda Monk.
My daughter and I spent a recent evening camping out in the vicinity of Chimney Rock Nat’l Historic Site, right along the Oregon Trail in southwestern Nebraska. It wasn’t wilderness camping by any stretch of the imagination, but hearing of recent tornado activity in the area (Fort Kearny was hit the day before), we might as well have been in the Cascades, perched on a ledge during a heavy snowfall, miles from the nearest rescue ranger superhero action figure poised to save us from certain peril. Well, let’s just say I was a tad nervous about sleeping with only a thin, synthetic wall between us and large foreign objects hurtling toward us at 200 miles per hour.
We found an activity area at the visitor center that was so interesting, my daughter was willing to brave the bison’s gaze to try it out. They have a kid-sized wagon that can be loaded up with goods for a trip on the Oregon Trail. On the back of the wagon were three indicator lights — 1/2 full, full, and overloaded. It took a lot of loading, but we finally got the lights to indicate the wagon was full.
Young “Al” Edison went to school only a few months. His teachers thought he was very slow. Afterward his mother taught him at home. He then taught himself by reading constantly and trying experiments in the basement. He never attended any technical school, college or university. In later life, he said that his mother was the person most responsible for his success.
The National Parks — I love ’em! But sometimes you just can’t make it back to civilization for a decent night’s sleep when travelling to see the National Monuments, Historic Sites, and Battlefields. Most of them don’t have overnight accommodations, which is fine — we don’t want a zillion people overrunning Antietam, Gettysburg, or Saratoga expecting to camp out on the battlefield somewhere. That’s often where the National Forests, National Recreation Areas, or sometimes State Parks come in handy.
We stayed our first night in some cabins at Lake McConaughy State Recreation Area. It put us in a great spot to begin our journey along the Oregon Trail, near Ash Hollow State Historical Park where several wagon ruts mark the beginning of a more difficult journey for those following the Oregon Trail. Ash Hollow was a place where they needed to get their wagons DOWN the hill closer to the level of the North Platte River, and the photo is very telling of the difficulties they must have had while hitching their animals to the REAR of the wagon in an attempt to control its descent into the valley.
Following the Oregon Trail west we came to arguably the most famous landmark along the trail. After weeks of traversing the flat expanse of the great prairie across Kansas and Nebraska, Chimney Rock was an amazing sight to behold for 19th Century travellers, and a welcome diversion from the monotony.
After a visit to Scotts Bluff Nat’l Monument it was off to Fort Robinson State Park where just about any family could spend an entire week and not be bored for a moment. Great activities, great variety, loads of history, and great prices on everything from food to horseback riding to room rates to float trips. We both did the 90-minute Soldier Creek guided horseback ride for less than $35 — total! Dinners came in at around $10 — total! Our room with a comfy bed, a desk for writing, and private bath was only $43 per night. Incredible values all around — it’s just a bit out of the way to get there, but worth every penny and worth the wait!
Homeschool Rangers 