Postcard Voyager: The Twilight Edition

So, it's no secret that I'm a big Twilight fan - love the books, love the movies. I've read them and watched them over and over again, and I have a hard time explaining why. I mostly take comfort in the fact that about a billion other women (and a few men) feel exactly like I do.

So imagine my joy and surprise when, out of the blue, a very kind Postcrosser contacted me asking for a private swap - I had a card she really liked - and offered me postcards from Forks in return! And not only that, but she goes there regularly and can get them for me anytime I want. *insert hallelujah choir here*

Long story short, she sent me a great envelope full of beautiful postcards from Forks, Washington, the small town on the Olympic peninsulawhere the Twilight series takes place.

Fortunately for my legitimacy as a blogger, this also happens to be the location of a pretty amazing UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Olympic National Park, home to one of the world's few temperate climate rainforests. If you've seen the Twilight movies, you've seen these blindingly green forests on the big screen - they are really something.

The park has three distinct areas - a rugged coastline, glaciated mountains, and temperate rainforest. Quite a variety for such a small area. I'm fascinated by the rainforest - because it's situated on a fairly isolated peninsula (cut off from the continent by mountains), the plant and animal life has evolved in its own unique way, so that many species exist no where else on earth. Additionally, the rainforests are among the northernmost areas of the continent to not be glaciated, so it was a refuge for species escaping the encroaching ice.

As Twilight fans will know, this area is also home to several Native American groups - the Quileute, located on the La Push reservation, and the Hoh people along the Hoh River. It is clearly a treasure, a place unlike any other on the earth.

The American Southwest

I'm always surprised at how fun it is to write a post about my own country. I thought today I would write about the American Southwest, which has its own very unique culture and mindset, because I wanted to learn more about why that region is the way it is. The Southwestern US is generally thought to comprise Arizona and New Mexico as the core states, with parts of California, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Oklahoma also containing elements of the Southwest culture, depending upon their proximity to the core. There are four factors, I think, that have had the largest role in shaping the Southwest culture of the United States: Native American influences, Spanish immigrant/Mexican influences, Anglo American influences, and the unusual climate of the region.

No other region of the United States has a climate like the Southwest. The region is extremely dry and hot, routinely reporting the highest temperatures anywhere in the US, with Death Valley, California averaging 98 degrees F (36.7 C) in summer. This results in wide swaths of desert and arid landscape, and many cacti and other heat-tolerant plantlife. Mesas, dry plains, and caves systems dot the lower part of the region, and mountains with forests at higher elevations can be found in the upper area of the Southwest. This hot, dry climate has shaped the culture of this region immeasurably - what should a people do to survive in a desert-like climate, where nothing will grow and you bake to death in the hot sun? 

Several Native American groups survived very successfully in this region, namely the Pueblo, Hopi, Navajo, Apache, and other lesser-known groups. Some of these native groups built beautiful, terraced pueblo homes out of adobe, a type of clay. Through intricate irrigation systems, they were able to raise maize (corn), squash, melons, beans, and cotton, and also raise livestock such as sheep. A unique culture arose among these groups. Even today, the small remaining populations, mostly living on reservations, craft some of the finest silver and turquoise jewelry in the world, and weave gorgeous wool and cotton blankets and clothing. One smaller tribe, the Pima, wove such wonderful cotton items that you can still see their name at many stores on the packages for high-quality sheets and blankets. Although the Native influence isn't as strong as it once was, this region still has one of the nation's largest Native populations and it affects the culture more strongly than anywhere else in the US.

Of course, the Spanish were the first to settle this region, and held the territory until the Mexican-American War ended in 1848. Only 150 years have passed since the Southwest was part of Latin America, and that culture strongly influences the region - probably even more so, due to its proximity to the Mexico border and the large number of immigrants from that country. One of the most

notable influences Latin-American culture has had on the Southwest is in the realm of cuisine. An entire category of cuisine, Tex-Mex, originates from the Southwest. According to Wikipedia, it is similar to Mexican cuisine, but uses larger cuts of meat, and uses less of tripe and brain (considered undesirable to the more finicky Americans). Like Mexican food, it's known for its use of spices (especially the chile pepper) and accompaniment with beans. Chili con carne, fajitas, and chiles rellenos (stuffed chiles) are well-known Tex-Mex dishes. Latin-American culture also affects the language - many people in the region speak a unique dialect of Spanish. "Because of the historical isolation...from other speakers of the Spanish language, the local dialect preserves some late medieval Castilian vocabulary considered archaic elsewhere, adopts numerous Native American words for local features, and contains much Anglicized vocabulary for American concepts and modern inventions." (source: Wikipedia) Cool, huh?

And of course, there is the the modern influence of the Anglos, who presently make up the majority of the population and who have dominated the culture since the mid-1800s. It is a pleasure, though, to see the strong remnants of the other cultures which have survived in the Southwest and mingled in such a unique, positive way. Thanks to all the great Postcrossers who sent me the beautiful cards from this region. Every image you see in this post shows postcards I have received in the mail. Thanks!

Cuisine of the Southern US

These are two postcards I've received in the past two months that show restaurants that serve Southern food. Mary Mac's Tea Room is located in Atlanta, Georgia, and Snappy Lunch is in a small town in western North Carolina called Mt. Airy. It was the inspiration for the Andy Griffith Show, a classic American TV show. 

I spent a lot of years living in the South, and I'm really amazed by and enjoy some of the finer points of Southern culture. So I thought, why not take this opportunity to share with my friends around the world one of the cool regional differences within the US! It's impossible to really convey the differences between people in different regions of the US, many differences are subtle, but the cuisine is definitely a good start. 

For more detail, check out Cuisine of the Southern United States. So: Southern cuisine is influenced by African, Native American, British, Irish, French, and Spanish cuisines, depending on its specific location. There are many different types of Southern Cuisine, some of the most well-known being Cajun, Creole, Lowcountry, Soul Food, and Floribbean. 

Creole and Cajun: Centered in Louisiana and East Texas, this cuisine is heavily influenced by French cuisine, as settlers from this region originated from France, via the Acadia region of Canada. Creole and Cajun frequently makes use of crayfish (or crawfish/crawdads regionally), crab, oysters, fish, shrimp, rice, and okra. Common dishes are gumbo, jambalaya, and étouffe.

Lowcountry: This is the region where I lived, the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. Many of the main ingredients are similar to Creole/Cajun because of the availability of seafood, but they tend to be less spicy. Some typical dishes are She-Crab Soup, Frogmore Stew (corn, potatoes, sausage, and shrimp), Shrimp and Grits, or Hoppin' John (black-eyed peas and rice). 

Other typical Southern staples: sweet iced tea, fried chicken, sweet potatoes, pecans, corn bread, mint juleps, boiled peanuts, fried green tomatoes

Here's a video that shows you how to make Frogmore Stew, also known as Lowcountry Boil. 

The Flamingos of Bascom Hill

In 1979, the student government at University of Wisconsin decided that the best use of student government funds was to purchase 1,008 plastic flamingos and display them in the center of the beautiful, green campus on historic Bascom Hill. Please read the short and very interesting article about the event at the Wisconsin Historical Society website. The governing body was also responsible for a partial replica of the Statue of Liberty peeking out from the frozen Lake Mendota in the middle of Madison.

Card #32, Oregon Trail: You Just Died of Dysentery

My first card from the United States is a magnificent success! This beautiful painting is entitled Emigrants Crossing the Plains by Albert Bierstadt. It is located at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. The sender of the card, Thedeb, is currently traveling around the country in an RV. Is that cool or what? The museum where this is located is the home of over 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts.