August 2020

100 Years

Published on August 26, 2020August 24, 2020 by Kathy Cherry1 Comment

100 years ago, on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was certified as part of the U.S. Constitution. The 19th Amendment protects women’s right to vote by prohibiting the federal and state governments from denying citizens from voting based on sex.

The National Park Service along with the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission and public media organization PRX partnered together to create a podcast, The Magic Sash, about the courageous suffragists who worked to secure the right to vote for American women.

Photo from nps.gov

According to the National Park Service, The Magic Sash is a journey back in time hosted by gold medal gymnast and advocate Aly Raisman. Join Lotty and Isaiah, two very modern fifth graders, as they meet iconic heroes of the movement for women’s right to vote and experience big moments in women’s suffrage first-hand.

It’s a great podcast for kids and adults to enjoy some history told in a fun manner. The web site even has lesson plans to go along with the podcast. Definitely check it out!

Click here for the episodes of this podcast to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment!

104!

Published on August 25, 2020August 18, 2020 by Kathy Cherry2 Comments

Check out who’s turning 104 years old! The National Park Service!

President Woodrow Wilson created the national park service (NPS) back on August 25, 1916.

The act stated that the NPS “is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

Pick a park to visit and celebrate this important birthday of these amazing treasures!

A Map!

Published on August 24, 2020August 24, 2020 by Kathy Cherry1 Comment

Check out a new map here I made of national park service units that I have visited over the years. When you hover it, you will see the name of the site and years visited. You can also click on the dot to link to the specific national park service’s website for more information on that particular park.

I can’t wait to add more dots to the map! 🙂 You can find this map on the main page of this blog under a tab at any time. Enjoy exploring!

A Day for Poems

Published on August 21, 2020August 19, 2020 by Kathy CherryLeave a comment

Happy Poetry Day! Poetry Day was founded by William Sieghart in 1994. He is a British philanthropist, entrepreneur, publisher, and founded Forward Prizes for Poetry.

If you live in the Vermont area, you can check out the Robert Frost Poetry Trail in the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park. On this trail, you get to read about 15 of his poems while enjoying this area.

Our national park system is filled with some pretty cool things! Even poems!

I’ll leave with you a poem that I wrote many, many years ago. There’s no date on it, but guessing middle or high school.

To celebrate today, write a poem (you can definitely do better than this smile poem!), read a poem, check out a poetry trail, or support your local library. Happy Poetry Day!

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

Published on August 18, 2020 by Kathy Cherry1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago, we ventured out of town for a few days and visited Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Given this trip was plan B for our summer vacation, it turned out really great!

Sequoia and Kings Canyon sit south of Yosemite National Park in California in the southern Sierra Nevadas. Sequoia is America’s second national park created in 1890.

In Sequoia National Park, the kids opted to check out General Sherman as our first adventure in the park. General Sherman stands as the earth’s largest tree in volume of total wood. It is 275 feet tall with a circumference of 103 feet. Its trunk weighs an estimated 1,385 tons! It’s also estimated to be 2,200 years old! Every year, General Sherman grows enough new wood to produce a 60 foot tall tree of usual size.

Over in Kings Canyon National Park, we checked out General Grant.

While these parks have the amazing giant trees, these two parks also showcase other diverse parts of nature. Enjoy a few photos of other parts of these parks:

We really enjoyed our time here! We did miss going to the visitor centers and listening to ranger talks, but the kids still learned new things and completed their junior ranger books that we printed out at home before our trip.

While most people drive on through these two parks in one day, you can easily spend multiple days here and enjoy the variety of landscapes and trails here. I’d highly recommend checking out these two parks if you’re in the area!

“In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” ~ John Muir

Great American Outdoors Act

Published on August 5, 2020 by Kathy Cherry1 Comment

Yay!!! Great news!

Yesterday, the President signed the Great American Outdoors Act into law. This measure guarantees maximum annual funding for a federal program to acquire and preserve land for public use.

This will drastically improve access to trails and public lands to conserve the places we all love to hike and address the long overdue maintenance needs that have resulted in trail closures at our National Parks, Forests, Refuges, and other public lands.

Two examples of many high priority deferred maintenance projects include:
– The Grand Loop and entrance roads at Yellowstone National Park are inadequate for current visitor needs. More than half of the park’s $586 million maintenance backlog is needed for long-overdue road repairs.
– The aging buildings at Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park in Georgia have $12 million in maintenance needs, including repair work at the Ebenezer Baptist Church where the late civil rights leader preached and where his funeral was held.

Two examples of many high priority conservation needs include:
– 470 acres of scenic, culturally significant lands at Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, including two parcels sacred to the Huna Tlingit people and one island parcel surrounded by marine wilderness with potential for camping, fishing, wildlife watching and other recreational pursuits.
– 153 acres at Big South Fork National Recreation Area in Kentucky and Tennessee that represent the most threatened tracts of land within the park. These lands provide refuge for a variety of threatened and endangered species and are especially vulnerable to development if not acquired through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

This new law will definitely help our public lands here!

Enjoy a moment of some pretty great news!