There’s something uniquely moving about the Korean War Veterans Memorial. The focal point is a series of nineteen stainless steel soldiers, in rain gear, moving through the muck.
That’s it. That’s all it is. No big, granite arches*, no marble columns, no big, bold, brash, sweeping landscapes. Just nineteen men, nameless men, marching through the slop, hoping to survive to get to the other side. To me, this monument is a stern reminder:
War isn’t about guns.
War isn’t about tanks.
It’s not about bombs or bullets or planes or ships. It’s not about politics or economies or resources or vendettas.
War is about people: the people who march, the people who fight, the people who hide, the people who flee, the people who live … and the people who die.
* I visited the site in 1998. A memorial wall was added in 2022, listing the names of Americans who died in the war, I have yet to see it at the time of this posting.
(I did not have a digital camera when I visited this site in 1998, the above picture is from the Department of Defense.)
Another tiny little site, out in the middle of nowhere. A small slice of land, barely four square miles, preserving a few reconstructed mud huts and a view of a minor Missouri River tributary. Fit for the occasional grammar school field trip and not much else.
Through all the denialism around environmental degradation and global warming, I’ve become convinced the human soul is incapable of understanding the concept of absence. We are quite capable of observing the world around us. We can see the moon and the stars and the distant mountains and the dandelions at our feet. We can see what we have, are enthralled by what the other guy has, and are intrigued by what might be hiding behind that mountain over yonder. What we can’t contemplate is what isn’t there. We can’t lament the old-growth forests of New England, because we’ve never seen one. They’ve been gone for decades, or even centuries. They’re not here, so we don’t miss them. Nobody cares that they’re gone.
A couple decades ago, there were a series of logging protests in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The locals were furious that a bunch of East Coast types flew out there to chain themselves to old-growth trees and interrupt logging. I can understand why they’d be pissed off. I would be pretty angry if some guy flew 1000 miles to get in my grill because I drove a foreign car or was an avowed atheist. But the folks of Idaho should understand something as well: we don’t have old growth forests on the East Coast any more. They’re gone. They’ve been gone for at least a hundred years if not two. The eastern United States is a scarred landscape, the result of clearcutting, mountaintop-removal mining, abandoned industrial complexes, sleazy strip malls, and horrid public housing projects. Most of the natural beauty in the east is gone, and gone forever. All we wanted was for the western states to preserve theirs before it, too, is gone.
This same idea applies to the native cultures of the Americas. They’re mostly gone, and those that remain have been scarred by decades and decades of suppression, poverty, extermination, and broken promises. They’re barely recognizable today. But we don’t understand what that really means. Indian reservations have been the way they are our entire lifetime, and for so many generations before us, that we can’t even fathom what native tribal life must have been like in the long, long ago. It’s unfathomable because it’s gone. Gone forever, there’s no bringing it back.
Imagine what life in America would have been if, instead of driving the native populations back and out, our forefathers decided to share the land with them. Would our country have developed any differently? Would we never have connected east-and-west with the Golden Spike? Would there still be American bison on the flatlands of Ohio? Would there be states in the Union with all-Native legislatures and Congressional representatives? What would the U.S. flag look like? What would our architecture look like? What would that great cultural tradition — rock & roll — sound like, infused not just with the minstrel songs of sharecroppers, the folk tunes of Dust Bowl migrants, and the swing of urban jazz, but also with the steady rhythms and chants of the Sioux? Wouldn’t that be kinda cool?
We’ll never know what the impact of Native American culture would have been on this country, on our government, on our society, or on our lives. And we can’t … because it’s gone.
[All pictures on this page are mine and thusly copyrighted.]
Poor Kings Canyon. At one point, it had a real patriotic name: General Grant National Park, named not after the Civil War victor, but after the General Grant, the second largest sequoia tree on earth (which is named after the Civil War victor). Back then, in 1890, the park only protected the Grant Grove itself. Decades later, after long battles, the rest of the canyon was protected with National Park status, under the boring moniker Kings Canyon National Park.
Kings Canyon gets no respect. It’s in the heart of California’s Sierra Nevada range, a truly beautiful part of the country, but, unfortunately, it’s sandwiched between two behemoths: Yosemite, with its magnificent valley and El Capitan, to the north, and Sequoia, with its groves of massive trees, to the south. Eventually, the NPS merged Kings Canyon with its southern neighbor, and, like Gracie to George Burns, it got second billing: Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. But I think that sucks. Kings Canyon deserves to stand alone, as its own National Park.
As usual, I visited Kings Canyon on a big road trip through a slew of National Park Service sites. Yosemite and Sequoia are grand places, to be sure, but they’re also grandly crowded. Yosemite, especially the valley area, were insufferable to drive through. People stopped for every spot of wildlife or beautiful vista, and the light dusting of snow on Day 1, although wonderfully esthetic, only made the drive more miserable. And Sequoia, well, the groves were not only crowded by noisy. All those tourists, yammering on an on. The mansplainers were completely insufferable.
Then I went to poor, disrespected Kings Canyon … and I loved it. Yes, it doesn’t have the grandeur of Yosemite. It doesn’t have the massive sequoia groves. But what it does have are great hikes, hikes where you can be alone if you want to be. I took a valley hike, and I think I only saw one other couple on the trail at all. While everyone else was scrambling for a spot in some scenic pullout, I was doing what I really love: walking in the woods, away from everything.
When you’re on your own tour of the western Sierras, don’t ignore Kings Canyon. It deserves your attention, your respect, and your feet, walking on its trails.
[Pictures on this post are mine and thusly copyrighted]
There are three categories of National Park tourists.
The first is the worst: the tourist. The tourist blunders in with their fancy RV, stumbles off some cruise ship, or barrels in on a pair of Harleys. They make a bunch of noise in the visitor’s center, take a high-speed trip through the scenic drive, perhaps (at best) reading 2-3 roadside signs before giving up and barreling off to some picnic area to uncork a bottle of wine, unscrew a bottle of cheap whiskey, or unpack a fistful of juice pops before nearly burning down a campground via an over-butaned charcoal grill.
The second is the polar opposite: the wildlander. These are the folks who truly revel in the hard-core activities: spending days backpacking or river rafting across varied terrains; performing a multi-hour rock traversals up the cliff face; or otherwise reveling in the true wonders of the park: the wilderness. I have full respect for these intrepid travelers, but because I like traveling alone, it would be incredibly dangerous for me. Plus I’m an immense coward.
So I nestle inside the middle group.
Mountains A La Mode
Parks are to be experienced. If you’re in Acadia, you bike the carriage trails. If you go to Key Biscayne, you snorkel the reefs. And if you go to Kenai Fjord, you hike the glaciers* and you kayak the fjords. That’s the Middle Group: find activities that let you experience the park in the few days you have to spend, and enjoy the sh*t out of them.
*Well, you don’t hike *on* the glaciers, that’s dangerous AF. You hike *to* the glaciers. Play safe, everyone.
The kayaking I did at Kenai was one of the best times I ever spent in a park, and I’ve been to well over 200 of them. First, it was a gorgeous day. The sky was so blue, the wind was light, the air was the perfect temperature. Second, the people were fantastic. I typically avoid commercialized park tours, they tend to be too expensive and too lame, but these tour operators were awesome. They were friendly, and helpful, and gave good information, but also knew how to shut up so folks could just enjoy sitting on the water and watch the puffins dive.
Beautiful Day
My fellow kayakers were really cool, too. There were seven of us in all, three couples and myself, and we didn’t know each other (well, hopefully the people in the couples knew each other, but hey, who am I to judge). But everyone was so chill and so interesting and so much fun to be around. It was just us and the puffins and the eagles and the sea lions: the perfect trip.
After the kayaking, we went back to Fox Island. There was supposed to just be some standard lunch, but instead there was some special end-of-season event going on, so we got the full grilled salmon treatment. I rarely remember what I ate on my trips, but that was so memorable. It was all fresh and cooked to perfection and there was no spoiling that day. I was even on-point with my photography that day (a super-rarity).
Photogenic Jay
After lunch, we hopped on a cruise boat for the standard, tourist trip through the fjords. That was … lame, but also hysterical. It’s kinda hard to get excited about tufted puffins or sea lions from 20′ up the side of a boat, when a couple of hours ago you were paddling right alongside them. So the group of us sat in the middle of the deck and chatted for the duration.
My trip to Alaska was, by far, the highlight of all my park trips. I need to go back, visit the panhandle, Aniakchak, and more. It’s a big state with a lot of parks, and I only hit the few with the most … tourists.
Tourists Marvel at the Wonders of Bird Shit Rock
[The photos on this post are mine and copyrighted thusly].
Many years ago, I started on a personal quest to visit every site in the U.S. National Park System. This is not an easy task, there are over 400 of them!! The journey has been a fascinating one. I have learned more about the natural world, American history, and the breadth and depth of our culture, than I ever thought I could have. On this blog, I’ll share experiences, observations, and insights from my trips. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay here, and I appreciate your comments and feedback!
States
America in Context Post Progress
NPS Sites: 406 (see FAQ)
Sites Visited: 249
Sites Blogged on AiC: 71
America In Context 