Park 193- Canaveral National Seashore- Florida

Took advantage of a spring break trip with Cooper to hit park number 193, Canaveral National Seashore, which is made up of four units-  North and South, plus 2 house sites.

We did the park over 2 visits:  first we did the Northern part of the park on April 8th-  We started at the temporary office trailer at New Smyrna Beach, and also went to the Eldora House portion.

The Eldora House was sited around the turn of the century.

We then drove over to the Seminole Rest area of the park, which is another house situation......

After a trip to do some baseball sites, we came back and got the "bottom" of the park, with a visit to the Park Headquarters, and then a visit to the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center for some Blue Goose Stamps, and toured the refuge a bit, then got the last stamp at the Playalinda beach entrance center.

Got a total of 9 stamps from the park, missing only a stamp that was listed for the Merritt Island Center. 

Revisit- Fort Matanzas National Park - St Augustine, Florida

Date of visit:  Sunday, April 8, 2012

 This is the fort site out in the river- It was originally built in the mid 1500's, then restored sort of in the later 1920's or so, then basically given over to the NPS. 

 We also walked the nature trail this trip, which was a very nice half mile or so boardwalk through the swamp like terrain. 

Today, on our baseball trip, Cooper and I stopped in at Fort Matanzas National Monument, which was last visited in February of 2010.   This time, we did a full site visit:  watched the movie, which was only 6 minutes, then took the shuttle boat over to the actual fort, which is on an island in the middle of the St John River.  Also managed to find a "new" bonus stamp, but the 25th anniversary was not to be found.  I was rather harshly advised that "it wasn't the 25th anniversary year anymore." 

Park Revisit- 96 National Historical Site

Date of visit: Wednesday, April 3, 2012

Just outside of the town of 96, South Carolina

Walk Where Battles Were Fought and Heroes Were Forged

Here settlers struggled against the harsh backcountry to survive. Cherokee Indians hunted and fought to keep their land, two towns and a trading post were formed and abandoned to the elements. Two Revolutionary War battles that claimed over 100 lives took place at this location.

Since this site is only about 15 miles or so from Greenwood, and I hadn't been there since 2010, I decided to run over and see if anything was new.  I did get to see the excellent movie, which I hadn't seen before, which ran about 20 minutes and has Trace Atkins as the narrator- 

There was no new pin, nor did they have a walking stick medallion-  so no purchases were made. 

I did pay more attention to the layout after watching the movie, and it was interesting to learn that the traces of the original roads are still in place from the late 1700's.  This was in the heart of Cherokee Indian land, then it became a key battle point for the Southern Campaign in the Revolutionary War. 

The walking tour takes about an hour or so, and you can still see the outline of the berms of the original "Star Fort".  There are also a couple of reconstructed buildings of the era- 

Wonder how long it will be before they tear down this perfectly good sign and put up a new uniform one like the ones I have seen being put into place around at the parks.......

Addendum visit:  May 25, 2012

Based on the Data Base, there was in fact a 25th anniversary stamp located here, even though I had asked about it on the April visit, and today, I went back, and sure enough, it was there!  Score.