Every year since Tom and I retired, I have written a blog post about our five favorite places. Sometimes I have to expand the list a little, but I can usually narrow it down to five or six. You can read each of the favorite places lists by searching for favorite places in the blog …
From National Parks
Appalachian People, the Friendliest Welcome
Tom and I have lived all over the US working for the National Parks. The welcome we received from the Appalachian people we met at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park was the warmest and friendliest of any we have experienced. We felt more connected to the people in the Appalachian community after four months than …
Lots of Ways to Camp at Wilderness Road Campground
There are lots of ways to camp. Camping can range from people sleeping on pads on the ground to Full-timers in big rigs who hardly ever sit outside. Over our summer at Wilderness Road Campground, we saw a huge variety of ways for people to camp. Class A’s are generally the biggest motorhomes. We didn’t …
Seen at the Visitors Center
When you are working at a National Park Visitors Center, you never know what you will see. Here are some random things that didn’t fit into any of my other posts about Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. A big part of our job at the Information Desk was taking reservations for tours. Starting at 9 …
Heritage Days at Cumberland Gap
The last weekend Tom and I worked at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park were the Heritage Days. In the past, these days have celebrated the Appalachian way of life around the time of the Hensley Settlement – 1900 and later. This year, Ranger Layton was in charge of Heritage Days and he decided we would …
Restoring a Historic Loom at Cumberland Gap
One of the projects Tom and I had at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park was restoring a historic loom and setting it up in the Visitors Center. The loom had been stored up at Hensley Settlement for years and the mice had gotten to it and eaten most of the strings. When we first arrived …
Cumberland Gap Tunnel Tour
On a recent Friday, Ranger Jody arranged for all the staff at the park to take a Cumberland Gap Tunnel Tour. Cumberland Gap National Historical Park owns the tunnel, but leases it out to the Kentucky and Tennessee Departments of Transportation for management. We drive through the tunnel almost every day and usually twice on …
Living History Training at Cumberland Gap
During the last couple of weeks, Tom and I have been doing Living History Training at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. It was as if the rangers suddenly realized that we would be leaving soon and we were the only people who knew how to do things. Living History Training was inserted on the schedule …
85 Miles of Trails at Cumberland Gap
Cumberland Gap National Historical Park has 85 miles of trails. This makes it the park with the most trails of any that we have worked at except for Death Valley. Over our four months at Cumberland Gap, Tom and I have hiked on most of the trails. In fact, the only one we haven’t been …
Bison Hair and Stinging Nettles
The I have been conducting experimental archaeology with bison hair and stinging nettles in my textile lab at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. I didn’t realize I was doing experimental archaeology until our park superintendent, Lisa Baldwin, took an interest in my experiment. I just thought I was doing living history. The experiment started with …