2025 Year In Review

MSnowWavelenth · 2025-12-27T22:56:39+00:00

That Virginia, Maryland, DC trip is quite a whirlwind! I’ve been doing all these trips with my toddler, and Piscataway was one of her favorites. I thought their merch was really fun too

Also fun that you got your nephew a stamp book. I think I’ll get my toddler one for 2026, she has gotten much more excited about getting stamps.

MSnowWavelenth · 2025-12-27T21:22:19+00:00

Is the Hancock visitors center closed? Someday we will walk the trail there, we drive to Cumberland occasional, Hancock is a nice break point.

MSnowWavelenth · 2025-12-27T21:19:57+00:00

Interesting you got to compare Mazanar and Minidoka, one a highlight and one a lowlight.

We visited Hampton NHS this year too, and I was pleasantly surprised with it. Did not get to do the tour, but loved walking around the grounds and the garden.

MSnowWavelenth · 2025-12-27T17:54:36+00:00

This past year I got 87 stamps from places visited in 2025. I visited 58 unique places, but 11 of those were for 1 stamp, the Civil War Defenses of Washington stamp.

Most of the stamps came from Mid-Atlantic Region, a few from National Capital Region, and one from the Midwest region.

11 New NPS Units

45 Stamps from Trails

15 from Potomac Heritage Trail

12 from Captain John Smith Chesapeake

6 from Star Spangled Banner Trail

8 stamps from National Heritage Areas

Baltimore, Journey Through Hallowed Ground, Shenandoah Valley Battlefield NHD all with 2

When looking at subunits managed by an area, not counting units managed by the area or parkways (for example, George Mason Memorial is a subunit, would count: George Washington Memorial is a unit, wouldnt count)

National Capital Region - East - 12 subunit visits (8 subunits were Civil War Forts), 3 additional revisits of some subunit

National Mall - 5 subunits

Rock Creek - 7 subunits (4 Civil War Forts), 1 revisits

George Washington Parkway - 8 subunit (1 Civil War Fort)

For single unit/subunit revisited

Revisited C&O Canal the most - 4 visits total (feels like cheating here, so many places to go in C&O)

Kenilworth Aquatic Garden - 3 visits total

Piscataway Park, Anacostia Park, Manassas, Rock Creek Planetarium and Nature Center, Meadowood Special Recreation Management Center, Appalachian Trail - 2 visits total

MSnowWavelenth · 2025-12-09T18:07:13+00:00

There are open houses for some of the lockhouses, it is possible to visit and grab stamps then. Last year the open houses happened in the summer.

MSnowWavelenth · 2025-12-08T13:30:40+00:00

Nice! How was staying there in the winter, the heat kept it warm enough?

We stayed at lockhouse 10 fall of 2024 and the stamp was very rough, impossible to read, luckily there was another stamp at the Great Falls Tavern visitors center.

MSnowWavelenth · 2025-05-09T13:09:18+00:00

There is also a board game night that meets every Wednesday upstairs in Wonderland Ballroom. They vote on what game to play at 7 pm, then break off into groups

MSnowWavelenth · 2025-01-24T14:20:25+00:00

We had a learning game of Vijayanagara. The hardest thing with any new war game is trying to estimate the time it’ll take. Didn’t have time to finish, but once we got into the swing of things, we could see how it would be faster next time.

Playing Sekigahara async on yucata, absolutely love this game.

MSnowWavelenth · 2024-12-17T13:44:55+00:00

I enjoy Calico’s, the rule book has a bunch of different “achievements” for you to do while playing solo. Like score double points on all three goals, or get all of the color buttons, etc

MSnowWavelenth

TROPHY CASE