Cathy & Jan's Travels: Our 2012 Travels Wrap Up

New York City skyline in the afternoon sun. The large building being built to the left is One World trade Center - to be completed this year (2013) and will be the largest building in the Western Hemisphere at a height of 1776 ft.

Last year we completed our most ambitious year in our 10 years of extensive RVing and are now taking a much needed rest during the winter in Dickinson, Texas (a small community between Houston & Galveston). First of all, here are some photos left over from our visit in the New York area and some highlights of the last part of our travels (our trip after leaving New York City on our way back to Texas).

Camping in Greenbelt Park in Washington, DC. This is a very large wilderness type park that is one of the National Park Service sites, is just a few miles from downtown, and cost only $8 per night. It was nice to come back to our RV in such a quiet setting each night after being in the very busy DC area.

Visiting all of the main monuments/memorials in DC and admiring the new ones that we had not seen before: the extensive FDR Memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, the National World War II Memorial, the Women in Vietnam Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial in the Constitution Gardens.

Going to the top of the Old Post Office Tower to get a great view of DC from a different place.

Visiting the Ford Theater and the house across the street (the Petersen Boarding house) where Lincoln died.

In Virginia, enjoying visits to the historic Jamestowne site (especially the glass blowing demo), Jefferson’s Monticello, and Patrick Henry’s Red Hill. We, however, thought that Williamsburg was too commercialized.

We were very glad to complete our visiting of so many of the U.S. Civil War Battlefields that are part of the National park Service. Over & over we were reminded of the overwhelming devastating loss of lives there were in all of the numerous battles (a recent estimate now puts it at 750,000 died (half from disease or lingering wounds).

And finally, many refreshing visits at National Wildlife Refuges in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, & Oklahoma on our way back to Texas – especially the Patuxent National Research Center in Maryland where they have an extensive project to raise young Whooping Crane chicks and then teach them to migrate with ultra light aircraft.

During our travels in 2012 we reached three of our long time goals that we had set for ourselves during our travels in the United States & Canada.

The first major goal was to complete extensively visiting all of the Canadian Provinces and territories (except Nunavut which is in the far northeast and is very difficult to reach only by airplane or boat trip). We completed this goal when we spent 2 wonderful months in Newfoundland and 1 month in the part of Nova Scotia that we had not previously visited. What a wonderful and beautiful country Canada is! We will be back again – especially to Newfoundland & British Columbia in the coming years.
The second major goal was to photo all of the lighthouses that are easy to reach (or at least can be seen to take a photo) in Canada & the United States. We completed traveling thru the last 3 remaining places that we had left (Newfoundland, most of Nova Scotia, and the East Coast (from Virginia thru Massachusetts). All in all, we took photos of 300 additional lighthouses in 2012 to bring our overall total to over 1,210. There are still well over 100 lighthouse left in the US and Canada, but most of these are on islands far from shore, require a very long hike to get to it, or is in inaccessible places like nuclear power plants. This does not mean that we are going to stop our lighthouse quest. Instead, we will just plan to take an occasional special boat trip etc. to see them 1 at a time instead of many of them in a day.
The third major goal we reached this year was to visit and collect passport stamps at all of the 360 National Park Service sites in the continental United States. These sites (National Parks, National Monuments, Civil War Battlefields, and other Historic places) are found in all 48 states and cover from the northwest (San Juan Island National Historic Park in Washington State) to the southeast (Dry Tortugas National Park (60 miles west of Key West, FL); and from the northeast( Saint Croix Island International Historic site (between Maine and Canada to the southwest (Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, CA); and from the south (Palo Alto Battlefield in Brownsville, TX) to the north (Voyageurs National Park in Northern Minnesota). We feel so fortunate to have experienced such natural beauty and to learn so much history of the United States along the way.

This does not, however, complete our overall journey to visit all of the National Park Service Sites. There are now 398 total sites, which leaves 27 left to go (we have already visited 11 of the 22 sites in Alaska). The remaining ones are: 11 in Alaska, 7 in Hawaii, 1 in Guam, 1 in America Samoa, 1 in Puerto Rico, 3 in the Virgin Islands, and a brand new one recently added in California (Cesar Chavez National Monument). Since many of these are remote and expensive to get to, we think that we will concentrate on the ones in Hawaii, a couple of the Alaska ones, the new one in California, and then just maybe the ones in the Virgin Islands.

So now you ask, what is there left to do now that you have taken photos of most of the lighthouses in Canada & the US plus visited most of the National Park Service sites? Well, we still have over 400 possible National Wildlife Refuges to visit & we want to revisit many of the National Parks (especially in the west). We plan to cut back on our traveling (especially extensive side trips to see lighthouses etc.) and are planning to volunteer at State Parks, National Parks, or National Wildlife Refuges.

We hope that you will have a great year in 2013.

New London Ledge lighthouse - near New London, CT harbor

Montauk Point lighthouse - southeastern tip of Long Island

Fire Island lighthouse - In Fire Island National Seashore on Long Island

View of Statue of Liberty from Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. Note: The light at the top of the statue is an aid to navigation & is therefore a lighthouse.

Seven Foot Knoll lighthouse in Baltimore harbor - originally built in Chesapeake Bay on the Seven Foot Shoals near the mouth of the Patapsco River near Baltimore.