The Adventures of Kinky Reggae: A Vagabond for Beauty

Today was a marathon of stamps and selfies, mainly for the purposes of winning this contest. (I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned the contest on my blog, but the goal is to post a picture of yourself at every park site you visit between June and September, and whoever has the most wins a trip to a national park of their choice. I feel like I might actually have a chance! But it means feeling stupid and taking lots of selfies.) So, oddly enough, there are a bunch of sites that count for the contest that don’t have stamps/aren’t in the passport book. For those sites, I just stopped by briefly for a picture and then took off. I made it to ten sites today! I felt like I was cheating with this one, so I didn’t get a stamp here. When I got here, the line was almost to the end of the block, which I kinda figured it would be after my experience at Independence Hall. Even if I had been able to get tour tickets, I probably would have been able to get them till later in the day, and I didn’t want

This was the best day!!!! Allison and her fiancé, Damon, were totally on board with helping me get as many stamps as possible, especially when they found out I could potentially win a prize for visiting all these parks. They were also happy to do some sight-seeing because they hadn’t seen all of these places before, so it would be good research for when they have future guests in town. This day would not have been as fun if I hadn’t had such amazing company. These two are such a great couple! They keep me laughing and have really intelligent conversations about everything under the sun.  We started out in the LBJ Memorial Grove. This was kind of hilarious because there was just a plain granite monolith there. There were some quotes carved into the ground around it, but the words were partially obscured by plants.  Theodore Roosevelt Island National Memorial was a pleasant surprise! It reminded me of the lakefront in Chicago- tons of people riding bikes and walking their dogs and there

I can’t believe I’m even writing about this one, but I promised myself I was going to do better at documenting each park. When I looked up the cancellation location for this river, there was one available in Philadelphia. So, I assumed I could visit this park on Friday, along with Independence Hall. Well. Turns out this river does not actually flow through Philadelphia. I spent a while on Google Maps and finally found a park next to the river where I could go take some pictures. Unfortunately, it was 45 minutes out of my way. But whatever, I’ll do what it takes! I was so surprised to see this. How on earth was this designated a scenic and recreational river?? Maybe it gets better further downstream. Then I had to go back into the city to visit Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial. It is the smallest National Park unit! He was a Polish guy who was apparently very valuable to the American Revolution- brilliant strategist. He went back to Poland after the war, led an unsuccessful fight a