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. 

Park 192- Gulf Islands National Seashore-

Date of visit-  Thursday, March 8 2012

I combined this visit with a tour of the Mississippi Gulf Coast NHA locations-  got to the main visitor center for the Mississippi portion of the park-

The boat which runs out to Fort Massachusetts won't be running until the end of the month, so didn't get to that part-  I did get to the Davis Bayou Visitor Center, and got three stamps, including the 25th- and a pin and hiking staff medallion.

Park 191- Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve Louisiana

This park has multiple locations spread out over the state of Louisiana.  There is a Visitors Center in Eunice, number 2 on the map above, but that location was closed on the Monday we were in the area- so next time for that one.  We did visit the Acadian Cultural Center in Lafayette, number 3 on the map, and got a stamp and a pin there.

Monument at Chalmette Battlefield

Today, March 6th, we drove over to Metro New Orleans, and got to two more locations, Barataria Preserve, and Chalmette Battlefield.  Barataria is just what it says, a large preserve of swamp land...  The Chalmette location was the site of the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.  Very cool. 

Chalmette Visitor Center



Barataria Visitor Center

Tomorrow we will head into Downtown New Orleans for the last site here in town. 



Park 190 Big Thicket National Preserve, Kountz, Texas

This was a stamp and run, based on the fact that the park is over several locations, and we were in a hurry-  The Visitors Center is located about 30 miles above I-10 that we were traveling on, so I unhooked and ran up and got the park stamp.  Also got a pin. 

Park 189 San Antonio Missions National Park, San Antonio Texas

Date of visit:  Sunday, March 4, 2012

Drove up to San Antonio today from Corpus Christi, about a two hour drive- 
There are four locations to this park, one of them was closed. 

They also count the Alamo as a part of the park, even though it doesn't officially count. I started at Mission San Jose, which is the main visitors center, and saw a 24 minute movie-  then, I was told that the ranger at Misson Conception was going to be out to lunch from 12-1.  I went there next anyway, and actually watched an actual Mass being held in the church, complete with mariachi players singing beautiful music.  I waited until 1:30 for the Ranger to show up, then said the heck with it and headed down to Mission Espada, since I was told that the Visitors Center for Mission San Juan was closed, but I could get the stamp for there at Espada.  I also tried to get 4 stamps for the Rio Grande de los Tejas trail, but only got one of them, as two of them were "broken" and San Juan was closed.  Wound up getting a total of 8 stamps, including 4 bonus stamps, and got a pin and a hiking medallion also.

Even though I had been to San Antonio probably 20 times before when I was in retail, I never before visited these sites-  Very impressive.  This essentially is a continuation of the El Camino Real Story, the story of the Spanish Mission influence in the great Southwest-  California has the 21 missions, and these were part of the South Texas Story.  Today also happened to be the best weather day we've had on the trip so far.  Temps today were 73- no wind, no humidity-  just a perfect day!!!