Butterflies are free. Monarchs may arrive at their winter home late, be choosy about where to land, and may leave early. At around 10,000 feet, the dormant volcanic peaks are covered in trees and flowers, with the specific temperatures the Monarchs need. Despite the distance and dangers, the fragile butterflies still manage to fly from Canada to Mexico every year in an extraordinary migration, one of the coolest natural events on earth.
Everyone loves the monarchs, and between the states of Mexico and Michoacán the reserve is both a UNESCO Biosphere and a World Heritage Site. During the November to March season, crowds of locals take bus day trips to see them fly, cluster, feed, mate and fly again. Since the flighty monarchs are unpredictable, day trips can visit their chosen forest at the best times. Overseas visitors often stay for a few days in lovely spots—like Cerro Pelón B&B run by a family of original butterfly rangers—to enjoy the picturesque villages and relaxing environment while recovering from high altitude hiking, as I did.
Humans can impact these glorious butterflies in many ways, both positively and negatively, and we need to be much smarter about making small changes that can help: reduce pesticides, grow butterfly friendly plants and drive slower when butterflies are present. But also, we need to make big, global changes to reduce our carbon emissions, so that this species can survive.
Which brings me to an Earth Day question. Is it worth flying and driving here to see the butterflies, knowing that your carbon pollution will contribute to their extinction? Better to drive an electric car.
Welcome to Mexico! Above is the statue of Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla, the parish priest who on 16 September 1810 cried for independence—Grito de Dolores—in front of his church in Dolores (now Dolores Hidalgo in Guanajuato) sparking Mexican Independence. Mondays for now are World Heritage Sites, while eclectic Thursdays still include US park posts.
How to Drive Across the Border from US to Mexico
This post will cover my border crossing experience, including getting a permit for my car, and I hope it helps others who may be planning a similar trip.
I crossed the border at Puente Anzalduas, near McAllen Texas. I chose this place for several reasons. McAllen is a nice city with all the conveniences. There’s a supercharger in McAllen and another one 85 miles away in Mexico. This border crossing has everything I need to legally drive my car in Mexico, all in one room, with plenty of parking, and it isn’t too crowded. The bridge allows an easy trip around the city of Reynosa, and quickly puts me on the toll highway directly to my route to Mexico City. Even though I drove from California, it’s faster to drive through Texas on the freeway at 80 mph than to drive tollways in Mexico, especially as the supercharger network isn’t nationwide in Mexico yet. I recommend this crossing if you’re planning on driving to Mexico City, especially in a Tesla!
I found a lot of wrong information (see below) about driving across the border, which caused me delays and frustration. If you’re just driving in Baja California or to Rocky Point or just along the border inside Mexico, you don’t need any paperwork. But if you want to drive elsewhere, then here’s the real story: first, my recent experience, and then, all my failures. Read and learn!
I crossed the border at around 9:30 am last Tuesday (27 February 2024), and there was virtually no wait. US Border Patrol checked my car, and then I drove across the bridge with a $3.50 toll. On the Mexico side of the border, take the left lane, since you need to declare your vehicle. If you miss the turn (like me), stay left and turn sharp left to go behind the buildings. Either way you end up in the same place, the Aduana, or Customs office. There’s a line of cars here that arrived from the other direction who are waiting to return their permits at the kiosk. Ignore them, park, and walk around to find the front door.
Customs is there to collect taxes on goods you import, including your car. But, since you’re just using your car temporarily during your visit before leaving with it, you don’t have to pay taxes. Customs checked my vehicle, including taking a photo of the VIN, and then they checked that I was the registered owner. California’s registration card includes my name, address, VIN and plate, and I had both my current card and my new one effective next week. Satisfied, they told me to walk across the room to Immigration.
Immigration is there to admit you into the country. These days, Americans like me can visit Mexico for up to 180 days without paperwork. But, since I need a permit for my car, they make an exception, give me an entry card to fill out, and they issue the 180 day form (FMM) for 717 pesos ($42) on my credit card. Satisfied, I walk back across the room to the copy desk, where they charge me $1 for a copy of my passport, my new FMM, and my registration cards. The copies are for the final step, the Banjercito.
The Banjercitois the government bank that issues the official vehicle permit that you must show at highway checkpoints. Here, they’re in the same room, right between Customs and Immigration desks, so they’ve already seen me walking back and forth. The permit proves that your identity, vehicle ownership and temporary status in the country have already been thoroughly checked by the right authorities, and the permit (TIP) contains all the relevant information. After signing several forms and providing my contact details, they took $468.30 (8,000 pesos) on my credit card, but supposedly I get almost all of that back when I return the permit. (When you leave Mexico, hand over the permit at the Banjercito kiosk and either cancel for a refund or tell them you intend to reuse it before it expires).
Satisfied, I drove deep into Mexico. I was stopped by the National Guard highway patrol twice on my first day, and all they want to see is this permit before quickly sending me on my way. I hope this all seems logical to you and clears up some common confusion, especially for first time drivers to Mexico. Plenty of folks do this every day, so you can too. But you might want to learn from my mistakes.
What Not To Do
Don’t cross from California or western Arizona if you’re driving throughout Mexico. From the Baja Peninsula to Puerto Peñasco and the Lukeville Arizona crossing, Americans enjoy a document free zone, so don’t expect the Mexican officials to issue documentation for elsewhere in Mexico, after they eliminated all the documents. If you really want to take the ferry from La Paz, then why not do that on the way back? It’s theoretically possible to get the paperwork to drive from Baja to the rest of Mexico, but in practice, I found it didn’t work this year.
Don’t park on the US side and walk across to get documents for your vehicle. They want to see your vehicle and check the VIN. Again, it may be possible, but you’re depending on officials giving you a break, which you may or may not deserve. At San Ysidro California, I walked across the border a couple weeks ago to ask for documents, but they didn’t have anyone there during working hours midweek that could issue the paperwork. I spent over an hour in line in Tijuana waiting to walk back.
Don’t cross at some remote location or in the middle of a busy city, especially if it’s your first time. I crossed last year at a tiny place west of El Paso, but the Banjercito was closed (again, midday, midweek). Juarez, across the border from El Paso, is a big city, and I found it difficult to drive around and park, before walking the streets looking for various government offices that I knew little about. Laredo Texas is across from Nuevo Laredo, which is also a busy city crossing. The bridges each have different traffic rules and allow different vehicles, and there are precious few parking spaces at Customs, if you’re lucky enough to be in the correct lane. Otherwise you’re driving and walking around in a strange city. You want to find a border crossing that handles everything in one place, with parking, without too much traffic, and without city traffic driving.
Don’t go to a Mexican Consulate in the US. I went to San Bernardino, and they looked at me like I was an alien. They only handle paperwork like that for an hour a day after lunch on certain days of the week and only for residents of the county and not for neighboring counties and they only give paperwork for students and others who need long term temporary residency and they need bank statements and photos and two dozen other documents. Didn’t I know that I don’t need paperwork to visit Mexico normally? I know there’s a web page that claims you can make an appointment at various consulates, but it doesn’t work.
Don’t try to get your documents online. I hired a company to get my documents, and I had to demand my money back when they couldn’t deliver. Then I tried to use official websites. I got far enough to create accounts at two agencies, upload documents, pay a fee and choose my crossing date and place, but then I didn’t receive anything. And when I tried contacting them through the email and websites, I got an automated response saying “sorry, we can’t help you.” I’m never getting that fee refunded.
Even if you can get your documents online, at some point maybe two months in advance, what if you are delayed by a day or the crossing that you picked is closed (as happened twice to me)? And when you get there, you still need to get your VIN & registration checked by customs, you still need your FMM checked and stamped, you still need to make a copy of your stamped FMM, and you still need to show everything to the Banjercito, who will still want to see the original documents too. The folks next to me had done everything online, and I had done nothing. But I finished faster, because they had someone with them who translated everything. I just pointed, used simple English, and handed over my credit card.
Don’t make three copies of everything. I needed one black and white copy of my passport, one of my registration, and one of my FMM. I didn’t need three copies of anything. Nobody looked at my Mexican car insurance. Nobody looked at my car title. I wasted several trips to the UPS store and Office Depot making copies of documents that I never used. There’s no way to avoid making a copy of your FMM at the border, so you might as well just wait until they tell you what copies they need.
Plan your route and pick a good crossing point, but don’t drive yourself crazy. Culture shock, anxiety, official warnings and anti-Mexican horror stories made me overthink everything. I read that Columbia Bridge near Laredo was a great place to cross, since it’s one of the few places where you enter into Nuevo León. But when I checked the map, I would still have to drive back through Tamaulipas on a much longer route. Eventually I picked the shorter straight route above. Take your time, travel by daylight, watch for speed-bumps, and be patient. Oh, and have fun!
The precursor to the Civil War was John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry arsenal in 1859. Lee, Jackson & Jeb Stuart were all there in uniform, before they turned against our country. Douglass & Tubman were not in the raid, although they were involved. Booth arrived to witness Brown’s execution. The government may have quickly restored order in town, but across the country people divided into abolitionists or secessionists. Lincoln, arguing against slavery, was elected in 1860, and southern states began to secede to protect slavery.
The Confederacy raised an army and attacked Fort Sumter in April of 1861. That same month, Union soldiers were attacked by Confederate sympathizers in Baltimore, leading Clara Barton to begin her service as a nurse. In May three escaped slaves were granted protection as ‘contraband’ at Fort Monroe in northern Virginia. Lincoln sent troops south where they were incompetently led into battle at Manassas in Virginia in July. The Confederates also won at Wilson’s Creek but were unable to take Missouri. The Union won at Carnifex Ferry in September, causing West Virginia to split from Virginia and become a state in 1863. In November, the Union Navy took Port Royal South Carolina, liberating 10,000 slaves, many forming the first African American regiment there one year later.
In January 1862 the Union won at Mill Springs Kentucky, followed the next month by Grant taking Fort Donelson on the strategic Cumberland River in northwest Tennessee. In March the Union won again at Pea Ridge in Arkansas and at Glorietta Pass in New Mexico, supported by Fort Union cavalry. In Tennessee in April, Shiloh (above) was a costly victory, followed by naval victories at Fort Pulaski blockading Savannah Georgia and the capture of New Orleans in Louisiana, where three more African American regiments would form within a year. In May the Union took Yorktown in Virginia, but in June the Union failed in its approach to Richmond. Then in August another loss at Manassas again. The Confederates marched into Maryland, but lost at Antietam in September. In December, the Union failed again in Virginia at Fredricksburg.
On the 1st of January 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was read first with immediate effect to the SC 1st Volunteers, freeing them, their families and friends forever. Many more emancipated and free African American men would join the Union army at bases like Camp Nelson in Kentucky, Fort Scott in Kansas, and New Bedford and Boston in Massachusetts. That same winter the Union won at Stones River in Tennessee but lost at Chancellorsville in Virginia in spring. On June 2nd, Union spy Harriet Tubman led 150 African American soldiers to free 700 slaves at Combahee Ferry. Lee marched north again, losing decisively in July at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Grant concluded his siege of Vicksburg the next day, July 4th. In the fall the Union advanced to the border of Tennessee and Georgia at Chattanooga and Chickamauga.
In 1864 the Union took northern Virginia with extensive fighting in Spotsylvania county. Slowly Grant was advancing towards Richmond, at one point outmaneuvering Lee at Petersburg and beginning a long siege of both cities. Meanwhile, Sherman was advancing in Mississippi, despite delays at Brices Cross Roads and Tupelo. In Georgia, Sherman was stopped at Kennesaw Mountain in July, before resuming his march to the sea. With the Confederate capital under siege, Lee ordered a sneak attack on the Union capital in July, crucially delayed at Monocacy in Maryland, after which snipers fired at Fort Stevens in DC. In August, Farragut took the last major southern port of Mobile Bay in Alabama. And in October, the Union defended the Shenandoah Valley at Cedar Creek in Virginia.
In the spring of 1865, after a months-long siege, Lee abandoned both Petersburg and Richmond, retreated and then surrendered in Appomattox in April. Andersonville was liberated in May. The CSS Shenandoah, which circumnavigated the globe during the war seizing African American crews from whaling ships, surrendered in Liverpool England in November, the last act of the war.
I recently completed visits by electric vehicle to all US national park sites primarily focused on (paid) labor issues, including agriculture, mills, mining, railroads and steel. Even more interesting than learning about dangerous early working conditions, was realizing that the worst cases of labor conflicts and disasters in our history share common circumstances. When there is excess capital with extreme time pressure to achieve returns especially in a limited geographic area, owners engaged in hyper-competition often resort to unethical, unsafe and/or illegal tactics to extract profits at the expense of their own employees.
Agriculture
After visiting one more site, I will write a separate post about slavery. Even after emancipation, agriculture continued to exploit farm labor brutally, through sharecropping & tenant farming, where workers were kept in perpetual debt to the owner. Cane River is a good place to learn how a plantation adapted to exploit farm labor in different ways from before the revolution to WWII. As black workers moved into industry after that war, agriculture began to exploit more migrant workers, especially Pilipino & Mexican workers on the west coast. National chains engaged in ruthless competition with local owners over the most productive fruit farmland in California—supported by unjust foreign labor policies—cutting labor costs to maintain profits as prices fell. César Chávez park is a good place to learn about the history and resulting farm worker strike.
Mills
Water-powered industrial mills pre-date our country, but they were refined and boomed after the revolution. The company town developed near the first cotton mills in Rhode Island and were copied at similar sites in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Ohio. Before electrification allowed factories to be built in cheaper locations, mill towns only formed in very specific places along rivers with large volume water falls near ports. This meant concentrated competition among many firms using the same techniques. Labor needed training and skilled, small fingers were more nimble than large. So, owners hired women and children. Immigrants arrived by the boat load. Supplies of cotton came from slave plantations often owned by the mill owners. The incredible boom in productivity led to collapses in prices. 70+ hour work weeks, strict control of women’s lives, economic control of labor through company housing, stores, entertainment and even churches, and child labor became used to sustain competitive advantage. Strikes were oppressed with dirty tricks and pressure tactics including media smear campaigns and violence. Safety was disregarded, as seen in disasters like Pemberton Mill near Lowell in 1860 when over 100 women & children were crushed by heavy machinery or 50 years later in the Triangle Shirtwaist garment district fire.
Mining
Mines often create cruel capitalism conditions. Investors see growing demand & high prices and over-invest, funding multiple aggressive firms with similar equipment. Labor and small operators flood the area, with everyone trying to ‘strike it rich’ with the mother lode. From black lung in coalcountry to radiation sickness in uranium mines, owners sacrifice miner lives and crush strikes with violence and dirty tricks. (Watch “Harlan County USA”). The world’s largest pure copper lode was found and mined in upper Michigan (see photo), where at a Christmas party for striking families upstairs in Keweenaw’s Italian Hall, an anti-unionist outside shouted ‘fire’ and blocked the door: 59 children and 14 parents were crushed to death.
Railroads
Disregard for the lives of their workers became part of the gilded age tycoon culture. Despite repeated safety warnings, the wealthy club members on Lake Conemaugh voted to raise their dam an extra two feet to avoid dirtying their hems while crossing. The resulting flood wiped out the company town of Johnstown Pennsylvania, killing over 2,200 people. Speculation on railroad stocks led to frequent booms and busts and much over-investment, with only limited lines becoming profitable. Labor was also imported from China with strict laws prohibiting settling permanently. Railroad owners faced diminishing returns, and repeatedly pressed labor for concessions, provoking a massive strike led by Pullman porters. Rather than negotiate, management bought the US Attorney General and influenced President Cleveland to bring in the troops.
Steel
The history of labor is replete with examples of class division: people of color, women, children and immigrants are systematically paid less. Capitalists can cut labor costs by keeping one group down, which they leverage to lower labor costs for all. World War II broke standard labor practices, hiring women and minorities to build ships and produce armaments, but as after other wars, many labor gains were later lost. Racism is not always understood as an economic tactic, but the history of labor and civil rights are inextricably linked. Birmingham Alabama had a hyper-competitive steel industry—as the only location in the world with significant amounts of iron, coal and limestone nearby—, and owners organized to divide labor along racial lines to lower their costs: they codified racial segregation, including prohibiting black and white children from playing together. The modern civil rights movement grew in response to racist social policies imposed by steel factory owners seeking to perpetuate a two-tiered wage system.
Lessons
Capitalism is mutually beneficial for customers, employees, owners and society. But especially when an owner is at personal risk in a hyper competitive business with diminishing returns, there is an incentive to cheat, act unethically or even commit crimes. Some capitalists use their wealth & power to corrupt government and civic leaders, influencing media and disenfranchising voters. Cruel labor conditions have persisted in this country for centuries, changing only with war, disasters, violent strikes or specific market collapse: i.e. too late.
If we learn from history, we can curb the excesses of hyper-competitive capitalism. Look for large concentrations of capital aggressively competing to dominate a single market in a short time frame. Look for extreme funding of misinformation, government corruption, efforts to divide the public and restrict voting. Hold business leaders to strict legal and ethical behavior. Then, perhaps, the next tragic chapter in our labor history can be avoided.
Happy New Year! This injured bald eagle, Jade, resides at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, which is also home to the museums of Annie Oakley & Buffalo Bill, Cody Firearms, Draper Natural History, Plains Indian & Whitney Western Art. While showmanship seems a bit silly to me, I love stories of exploration and adventure. My favorite museum was the Plains Indian, but there are enough exhibits to interest folks for days. While not an affiliated park or world heritage site, this is an exceptional place to visit in the American West.
I’m feeling like a caged bird this winter, resting up at home and trying to figure out my next steps. Where can I go next? Great Lakes? Northeast? Florida? Alaska? Looking back, I visited over 1/2 of the US parks in 2022, including these favorites. Last year, I visited another 1/4 of the parks, including more favorites, and finished four regions: DC, Mid-Atlantic, Southwest and Rocky Mountain. Many of the remaining US parks are either difficult, expensive or impossible to reach in my electric car, so expect fewer US park visits this year and more world heritage sites.
Every Monday I plan to post one visit to a world heritage, national park, or similarly important site. Doing so will require me to revisit every region, to go beyond the reach of superchargers, to cross borders and even travel by small boat. On Thursdays, I plan to post more eclectically on zero carbon travel, the climate crisis and related topics.
So, here are my top 3 New Year’s resolutions.
Complete visits to American Concentration Camps
Visit World Heritage Sites in Mexico and Canada
Complete the North Atlantic & Midwest regions
Logistical challenges will undoubtedly upset some of my plans, but every visit is a new adventure. Thanks for reading, wish me luck and I wish you a Happy New Year!
I recently completed visits to all national park units in the Rocky Mountain region by electric vehicle, including 3 in North Dakota, 5 in South Dakota, 5 in Montana, 6 in Wyoming, 10 in Colorado and 12 in Utah. I exclude affiliate units, count multi-state parks where I spend my time, and I pick a favorite from each state at the end.
North Dakota’s parks are each glorious. At Knife River early Native American life is revealed in middens, plants, a round earthlodge, and living exhibits. At Fort Union the early interactions between Native Americans and fur traders also come to life. And Teddy Roosevelt’s 3 park areas protect both wildlife and the formative experience of our greatest conservationist president.
South Dakota’s parks cluster in the southwest corner, but they are varied. Wind and Jewel Caves give entry to the subterranean world, Badlands to the wall across the wide foreboding landscape, Mt Rushmore to the Black Hill cliffs, and Minuteman to the Cold War apocalyptic thinking.
Montana has two powerful parks describing our tragic history of brutal war against Native Americans: Big Hole and Little Bighorn. Grant-Kohrs preserves a piece of the old cowboy west, and Bighorn Canyon has striking views and wild horses. Glacier is stunning, rugged and a great place for horse riding, backcountry camping, kayaking and hiking.
Wyoming has parks in each corner, but the best are in the northwest. Fossil Butte does an admirable job of illustrating the full scale of evolution on earth, Devils Tower evokes some otherworldly monolith, and Fort Laramie recalls the days of wagon trains and unjust war on Native Americans. But Grand Teton, the Rockefeller Parkway and Yellowstone, in particular, are spectacular.
Half of Colorado’s parks preserve some of its impressive scenery, and half preserve the past. Black Canyon, Great Sand Dunes and Rocky Mountain National Parks are self-explanatory and awesome. Curecanti and Colorado also have dramatic canyon views. Bent’s Old Fort is a trading post out of a western movie, and Florissant protects fossilized trees, plants and animals from eons ago. Mesa Verde National Park (one of four in the state) and Yucca House preserve early native dwellings and artifacts, and Sand Creek preserves a shameful massacre of Native Americans by US troops and volunteers.
My favorite parks in each state are wildlife refuge Teddy Roosevelt, starkly scenic Badlands, dramatic drive & trails Glacier, geyser popping Yellowstone, native dwelling etched Mesa Verde (see Cliff Palace photo above) and stunning hikes Zion. While other regions may have more total park units, Rocky Mountain has many of the most spectacular parks in the system.
I recently completed visits to all the caving parks by electric vehicle. To be clear, with caves running under all 50 states and over 100 parks having some type of named cave, this only lists parks where theprimary activity is to visit a cave, almost always on a guided tour.
Subconsciously I become a bit claustrophobic in subterranean spaces, so I compensate by imagining what type of monsters best suit the scene. Rangers who do cave tours are quick to get this humor, although it’s best not to spook other troglocenes—cave visitors—in case anyone is seriously fearful. Below, I describe both the scientific cave category and my own cave creature category.
Talus caves are formed when boulders stack up in narrow passages, and Pinnacles in California is the unit to explore these. The large boulders and varying heights made me feel like a dwarf, my first category.
“Caves, they say! Caves! Holes to fly in time of war, to store fodder in! My good Legolas, do you know that the caverns of Helm’s Deep are vast and beautiful? There would be an endless pilgrimage of Dwarves, merely to gaze at them, if such things were known to be. Aye indeed, they would pay pure gold for a brief glance!”
— Gimli
California’s Lava Beds is the best place to explore different types of lava tube caves, and the skulls and ice-cold rooms are ghostly. Craters of the Moon in Idaho has a similar cave, but obviously that’s more werewolf. El Malpais is more for self-guided, serious spelunkers, but many natural entrances can be seen. Definitely bats.
My favorite cave park is Timpanagos in Utah, due to the good condition and variety of speleothems (features created by water). The alien features evoke melon heads. Solution caves, created when liquids dissolve bedrock, are the most common types of cave parks. Carlsbad in New Mexico is the largest with grand speleothems that tower overhead (see photo). Try not to listen for goblin drums coming from the deep. Mammoth in Kentucky is the longest in the world with tunnels fit for lizard people. South Dakota’s Jewel and Wind caves rank 3 & 7 in the world for length, each with different speleothems to see. Also, think Djinn and Minotaur, respectively. Oregon completed my solution cave set, and it’s a good example of a marble cave. Definitely a troll cave.
That’s my complete list of caving parks. Great Basin is not primarily a caving park despite dragonesque Lehman Caves, because the park has such wonderful above-ground scenic views and alpine hiking. Neither is the vampiresque Karst-cave Ozark, since paddling is primary. Nor is archaeological Russell in Alabama. Before going zero carbon, we visited lava tubes in Hawaii, but there’s flowing lava to see. The parks have many more mines, ice, sea or littoral caves, but not primarily for caving.
And always remember to wear completely different clothes and shoes when visiting different caves, so you can help prevent the spread of the lethal white nose syndrome among different populations of bats! I never imagined I’d use all those Chuck Taylors I bought during their bankruptcy underground; perfect in case I need to run from a basilisk.
25 of 25 battlefields & military parks visited: e.g. Revolutionary War
40 of 42 memorials visited
71 of 75 historic sites
55 of 62 historical parks (broader than historic sites)
77 of 84 monuments
48 of 73 recreational areas, reserves, rivers and others
24 of 31 world heritage sites in USA, plus 5 in Canada
I spent $9,000 on charging, over 85% at superchargers. Heavy use of superchargers beyond the recommended daily limit has also reduced my battery capacity by 9%. Most electric car drivers charge overnight at home, so their costs are far lower. I should have cut costs with more free chargers and better route planning, but I drive capriciously, rushing around depending on weather and my curiosity. Like my mileage, my charging cost excludes borrowing an S when my 3 was in the shop and includes driving to visit family. A comparably priced new pickup truck for the same distance would have cost at least $16,000 for gas, based on average mpg and $/ gallon, more if they carried a boat or a bike like I do.
In September I plan to post a few of the affiliated trails I’ve stopped along, more west coast parks, a couple others I still need to edit, and hopefully some more Rocky Mountain parks from the road. Posting schedule will slow down in Q4 but each week will include a national park. Stay tuned for more adventures!
Read the chronology of the Revolutionary War below, and click on the links to read my visits to each battlefield park by Electric Vehicle. Our country’s independence was the result of many hard fought battles, bravery, determination, moments of military genius, critical help from our allies and luck. Visiting the sites helps bring to life the story we should all know.
On the 19th of April 1775 at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, the embattled farmers resisted British efforts to take their stockpile of weapons and fired ‘the shot heard round the world’ against the world’s dominant military power.
After the British retreated from Concord to Boston, the rebellious colonists tried to trap the British in Boston. The monument on Bunker Hill commemorates the siege in June 1775, but the Americans were unable to defeat the British that year.
The first significant Patriot victory happened in Moores Creek North Carolina in February 1776 at a bridge much like Concord’s, where Scottish Highlanders charged with broadswords and were cut down by muskets behind low earthworks.
That same winter, Henry Knox brought captured cannon from Fort Ticonderoga in New York on sleds to Boston, surrounding the British. They withdrew to Canada in March 1776, but that summer the British took New York City. Washington crossed the Lower Delaware River in December 1776, defeating the British at Trenton and Princeton, but he was unable to dislodge the British fleet or army from New York.
In 1777, the British tried to join their Quebec & New York forces and to take the de facto capital of the colonies, Philadelphia. At Forts Stanwix and Saratoga (see photo) in New York the Patriots defeated the British in August and September 1777, convincing the French to help us. But the British landed troops in Maryland and took Philadelphia from the south.
Washington trained and wintered with his army in Valley Forge in 1778 and 1779 and in Morristown 1779 and 1780. The most notable victory in that time was when George Rogers Clark took Fort Sackville Indiana in February 1779, winning control of the lands bordering the Great Lakes.
But in 1780 the British took Charleston South Carolina and attempted to take control of the southern colonies. In October, the Patriots won at Kings Mountain South Carolina. In January 1781, the Patriots executed a rare maneuver to win at Cowpens South Carolina, but Cornwallis eked out a costly victory at Guilford Courthouse North Carolina in March. Then in June the Patriots failed to take the British fort at Ninety-Six South Carolina.
The war may have continued for a couple more years, but our French allies helped us win the critical victory that fall. Washington and Rochambeau secretly marched their combined armies down the coast to Yorktown Virginia, while the French fleet blocked the entire entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. Cornwallis surrendered on the 19th of October 1781.
My first region completed! There are currently 23 national park sites in our nation’s capital (exclusively), including Presidential memorials, war memorials, historic sites, and parks. The District of Columbia national park sites are the easiest to visit without using a carbon burning vehicle. The DC Metrorail cars are all electric, some of the DC Circulator $1 buses are electric, there are bicycles & electric scooters for rent, and most of the sites are in walking distance. I visited most on foot, some by metro and the rest by my Tesla 3 LR, which I drove from California.
I can’t choose favorites from a list like this with so many of our nation’s most important park sites, but I encourage you to click on the links and read my posts. Every post has a photo, although they are slow to load sometimes. There’s much to be learned from these special places. Of course, if you visit DC, you should also visit some of the Smithsonian museums and other great tourist sites.
Zero Carbon Travel 