Central High School National Historic Site (September 3, 2000)

The same day we hit Hot Springs, we took the extra hour or so drive over to Little Rock to check out the Central High School site, where the Little Rock Nine first began the desegregation of Arkansas schools. The actual school is across the street from this site, made to look like a 50's gas station. The place was relatively new at the time (created in 1997, I believe) so I don't have an official passport picture of it yet. There wasn't even a sign, per se, so I took a picture of the front instead.

10 years late, the park service opened a new site and decided to turn this little place into an educational center of some sort. Too bad...I liked the look of the old one. :-(


Even before we got there, we both realized this was not a place to make jokes about. I was really impressed with way they had all the information laid out...a little chaotic, but still carrying the message...which, I suppose would be a fairly accurate description of the times.

The picture above is the actual school, which had a real imposing look to it. I always forget that the old schools looked more like fortresses than warm and friendly hallowed halls of learning. It takes up that whole block, which was still pretty big for the 50's, and it took me 3 shots to create a panoramic view of it (too big to show here).The woman who was at the main site was from Texas, so she told us a lot about the site. Apparently, even after all this time, there were a lot of people who DIDN'T want this to be a historic site because it would stir up old news and such. Pres. Clinton made it so, but it made quite a few Arkansanians unhappy.

The pic to the right happened later. It's a pic of my camera strap (grumble) and more importantly, a HUGE tree that back in 1957 had a black person hung in effigy on it. It was hit by lightning a few weeks before we came. God does NOT like racial hatred, folks...

On our NEXT trip...

...I speak softly, but forget my camera at Roosevelt's place.

Hot Springs National Historical Park (September 3, 2000)

Our fourth park trip came when we headed east to Hot Springs National Park for the Labor Day weekend. Being only Labor Day weekend in the Southwest, it was still INCREDIBLY hot, which makes the idea of going to a place actually CALLED Hot Springs a little stupid. But, hey, we were going for the closest stamps, not the smartest! Hot Springs is an entire town with stuff all over to look at, but here's the sign first:







Here's a great shot of Kevin standing by this...uh...this hole in the ground. This hole was famous for its, uh...holey-ness and because, uh....it's been there a long time, this hole.
In Hot Springs.
Um...there was hot water in it, too.
Did I mention it was in Hot Springs...?
Okay, this officially qualifies as the stupid pic of the trip!

The bath houses were the big draw of Hot Springs (and still are).

Back when good health was the craze in the 1800's, people flocked here for the "healing" aspects of the hot springs (yes, there's actually a hot spring under the city, in case I hadn't already mentioned it!).

These places were the resorts of their day, as you can tell by the photos .

Ooo, ooo, ooo…did I mention they had big SHINY THINGS???? One of the other draws of the Hot Springs area are the “diamonds”, which are really just hunks of quartz with points at both ends like a diamond. They also had table upon table full of the blue shiny glass that I love…apparently the world’s biggest Coke bottle had shattered nearby…!

My favorite pic, however, is right from the hotel room. I love how the town is just snugly nestled into the Ouachita Mountains! If not for the inherent danger most of the rural parts of the Appalachians has for me, we'd probably be living in a log cabin snuggled into a mountainside with a ton of trees ourselves (of course, 2 outta 3 ain't bad...got the trees and the cabin now)!

The nice thing about Arkansas is that it's not that big a deal to drive it, so we were able to make two parks in one on this trip: Hot Springs and Central High School.

Lyndon B. Johnson NHP (April 23, 2000)

We lived in Dallas back in 2000, so on our way home, we decided to stop off in Johnson City for the Lyndon B. Johnson NHP. I decided taking shots of the signs for each park might help when I put them into albums, so here's our first park sign (don't remember if the museum under the Arch even HAD one!).
This picture is one of the first where we decided we might have a little fun with history. Somewhere on the land where the Johnson ranch and boyhood home was, we saw this outhouse outside and...well...

It is important to note that no historical outhouses were ACTUALLY harmed or defiled in the making of this picture. This is a simulated dump...had this been an actual dump, you would have been highly offended and we'dve been arrested! ;-)

Seriously, this seemed like a hilarious idea at the time...!

From this point on, it became a point of (dis)honor to take at least one stupid pic at every park site we went to!

On our NEXT trip...

...our trip to Hot Springs and the "hole in the ground"...

San Antonio Missions NHP & The Alamo (April 22, 2000)

After I got the "park bug", we started planning Spring Break around places that had national parks and roller coasters (not always in that order, but pretty close!). San Antonio has Fiesta Texas and the Missions Trail NHP, so this worked out great! Again, this was a little before we decided to get goofy with our national history, so your standard "The Two of Us At (insert place here" pic is just above. To the right is the actual passport page and cancellation stamp.





There's about 5 missions to visit, not including the Alamo (which was also a mission) and some of them are still used for church services! The pic below is of me in the outer hall of Mission Concepcion, where the stamp location is.

On our NEXT trip...
...we discover that the "b" in "LBJ" might stand for something more rudimentary...!

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (March 13, 2000)

This was our first trip, so we didn't really take any silly pics. We were up visiting my uncle in my adopted hometown of St. Louis (born in Tallahassee, but moved to St. Lois when I was a year old). It was on this trip that I first saw the Passport to Your National Parks book (right). The pic above is actually up on the observation deck overlooking the Mississippi River, the Illinois side (East St. Louis) and the whole downtown St. Louis area.







Here's a great shot of the Gateway Arch from the ground with Kevin and also from above. The actual museum is underground between the Arch's legs. The coolest part is you go up in these little eggs with about 5 other people to the top (not the best plan for those of you who're more claustrophobic or more accident prone than I...I cracked my head 3 times on the curve wall behind me when I misjudged and leaned back!).









This shot really shows you how big these legs actually ARE...and this is only one SIDE! The legs are basically triangular, so you've got three sides a lot like this one.

On our NEXT trip...

...we find there is little separation between church and thrill ride in San Antonio.

How It All Began...

Kevin and I have been collecting cancellation stamps for the national parks since spring break of 2000 (March 13^th, to be exact). That was the day I decided against the magnets, shot glasses and spoons sold at the gift shop under the Gateway Arch and decided to buy my first Passport book. No matter where we go, when we get to a historical place, we take pictures for the kids in my class that year, but my favorite ones are part of a series that someday senators at some official hearing will be calling the "Mr. Burke Defiles History Affair".

It all began simply enough...all the kids in every class I've ever had adore my husband, so they love to see pictures of him being silly. Plus, I have this problem with some of the park statues. I LOVE those lifelike ones...but they TOTALLY creep me out, so I'm never brave enough to stand near one. So, some of our pics are just of Kevin interacting with the statues, not really doing anything harmful, while others...well, let's just take a look, shall we?