Side Dish - Stamp Sickness

There is a disease that creeps ever so slowly throughout the National Park Service. It is more virulent than Ebola, more contagious than Influenza, more maddening than whatever ailed King George III. It is not found in a medical journal, nor discussed at yearly physician symposiums. But for the thousands afflicted, it is a condition that will forever alter the course of your life....The disease known as:

The pursuit of the "next" stampitis.

We are relative latecomers to the Eastern National Passport Stamp collection, only beginning our journey in 2009 with an innocent visit to Montezuma Castle National Monument. In the corner of the ranger station was a small green inkpad and an innocuous looking round stamp. Viewing from afar, Brooke casually commented "Hmmm.....that looks interesting".

It has since forth consumed our lives.......in the very best, fantastic, magnificent way possible.

Once the first passport book was purchased at the White Sands National Monument Visitor Center, we filmed a sequence on our video camera about how "we found a new obsession" and giggled as we planned trips to Petroglyph, Pecos, and Fort Union on the way home.

Since that trip, we have vacationed 17 of the last 19 months in pursuit of the rounded ink blot commemoration of a visit to one of America's treasures. We have traversed the entire states of Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, etc...all with the intent of taking in all the NPS has to offer.

But the stamp rules above all.


We, at the present time, have no less than 12 trips planned down to the exact days needed, total mileage, and hotel stops that we are champing at the proverbial bit on a daily basis to get to. Anticipation is a wonderful thing, but also quite maddening when all we would like nothing more to do is to get in the car and drive for months, collecting every region's stamp and basking in sites we would not have otherwise seen if it were not for this small blue book.

We have not only taken in the glory of Yellowstone (which has proven to be our favorite trip ever), and the grandeur of the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon; but we have walked the lesser known paths of Mormon pioneers at Pipe Spring National Monument, and heard the gravel crunch under our feet on a cloudless day at Wupatki National Monument. The unheralded sites are often the most satisfying to us as travelers, for it feels that for a day, we remember what happened there. The world may have moved on, but that Golden Spike was indeed driven in on a fateful day and changed the U.S. forever. We were THERE.......we came, we saw and we conquered (except for you know....Timpanogos Cave...the Parking Lot sure was pretty). The stamp is not only an obsession, but a postmark in time. A blue, red, or yellow memory that is marked forever.

There is no cure for Stamp Sickness. Upon reaching your destination and stamping your saved spot, an ache already begins to fill the soul.....Where is the next site? Are we close? Can we squeeze it in?

The "antibiotic" of choice for this affliction is the constant planning, commiserating, researching, and driving to the next place that holds your reward. For those curious about the Eastern National Passport Book, they are readily available at most NPS visitor centers and online at http://www.easternnational.com/ .

But beware......Once the "Blue Book Plague" enters your bloodstream, there is no medicine but travel to relieve the anxiety. Fabulous, blissful, magical, life-altering travel.

Proceed with caution, dear reader.........