Beyond the Scenery

Park News

Get ready to celebrate America’s 250^th birthday in the national parks!

         In November, 1775 the British still held Boston in a siege. As George Washington and other Continental Army commanders pondered how the break the hold. For one thing, they needed more weaponry. Colonel Henry Knox had a brilliant suggestion: what about the cannons and other artillery left behind by the British when the patriot fighters took over New York’s Fort Ticonderoga earlier in the year?

         That same month, Washington dispatched Knox to retrieve what was left in the fort. Joining them were the heroes of that take-over, Benedict Arnold and the Green Mountain Boys, led by Ethan Allen.

         The problem, as you can imagine, lugging 59 cannon and mortars back to Boston. But in 56 days, Knox and the others did, moving the artillery 300 miles, using heavy sleds and teams of oxen, and arriving in Boston in January 1776.

         Stay tuned for my March post, in which I relate the rest of the story…

         Also that January, the pamphlet Common Sense was published, at first anonymously, but its author was soon identified as Thomas Paine. He was born in England, yet became a staunch supporter of American independence.

         In his 47-page leaflet, which sold an astonishing 500,000 copies, Paine emphasized not just resistance, but breaking off from Great Britain and forming a new nation. As an author of a book about Paine put it, “He encouraged [the colonists] to realize they weren’t British, they were Americans.”

         Common Sense also put more pressure on the Continental Congress to take the final step of formally declaring independence.

Great places to go in the Park Service in Winter

• Yellowstone National Park, which straddles Wyoming and Montana, has about 10,000 geothermal features, including around half the world’s geysers. features in the world, and in the icy cold, the hot steam arising from them is a spectacular sight.
• New Jersey’s Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park creates a dazzling display of shimmering ice and frosty mist when temps plummet.
   
• Full moon hikes are popular in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, held every month in the year, but through March, you can do so wearing snowshoes; rent them at a venue just outside the park (the snowpack depth must be greater than 16”, though).
  
• And now for a warm one: Death Valley National Park’s brutal heat abates in the winter, with the thermostat usually hovering around 60-70 degrees, although overnights can dip into the freezing zone. The season’s cool, crisp air means it’s a great time to observe the night skies. Another plus at this California spot during January-February is less visitors.

Free Days!

         More days in 2026 in which to enter those National Park Service sites that charge admission:

• • Presidents Day, February 16
  • Memorial Day, May 25
  • Flag Day, June 14
  • Independence Day weekend, July 3-5
  • The 110^th birthday of the Park Service, August 25
  • Constitution Day, September 17, the anniversary of its signing in 1787
• • Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday, October 27; as president, he greatly expanded the number of recreational lands in the U.S.
  • Veterans Day, November 11

What I’m working on in 2026

         One thing is a book on praising God, a non-fiction book. A project that I’ve been doing, on and off for a looong time, is an historical fiction book inspired by my great-grandfather’s flight from Germany. It’s a story very dear to my heart, and I’m determined to pitch it to my editor this year. Below are the opening paragraphs. Do you think this is something you'd read? Let me know!

Rudi stood on the rain-washed deck, wincing as his hands gripped the worn wooden edge, still damp from the squall that had moved in earlier. Though hardened from farming, his palms ached after only two days at sea. Shoveling a seemingly limitless supply of coal into the voracious fire deep in the Europa’s belly for hours on end was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.

There was no more land, just water as far as he could see, disturbed only by the boat making its way through the now-smooth surface, leaving little white, foamy waves in its wake. He watched idly as birds, their wings spread wide, swooped and dived in search of fish.

His old world was gone. He wouldn’t see another speck of solid earth again for another fifteen days, maybe longer if more bad weather followed them across the Atlantic Ocean.

His eyes shifted to the horizon, the sun slowly dropping into the ocean, and impatiently brushed away the wisp of hair persistently blowing in his eyes. At least the ship wasn’t pitching up and down as much as before, and his stomach had settled down—for now. Gaining his sea legs was another story. His fellow fireman, especially the sour-breathed Franz, and other seasoned seamen enjoyed poking fun at his unsteady footing while he worked. They laughed even more at his drunken-like gait as he lurched from one handhold to the next along the narrow corridors as the ship navigated the rolling sea.

A cool breeze rippled over his bare arms and sweat-soaked body, carrying a light ocean spray, a welcome relief to his heat-scorched cheeks. Despite the balmy, pleasant evening, though, he couldn’t stop the shiver that ran through him. The terror of the previous week was too fresh in his mind.

In this precious, secluded spot on the boat, in the fading light of a July twilight in 1870, Rudi deliberately shut out the distant shouts of the crew, the three enormous, snapping canvas sails high above him, and the massive paddlewheels’ deep groanings. He shook his head slightly, hardly believing that instead of helping his father in the fields, he was hundreds of kilometers away, on his way to a place he’d never dreamed of, not knowing what would happen when he got there. He’d never sought adventure, never craved anything but what he had. Yet now he found himself on the run.

Happy New Year!

         When Solomon considered life’s seemingly endless sameness in Ecclesiastes chapter 1, he lamented, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  But his summary is this: “I know that there is no good but for one to rejoice, and to do good in this life. And also that everyone should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all one’s labor, it is the gift of God…Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear [Reverence] God and keep His commandments: for this is our duty” (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13, 12:13; see also 3:22, 5:18-20, 9:7-10).

We find comfort in the dependable rhythms of life, yet we also crave the new and different as well. And God understands that. Revelation 21:5 says, “He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’” A new start doesn’t come just on January 1—God makes every moment new.

And Jesus showed us a “new and living way” to a close relationship with Him (Hebrews 10:20). Because of Him, we can walk in “newness of life” (Romans 6:4) any time of the year. And that is my prayer for you, that if you haven’t already, you would ask the Lord for the new spirit He longs to give you (Ezekiel 11:19).

PARK NEWS

America’s 250^th anniversary in the National Park Service

          On the march toward celebrating the sesquicentennial of the signing of Declaration of Independence is the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which took place on June 17, 1775.

While this clash between the British and American forces is named for the highest knoll in the hilly terrain of Charlestown, just north of Boston, the combat actually happened on a mound closer to the Charles River, Breed’s Hill.

         In the wake of levies imposed by Great Britain on the American colonies—“taxation without representation”—local militias began stashing guns, ammunition, and other essentials in towns surrounding Boston. Some of these soldiers were known as “minutemen,” ready for battle “at a minute’s notice.”

         When Massachusetts’ royal governor, General Thomas Gage, caught word of this, he sent troops to investigate, leading to the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which I mentioned in my April post.

         This stirred other colonies to action, with New England men—whites, enslaved and free Blacks, and Natives—to gather in Massachusetts, where they expected more encounters with British troops stationed in Boston. They encircled the city, and when they learned the British planned to break through to take the strategic Dorchester Heights to the north and Charlestown Heights to the south, the colonist troops used the cover of darkness to construct an earthen fort atop Breed’s Hill on the night of June 16.

         As dawn broke the next morning, British General William Howe led an assault on the fort, while the British Navy fired off cannon. But the ships couldn’t get close enough to do much good, and the colonists, who knew the boggy terrain much better than their enemies, dug in. Reinforcements arrived to back them up. Howe’s soldiers advanced, and came under heavy fire.

         Howe withdrew, regrouped, and breached the fort, resulting in close combat. The colonists, tired and low on ammunition, retreated. The British chased them as far as Bunker Hill, but neither side mounted any further attack.

         In the two-hour battle, the first major encounter between the two forces, the British had 1,054 causalities, the colonists only an estimated 450. The town of Charlestown was destroyed, but the conflict served to unite the thirteen colonies as never before. Another outcome was the appointment by the Continental Congress, established by American colony governments to organize resistance to British rule, of General George Washington to form and command a Continental Army. I’ll talk about that next month.  

Visit Minute Man and Boston National Historical Parks to learn more about this key battle of the American Revolution. At the former site is a statue of a minuteman, to honor those killed at Lexington and Concord; the latter is where you’ll find the Bunker Hill Memorial, which opened on June 17, 1843.

Flag Day

          Why is Flag Day June 14? This also is tied to the American Revolution. It’s the anniversary of the date in 1777 the Continental Congress officially adopted the Stars and Stripes as our national flag.

         The Park Service’s Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail, winding through Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virigina, is a 560-mile land and water route telling the story of the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake Bay region.

         The flag had a huge role in that war. Along the trail is Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine where, after that war’s Battle of Baltimore, Francis Scott Key penned a poem called “Defence [sic] of Fort McHenry” (you know, writing “that our flag was still there”). That verse in turn was set to music and retitled “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And we have Ella Virginia Houck Holloway to thank for making that the song we sing with a hand over our hearts. She hounded her congressman for thirteen years to sponsor a bill to make the “Star-Spangled Banner” our national anthem, finally succeeding in 1931.

And who sewed that flag Key saw? Mary Pickersgill, at her Baltimore flag shop.

This month’s Subpar Parks Review

“Goes on forever” is the take on the Blue Ridge Parkway. 

          Yes, the 469-mile-long road connecting Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks is part of the Park Service. In fact, according to 2024 statistics,  it was the second-most visited spot among the 433 Park Service units, with 16.7 million visitors, just behind #1, Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California (17.1 million).

          Also known as “America’s favorite drive” and a “museum of the American countryside,” the roadway was constructed during the Great Depression by private contractors, with help from New Deal programs such as the Works Progress Administration, the Emergency Relief Administration, and the Civilian Conservation Corps. Three hundred miles of hiking trails run off the Blue Ridge Parkway, with traces of early European as well as pre-historic settlements.

My article about flags

         My oldest brother, the Latin and Greek scholar, would know this, but I had no idea the study of flags is vexillology, and there’s a North American Vexillogical Association. I had fun writing this 2022 piece for Fodor’s Travel. I also had fun coming up with its alliterative subtitle (“A curious chronicle of peculiar pennants”), and a line in the third paragraph (“These vexillologists voiced vehement views over various vexilla”).

The article's opening photo is from a national park site, which I'm sure you recognize as Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. And yes, the flag-flying entrance is pretty cool.

God’s flag

Vexillology comes from the Latin word vexillum, which was a banner, or standard, carried by some Roman soldiers. This signal conveys the idea of a rallying point, a place where troops gather under a leader to prepare for combat. The book of Exodus tells the story of Moses raising his hands as Joshua and his forces battled the Amalekites; as long as he kept his arms up, they prevailed. The Lord then instructed Moses to write down this incident so the Israelites would remember how God fought for them, and also build an altar. Moses called it Jehovah Nissi, which in Hebrew means “The Lord is My Banner” (Exodus 17:12-16).

In the Song of Solomon, the author gushes over his romance with a Shulamite woman. The book also illustrates God’s love for His people, most poignantly in chapter 2, verse 4: “his banner over me is love.” Solomon’s protective love exemplifies Jehovah Nissi’s love for us, especially in Jesus’s sacrifice to save us from our sins.

Rally ‘round that flag, and find rest (Isaiah 11:10).