This year is the centennial of the US National Park Service! If you've ever been to any of the parks you know how amazing they are! If you haven't gone to one yet or just need to get your nature fix in head over to the National Parks website at Find Your Park and head to one soon!
To celebrate there was a special Ranger Mickey topiary at this years Flower and Garden Festival. I LOVED it!!! It reminded me of my Wilderness Explorer days and made me so happy to get the exposure of our beautiful parks to all of the Disney goers out there. On the weekends there was even a small booth nearby that was maned be people from the NPS and there occasionally was a ranger dressed in their uniform nearby! They were hoping to connect people to a park that may be near them and hand out goodies like temporary tattoos, stickers and sunglasses. I chose the elk tattoo since the Rockies are some of my favorite parks and even got a sticker to display at my desk!
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| Temporary tattoo from National Park Service Booth at Flower and Garden |
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| Roommates and I in front of Ranger Mickey celebrating National Park Service Centennial |
When my family came to visit in May we were even able to find my first park in Florida. I know, I know. It's a shame that I have been here two years and still haven't made it to the Everglades, but I hope to cross that off later this year. One of the days my parents were here we decided to venture over to St. Augustine. I hope to do another post on our overall experience there, but the great thing is that we were able to head over to the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. It was SOOOO cool. I can't say it is anything like Yellowstone (but that is a National Park and not a monument) but it was so cool to visit a Fort that had so much history.
The monument was originally a fort built by the Spanish and is the oldest masonary fort in the continental United States. The fort walls were beautiful as they are made with a unique rock called Coquina, which is largely made of little shells. It was crazy being in the rooms and seeing the walls with thousands upon thousands of shells! The fort sits on a beautiful site on the bay and gave amazing views. At first the fort didn't look like much from the outside, but inside I learned a ton about the history of St. Augustine and even was able to see a cannon firing demonstration! The day we visited was extremely hot, so we picked up some water from the gift shop and they even had a water bottle refill station inside that reminded me of my days at the Detroit Zoo.
Overall it was a really great experience and I totally recommend it if you are in town. I even picked up a new limited edition Park Passport. I totally recommend getting these. I have a little one from when I was growing up and it is so much fun to get all the stamps from where you visit. My old one was getting full so I talked myself into buying a new bigger one for the Centennial. It even has nice descriptions and maps of all the Parks, Lakeshores, Preserves, Monuments, etc all over the US so you can #FindYourPark!
Find Your Park and National Park Service Centennial pictures are from www.NPS.gov
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