Posts tagged — art

Established in 1938 by Franklin D Roosevelt, Olympic was the nation's 21st National Park, founded on Washington's rugged northwest peninsula and named after 7,980' Mount Olympus. It is an International Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site, two designations granted to the park due to a rich geography that includes hundreds of species of animals (including over 300 species of birds) and over 1,100 species of plants. The park's distinct ecosystems create a range of diversity rarely found elsewhere: a rugged coastline, glacier-capped mountains, forests, and rivers. The peninsula's diversity attracted –and kept– pre-historic humans, who hunted mastodon with stone-tipped spears as far back as 12,000 years ago, supplementing their diet with deer, elk, and gathered plants. Fish, marine mammals, and shellfish were provided by the...

"Men are known for their wit, and while our woeful wives may wear weary expressions when we woo them with witty wordings, our wittiness is never truly wasted. Step into the wondrous wonderland of your man cave. Here your willingness to wink, wiggle, and warble in your own wit is always welcome!" That's right; the man cave is any man's secret abode, his castle, his proverbial grownup pillow fort, his temple at which to worship all things manly. It's the place where he can let the caveman out, the last sanctuary where he can shirk the suit and tie of...

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Acadia National Park—originally named Lafayette National Park—America's 12th national park and the first east of the Mississippi River. The park's 420 million year-old location, Mount Desert Island, was first discovered by French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1604, whose description of its bare granite mountains stuck for centuries. Eventually, the island’s pristine beauty attracted the attention of the burgeoning wealthy elite of 19th Century New England, who built lavish summer homes amid its "fjard", moraine, and glacial erratic geology.  Two such elite were John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and George Dorr, whose love for the...

August marks the 102nd anniversary of three of our “hottest” parks: Haleakala National Park, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, and Lassen Volcanic National Park.  Though both Haleakala and Hawai’i Volcanoes were established as their own separate parks in 1960 and 1961, their geologic magnificence led Congress (with the influence of Congressmen and their wives having dinner cooked over steam vents years before) to create Hawaii National Park in 1916, which included both volcanoes. Maui’s Haleakala is a dormant volcano that last erupted in 1790. Northern California’s Lassen Peak is an active volcano that most famously erupted in 1915. Hawaii’s (or The...

One of our favorite parts about coming into work each day (besides getting paid to draw cool pictures) is interacting with our fans. Y'all are the life blood of this company & your passion for travel (especially to America's National Parks) inspires us constantly. Last month, we reached out to our email followers & asked them to share their favorite Park memories with us. Thus began a two week process of reading, laughing, and tearing up just a bit as we read their stories & ooo'd and ahhh'd at their photography (gotta love the high def quality of today's cell phones)....