I Won a National Geographic Book

I won a contest on the Motherhood Moment blog. My delicious prize package arrived via UPS yesterday: two bags of Twizzlers Sweet & Sour Filled Twists in Cherry Kick and Citrus Punch, plus the National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States.

The candy is good, especially the cherry ones, but the national parks guide is really exciting. Here are five facts about the parks:

1. Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, where Tit Elingtin and I spent part of our honeymoon, contains 365 miles of caves that have been explored, but this represents only a fraction of the total cave structure. John Wilkes Booth's brother Edwin, also an actor, once performed Hamlet's soliloquy in the cave passage now known as Booth's Amphitheater.

2. Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks in California offer the most remote wilderness, in terms of how far a hiker can go without seeing a road, in the lower 48 states.

3. The Sioux peoples consider Badlands National Park sacred ground, and among the most sacred parts is Stronghold Table, where Oglala Sioux tribe members danced the last Ghost Dance in 1890. The park is home to bison, pronghorn sheep, elk and prairie rattlesnakes.

4. Florida's Biscayne National Park, which includes both mainland shoreline and parts of the Florida Keys, is home to the continental United States' only living coral reef, as well as more than 300 fish species, sea turtles, shrimp, sponges and spiny lobsters.

5. Alaska has eight national parks, including Wrangell-St. Elias, the largest of all U.S. national parks. It's six times larger than Yellowstone. Large parts of it are still unexplored due to its rugged mountains and glaciers. The volcanic Wrangell mountain range and the St. Elias mountains are only two of the park's ranges; it also includes the Chugach and Alaska mountains. These four ranges contain nine of the 16 highest mountains in the U.S.

Image: Badlands National Park
Date: September 27, 2000
Author: Patrick Bolduan