Oxford

Just a postcard quickie. Two postcards from my collection -- Oxford, England:



The city of Oxford is most famous for the University of Oxford.



In the United States, many communities would like to be associated with the academic reputation of Oxford, England. I counted 17 states that have a town named Oxford. Two of them (at least) have colleges or universities in those towns. How many "Oxfords" have you visited?

Minnesota: Biggest Turkey State

According the National Geographic, Minnesota is the number one turkey producing state, closely followed by North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia, and California. Meanwhile, the top producers of cranberries are Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

Today, I am thankful for all my Carto-friends. Thanks for stopping by!

O Shenandoah

The Library of Congress has an online exhibit of a very important map from the American Civil War. In O Shenandoah, I Long to Map You, Jennifer Gavin describes the cartographic efforts of Jedediah Hotchkiss. His hand drawn maps, many drawn from horseback, were "extraordinary for their accuracy." These maps were an essential tool used by Gen. Robert E. Lee in his many military successes.

On exhibit is Hotchkiss' Map of the Shenandoah Valley. The site allows you to zoom in to examine the detail:



I am reminded then, to share with you my two Civil War related map postcards. The first represents Lee and his generals examining a map (a Hotchkiss?)



Here is a map and panorama of people and events of the Civil War (click on image for a larger view).



This map is also available as a 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle.

HT to Angela

Postcards Take a Vacation

Last week I lamented the lack of map postcards, and postcards in general while on vacation in North Carolina. On our last day on the beach, we decided to try parasailing. After a long drive around the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, we arrived at Atlantic Beach in time to find out that all parasail flights had been canceled due to thunderstorms. So we toured historic Fort Macon instead.

And there, in the park gift shop, I found two map postcards!



Both of these cards depict the Outer Banks of the North Carolina coast, a portion of NC that I have never actually visited, but that has never stopped this map postcards collector before.

The second postcard records the many shipwrecks of the area. An interesting thing I learned at Fort Macon was that just a couple years after the state of North Carolina had restored the Fort as part of a State Park, the U.S. Army re-armed the fort as part of the coastal defences in 1942. Several of those ships on the card were sunk by German U-Boats.

After returning home from this vacation, I was pleasantly surprised to find this fine postcard to add to my collection. I've never been to Scotland either.

Thanks Allison!

Naturally, when you return home from a week's vacation, you need to go grocery shopping. Another surprise! The grocery store has an Ohio postcard that I haven't seen before. w00t!

So, I guess I can call this a successful postcard vacation after all.

Origins 2009

I spent three days in Columbus, Ohio, last week at the Origins Game Fair, the second largest gaming convention in North America. (See comments about last year's event.)

This year, I came across a bonus map. It's a game... AND a map postcard!



Against the Odds is a magazine about war games. This postcard is an actual min-wargame. Cut out the pieces, and the rules are on the back. This game re-enacts the famous Morgan's Raid of the American Civil War.



In 1863, Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan led one of the few raids into Union states, by riding over 1000 miles through Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, before being captured trying to escape across the Ohio River. This game offers the player to try alternate routes through Ohio.

Another postcard game is Showtime Hanoi, a little game about bombing raids during the Vietnam War.

In addition to board games and war games, role playing gamers and LARPers. In the Exhibitor's Hall, role players can buy costumes, including this tooled leather map corset... Wear this and you'll encourage cartophiles to explore...



#415

NPR Road Trips

National Public Radio has correspondents all over the world who tell stories about the people and places they cover. Many of the best of these stories have been collected on a series of CDs titled NPR Road Trips.



NPR Road Trips: Postcards from Around the Globe: Stories That Take You Away:

Meet Colin Angus and Julie Wafael, who spent two years circumnavigating the globe using theirhands and feet. Turn on the radio in Katmandu and hear music from the 70s. Learn how robot jockeys are solving a human rights problem in Dubai. (It has to do with camel races.) Join in the wild festivities of Carnival in Rio. And walk through old Beijing before it’s demolished for high-rise development.

Includes introduction by Noah Adams.

Map postcards for the ears?

Also available:
NPR Road Trips: Roadside Attractions
NPR Road Trips: National Park Adventures

A Rebel in Siam

Showing off the latest addition to my map postcard collection:



It's not very clear what year this antique map was made, but no matter. It shows parts of what is now Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma and China. All areas underrepresented in my collection.

It was sent to me by "Rebel", an American (or Aussie?) blogging from Thailand: Rebel's Work In Progress - Thailand Edition!

After spending my post-college decade stuck in unfulfilling office jobs, I decided to strike out and see the world. First stop - Thailand.

Thanks, Rebel, for pausing to send this postcard!

UPDATE 5/14: Rebel tells me that she is "American as apple pie... you know the kind you get in a little cardboard box at McDonalds. ;)"

Oklahoma!

Newest addition to my state map postcard collection: Oklahoma.



I can scratch one more state of my "Want list"

Thanks, Christine!

Show Me Missouri

... on a map postcard!



Why the "Show Me" State? From Wikipedia:

The phrase "I'm from Missouri" means I'm skeptical of the matter and not easily convinced. This is related to the state's motto of "Show Me," whose origin is popularly ascribed to an 1899 speech by Congressman Willard Vandiver, who declared that "I come from a country that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri, and you have got to show me." However, according to researchers, the phrase was in circulation earlier in the 1890s. According to another story, the phrase was originally a reference to Missouri laborers being brought to Colorado to quell a miner's strike and requiring frequent instruction.

Some of you know of my indoor/arena football fandom. In the nearly ten years I have followed this sport, by and far, the worst team name I have come across has to be the "Show Me Believers", a team that played out of St. Charles. Apparently it is a play on the state slogan and the christian faith of the team owner... By god's mercy, the lame team name lasted only two years.



The saddest news for the sport is that the Arena Football League has chosen to suspend the 2009 season and take a hiatus till 2010. I have very low hopes that this league can successfully restructure and come back with a model for player compensation that won't break the teams.

What's this I see? St Louis is for Lovers! I don't know about that, but I've had some mighty fine brew pub brew.



And look! I have a shirt to go with the map cards. Now I cannot get lost in the state of misery...

Not an Island

Back in November, I pulled together several map postcards of islands; from Nantucket to Thasos. While sorting postcards, I erroneously put this one in the islands stack:



St. Paul de Vence is of course a commune (city) in the French Alps, but the way the postcard has the hilltop community clipped, it sort of looks like and island... and if you see how it is isolated on the top of this hill, in a way it is an island... sort of...



UPDATE 1/10: When I happened to look at the postcard image in thumbnail form, the first thing I though of was, "It looks like a cut of meat on a bed of greens..." mmmm meat...

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...

Michigan's Superior Peninsula

In his book, Lost States: Real Quests for American Statehood (discussed earlier this week) Michael Trinklein discussed the proposed State of Superior. Composed of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and portions of Northern Wisconsin, this state would presumably give the attention this region deserves, but is not getting from Lansing or Madison.



While the proposal gained some traction among "Yoopers" in the 1960s and `70s, it never came to a formal vote. Although they do have their own flag:



Some residents of the U.P. have an inflated view of their region's importance (as seen in this postcard):



(See other inflated views)

Additional map postcards with views of pleasant peninsulas:







Speaking of the Keweenaw Peninsula... For those of us of a certain age, who grew up in or near Detroit, we remember TV Weatherman, Sonny Elliot, and his special recognition of the Keweenaw Peninsula... ("Right... spweeeeet!... here...") Watch this video just past the two minute mark:





As you can see, his very first weathermap of Michigan lopped off the Keweenaw, and he had to add it on... In later years he made sure his (higher-tech) weather maps always had a detachable Keweenaw. He was also famous for coining new weather terms: cloudy and cool = "clool"!

No man is an island, but there sure are a lot of them

It has been too long since I did an all-map-postcard post. While looking through a stack of cards in my collection, I noticed a number of islands scattered throughout. So, let's take a tour.

We'll start close to home, with the islands of Marth's Vineyard and Nantucket.



Interesting factoids: Martha's Vinyard is the 57th largest island in the United States and Nantucket is famous for being the subject of limericks.

Bermuda is a British territory in the North Atlantic, famous for popularizing a style of uniform shorts.



The Dominican Republic is on the good side of the island of Hispaniola. For the last forty years, they have been able to avoid most of the political turmoil that plagues their island-mate, Haiti.



Jamaica is the birthplace of the Rastafari movement and Reggae music, as well as some pretty good rum. Good jams, mon, good jams.



Christopher Columbus named the Virgin Islands afer Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, shortened to Las Vírgenes, after Saint Ursula and her 11,000 virgins. The islands are divided between the United States and the United Kingdom.







Across the Atlantic in the direction of north Africa lies Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands of Spain. (See more of my Canary Islands map postcards.) The island was formed about 5 million years ago by volcanic eruption. Today its economy depends heavily on tourism.





Finally, let's head over to the northern Aegean Sea. Across the millenia, the island of Thasos has been ruled by Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, Turks, and Bulgarians. Today it is part of the nation of Greece. The island has been strategicaly important because of deposits of lead, silver, gold, copper, calamine and iron.

Mexico City

Yesterday I wrote about a new book, National Geographic Society Exploration Experience: The Heroic Exploits of the World's Greatest Explorers, that includes reproductions of historical maps inserted in pockets with nearly every article. One of the maps I enjoyed was this one, attibuted to Hernán Cortés, of Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Aztecs.



It reminded me that I have not shared all of the map postcards I brought back from my trip to Mexico last August. (The others are here, here and here.)

Below is a map postcard of the Centro Histórico. Our hotel was on Avenida Cinco de Mayo, and the rooftop restaurant had a terrific view of the Metropolitan Cathedral and the Federal Building both on the Zócalo, a large central plaza. It was a short walk to many of the other important and interesting sights.



To get to other parts of the city, we did not hesitate to take the city's underground metro system. It was less expensive, sometimes quicker, and generally more safe, than taking a taxi.

Tenochtitlan

While I was in Mexico recently, I looked for map postcards, but only found a few. Here are two focusing on Mexico and Mexico City before the Spanish conquest.

Mexico City, or Tenochtitlan, was the capital city of the Aztec civilization. The city was centered around the main temple, the Templo Mayor.



The remnants of the temple have been excavated (circled in red) in what is still the center of Mexico City today:



It is hard to imagine that where this modern city sits was once a large lake.



Of course, the Aztecs were just one of many mesoamerican civilizations

Tepoztlán

On my first full day in Mexico last month, Mrs. Cartophiliac took me to the little touristy town of Tepoztlán.



The highlight, literally high, was our climb up the steps on the side of a mountain to see the Tepozteco Pyramid.



The Tepozteco is thought to have been built in the early Aztec era (AD 1100-1350). The structure is dedicated to Ometochtli-Tepoxtécatl, god of pulque (a drink made of fermented maguey native to Mexico), fertility and harvest, and carvings depict offerings and sacrifices to the deity.



To reach the site, you must climb a trail that leads off the end of the main street, the climb takes over an hour. The climb is steep and arduous. The pyramid is about 1320 ft. above the base of the valley, starting at over 6000 ft. of altitude.

Mrs. Cartophiliac and I agreed that the climb was one of, if not the most physically challenging things we have ever done. My heart was beating like a bongo drum and I was often short of breath. However, we passed dozens of little old ladies with canes, on their way up or coming down. We figured if they could do it, we could. The climb was worth the effort. The view was spectacular It is possible see the whole town of Tepoztlán from the top of the mountain.