Mike Evans, a welder, at the rip tracks at Proviso yard of the Chicago and Northwest Railway Company. Chicago, Illinois, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
Archive for November 2013
Portraits: The Welder, 1943 Leave a comment
Lincoln at Gettysburg 2 comments
Painting by Fletcher C Ransom, currently held by the Library of Congress. This depicts Lincoln delivering his 2 minute speech on November 19, 1863. He lamented that the speech had been a great failure.
History has proven otherwise.
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National Archives: Rare Photo of Lincoln At Gettysburg
Isle Royale National Park 1 comment
Where Is It: From National Geographic:
Isle Royale is 56 miles from the Michigan mainland, 18 miles from Minnesota’s shore, 2 hours or 22 miles from Grand Portage. Airports: Houghton, Michigan and Duluth, Minnesota.
The Birth: This remote island was rumored to be rich in copper deposits in 1843, and miners descended on the island … and were all gone when the last mine closed in 1893. Tourism tried to take hold in the 1890s, but it was largely gone by the 1920s. It was then that Albert Stoll, a writer for the Detroit News, wrote articles about the island and began a movement to make it a National Park. Congress passed enabling legislation in 1931. Today, the Park is one of the least visited of America’s National Parks.
It Happened Here: Isle Royale is home to about one-third of the breeding common loon population in Michigan, where the species is listed by the state as threatened, and contains the only documented loon nesting areas on the Lake Superior shoreline.
Size: The Park covers 894 square miles … 209 of which are above water.
# Visitors: 16,663 visitors in 2012. Attendance peaks in July/August, and is inconsequential November – March.
Plants: From Wikitravel:
The island is mostly forested in a mixture of boreal and northern hardwood ecosystems, with a selection of conifer (spruce, fir, pine) and deciduous (birch, aspen, maple, ash) trees. Past human habitation has left some apple trees behind. Marsh vegetation is more common in the west, but found in low spots everywhere. A wide variety of orchids and wildflowers can be found throughout the island. Berries grow wild; blueberries can be found on open ridge tops, and thimbleberries (with maple-like leaves bigger than your hand; white flowers in early summer, red berries in late summer) grow seemingly everywhere.
Animals: From Wikipedia:
Isle Royale National Park is known for its wolf and moose populations which are studied by scientists investigating predator-prey relationships in a closed environment. This is made easier because Isle Royale has been colonized by roughly just one third of the mainland mammal species, due to it being so remote. In addition, the environment is unique in that it is the only known place where wolves and moose coexist without the presence of bears
There are usually around 25 wolves and 1000 moose on the island, but the numbers change greatly year to year. In rare years with very hard winters, animals can travel over the frozen lake from the Canadian mainland. To protect the wolves from canine diseases, dogs are not allowed in any part of the park, including the adjacent waters. In the 2006-2007 winter, 385 moose were counted, as well as 21 wolves, in three packs. In spring 2008, 23 wolves and approximately 650 moose were counted.
Choices: Also from Wikipedia:
The park has two developed areas:
Windigo, at the southwest end of the island (docking site for the ferries from Minnesota), with a campstore, showers, campsites, and a boat dock.
Rock Harbor on the south side of the northeast end (docking site for the ferries from Michigan), with a campstore, showers, restaurant, lodge, campsites, and a boat dock. Non-camping sleeping accommodations at the park are limited to the lodge at Rock Harbor
Fees: $4 per person, per day.
Staying There: Campsites are available for no charge, but limit stays from 1 to 5 nights. Facilities vary by site.
Contact Info:
800 East Lakeshore DriveHoughton, Michigan 49931-1896
(906) 482-0984
Current Issues: Two wolves were born here this year … bringing the island population to 10.
Don’t Miss This: From CNN Travel:
Stoll Trail. Named for journalist Albert Stoll, who campaigned to get the island’s preserved status, the 4.3-mile loop begins at Rock Harbor on the eastern side of the island and brings visitors to Scoville Point and back. The trail winds back and forth between forest and shoreline, offering stunning views of Scoville Lake, craggy bluffs and barrier islands.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
Sunset on Siskiwit Lake. From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
Fireweed. From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
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Traffic Jam 14 comments
Traffic jam in the Yellowstone National Park. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 11/16/13.
The Art Of Music, Redefined 1 comment
There’s a new radio station that’s trying a new format: all of the hits, edited to two minutes in length. They can play 25 songs an hour and still have time for commercials & such. More music ever hour! Well, no, it’s really just more songs every hour.
Because we don’t have time to listen to the whole song.
You won’t have any trouble streaming the Catching Fire soundtrack today … even though you can’t buy the “album” until the “official release” on 11/19/13.
Just like we don’t have time to listen to the whole album … in fact, the album is dying. As the article from Variety attests (link below), it’s not that the album is dead already. Not really. But it has surely been mortally wounded by the iPod and the return of the single as the only thing most consumers will buy. The idea that we want to listen to a band’s 45 minute work of art is now seen as … quaint. Old fashioned.
Most people don’t bother to buy albums: they buy individual tracks from iTunes. They listen to music from radio, or from a streaming service like Spotify or Pandora. The idea that pop music artists have to create a multi-track body of work, and then release it in a group of ten or twelve tracks doesn’t embrace the realities of today’s marketplace. As Brad Hill points out in Friday’s RAIN (link below), the concept of an album has gotten a lot fuzzier with the introduction of digital releases that are not driven by a single piece of vinyl or plastic.
This is the album cover for The Who’s Tommy, released in 1969. The movie soundtrack – with performances by Eric Clapton, Elton John, Tina Turner, Jack Nicholson and Ann-Margaret, followed in 1975.
Rock & Roll developed with bands that “made it” getting to do a concept album, like The Who’s Tommy that spawned a movie. There is no equivalent to that kind of artistic commitment in today’s marketplace … record labels won’t fund it. Bands won’t fund it.
Will consumers buy it? We won’t know until someone decides they need to follow their muse and fulfill their artistic vision – a vision that cannot be fully realized in one 2-and-a-half minute song.
There’s nothing wrong with just playing the hits. It will be interesting, though, to see if long-form music will make a retail come back and again become a part of consumers’ listening habits.
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Dripping Springs Leave a comment
Dripping Springs in New Mexico. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 11/14/13.
Losing Our Hearts 1 comment
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
I’m a guy. That means I don’t enjoy shopping as much as some. Mainly, those of the fairer sex.
Given that I do not enjoy shopping as much as some … the news this week that Black Friday has become Black Thursday is simply wrong.
I understand that brick and mortar retailers are afraid. The reality, though, is that they think they must force their employees to work on what is a widely recognized holiday in order to make another dollar in profits.
The employees must support this corporate goal, or risk losing their jobs.
And we, as a society, lose a little bit of our soul. Giving thanks? No longer as important.
I will not support these business through the holiday season, as they believe their profits are more important than our cultural tradition of giving thanks.
Oh, and the Old Navy Stores? The worst of the worst.
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USA Today: Retail Thanksgiving Store Opening Times
NBC News: Retailers Sweeten The Pot
Shenandoah National Park 3 comments
Where Is It: Washington, DC is 62 miles from the Front Royal entrance. Richmond, VA is 87 miles from the South entrance.
The Birth: From National Parks Traveler:
It was long before President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated Shenandoah on December 26, 1936, perhaps as many as 9,000 years ago, that the rumpled landscape of mountains, hollows, ridge-tops, and valleys were home to Native Americans, who later were replaced by hardy white settlers who scraped out a living from the land.
Much like the settlers of Great Smoky, the Virginians had a hard life of farming the thin mountain soil and living off the land. When the Great Depression struck in the 1920s, it was a death knell for the local communities. Between the Depression and the parks movement, many of the communities vanished from the landscape. Some remnants — old orchards, stone fence lines — linger, though time is slowly taking them over.
In 1926, Congress authorized the park, under the condition that no federal funds be used to purchase the land. The State of Virginia slowly acquired land along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains, forming a 100-mile-long swath of parkland. Shenandoah National Park was born.
Shenandoah’s struggles were far from over, however. Even before the park was officially created, National Park Service officials were discussing segregation. Jim Crow laws forced the agency to create black-only visitor centers, campgrounds, and even picnic areas. Slowly, though, the Civil Rights Movement broke down many of those barriers. Still, traces of black-only signs and buildings can be found in the park, slowly fading away. A new exhibit in the Byrd Visitor Center tells the story of segregation in the park.
While today’s presidents often head to Camp David to flee Washington, D.C., back in the 1920s a similar retreat was established at Shenandoah. In fact, it was President Herbert Hoover who put the location on the political map with his frequent retreats to a small, woodsy compound first known as Camp Rapidan and later referred to simply as Camp Hoover.
It Happened Here: From National Geographic.com:
Shenandoah National Park was built by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a government jobs program created during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Workers constructed the rock walls, overlooks, picnic grounds, campgrounds, trails, and the Skyline Drive. They also planted the mountain laurel that lines the road, and built more than 340 structures in the park, many now listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The work of the CCC is commemorated by a statue of a CCC worker, Iron Mike.
Size: 197,411 acres
# Visitors: 1,210,200 in 2012. Attendance peaks in July/August, and is at the lowest in December/January.
Plants: From the NPS website:
The park’s Mid-Atlantic location straddles conditions of both the Northern and Southern Appalachian mountains allowing everything from lichens to oak trees to thrive. Over 1400 species of vascular plants are found in the park, though fewer than one hundred of these are the familiar trees and shrubs most noticeable to park visitors. The forests within Shenandoah National Park are generally classified as “oak-hickory”, yet they contain far more than just oak and hickory trees to discover. The park’s 70 mile length and 3500 foot elevation range create numerous habitats able to support a variety of forest cover types.
Animals: You can see big mammals in the park such as deer and bear … but there are also over 200 species of birds that live in, or migrate through, the Park. 18 species of warblers breed in the Park. Year-round species include tufted titmice, Carolina chickadees and barred owls.
Choices: From Wikipedia:
The park is best known for Skyline Drive, a 105 mile (169 km) road that runs the entire length of the park along the ridge of the mountains. The drive is particularly popular in the fall when the leaves are changing colors. 101 miles (162 km) of the Appalachian Trail are also in the park. In total, there are over 500 miles (800 km) of trails within the park. Of the trails, one of the most popular is Old Rag Mountain, which offers a thrilling rock scramble and some of the most breathtaking views in Virginia. There is also horseback riding, camping, bicycling, and many waterfalls.
Fees: $10 per vehicle, December – February. $15 per vehicle, March – November.
Staying There: Shenandoah has two main lodges as well as visitor cabins available. Camping is available in both the back country and the front country.
Contact Info:
3655 Hwy 211 EastLuray, VA 22835 Information Line: (540) 999-3500
Current Issues: The Park banned all outside firewood in 2010 in an effort to slow the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer, which has killed millions of ash trees.
Don’t Miss This:
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 11/5/13.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
Dawn in the Park. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 4/10/14.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
On a recent dewey early morning, this beautiful two-foot wide web caught my eye. The Black and Yellow Argiope Spider (argiope aurantia) is commonly called a garden spider. They are quite large (up to 2 1/2 inches) and are called orb weavers because they begin weaving the web at the center, spiraling out toward the edges. From the Park’s Facebook page.
Pandora Sphinx Moth. From the Park’s Facebook page.
No filter necessary for this stunning photo from Hazel Mountain Overlook. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 10/30/13.
An American Lady butterfly. From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
Have you seen this blue tailed beauty while hiking? Juvenile five-lined skinks use their bright blue to tails to distract predators away from vital parts of their body. If threatened, the skink will dive into leaf litter to conceal its self and leave its tail exposed in order to distract the predator. The skink will detach its tail in order to escape. When the five-lined skink reaches maturity the blue tail changes to gray-brown. From the Park’s Facebook page.
White Oak Canyon is one of the most popular hikes in the park, with several waterfalls and cascades to enjoy along the way. The parking area and trail head is near mile post 42. The upper falls (shown above) can be hiked as an out and back hike from Limberlost trail head, or can be linked as part of an 8.2 mile loop, rated strenuous. From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 2/11/14.
Sunrise. March 9, 2014. Posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior on 3/11/14.
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National Park Service: Shenandoah National Park
Terra Galleria: Shenandoah National Park
Star Gazing Leave a comment
Star gazing at the Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge, at the southern edge of the Salton Sea. The Refuge is about 2 hours from San Diego, and 40 miles north of the Mexican border. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 11/7/13.
Point Arena at Sunset 2 comments
Point Arena is about 2 hours north of San Francisco. Oh, the light in the photo. I love photos taken when the light turns golden at sunset. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 11/10/13.
