Safari - Disney Style

My friend, Nancy, went to Disney World and brought back this terrific map postcard! A map of the Kilimanjaro Safaris' Harambe Wildlife Reserve, part of the Disney Animal Kingdom theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida:

Daily excursions from sunrise to sundown. You will encounter many of Africa's wild creatures on the journey of a lifetime! Elephants, the Big Cats, herds of Antelope, Giraffe, Hippos, Tommies, Bongo, white and black Rhinos just to name a few.

Harambe qualifies as one of those imaginary countries I write about from time to time. I haven't been to Disney's newest "land", however according to Wikipedia, the official backstory says that it was once part of a Dutch colony, but a peaceful revolution made Harambe self-governing in 1963. Perhaps it is somewhere near Nova Hibernia...

Map Pillows

Decorative Geographic Pillows from Burchfield's Golf Gallery:





Via Cafe Cartolina

Montana: Top of the Continent

Tuesday is one of the two final two stops on the Democratic Presidential Primary tour, Montana, "Big Sky Country." Here are my two Montana postcards:



South Dakota is also voting on Tuesday, and Puerto Rico voted on Sunday... but I don't have postcards from those places (perhaps you can do something about that...).



While reading about Montana, I was intrigued by an interesting feature of Glacier National Park in that state. Triple Divide Peak, a mountain in the park, is effectively the apex of the North American continent. The mountain sends waters towards the Pacific Ocean, the Arctic Ocean via the Hudson Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean via the Gulf of Mexico. The peak of that mountain "tri-sects" the continent.



Ocean drainage basins provide another interesting way to draw borders around the world.

Mount Tamalpais State Park - Trail Map Bandana

From my map ephemera collection: This is a trail map from Mount Tamalpais State Park in California, just north of San Francisco and the Golden Gate. The park offers "6,300 acres of redwood groves, oak woodlands, grassland slopes, chaparral and rocky ridges. Offering spectacular views of the nearby Pacific and the surrounding San Francisco Bay Area, from its ridges, slopes and the 2,571-foot high, East Peak."

The trail map is printed on a cotton bandana. The value is that even if it rains, your map will still be readable! Unfortunately, I have never been there. This map was given to me by a friend.

Coincidentally, just as I was preparing to post this image, I saw this post from our friends at Contours: the National Geographic Maps blog.

Nat Geo Maps to Launch National Trails Database



"TOPO!® Explorer, launching in May, will present users with detailed topographic maps, aerial photography, a hybrid map made from the two, and an extensive, freely browsable, online database of trail descriptions, recommendations and unique points of interest."

A handy tool for hikers and backpackers.