If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 158

Festung Hohensalzburg, ca 1917

Here are two vintage postcards from the early 1900s that I found in a little novelty shop in Slazburg, Austria, showing two different views of the fortress called Hohensalzburg Castle.  The card above is dated 1917 and numbered 435.  The second card, below, is not dated but appears to be the same vintage.  It has the number 351.  Both were printed in Salzburg. 

We took the funicular rail line that goes up to the top of the hill where the fortress sits three or four times during our stay in Salzburg.  The size and condition of the fortress are impressive for such an ancient structure.  The view from the top is stunning.  An evening out with dinner and a concert at the castle was a decided treat and the walk back to the hotel on a warm summer evening delightful.  Although we saw several regular beggars during the day they were not aggressive the way panhandlers in Seattle can often be and they were gone at night.  Salzburg is a very safe feeling city and people were walking at night without concern.

There is a secondary smaller watchtower fortress across the valley that is accessed by an elevator.   We did that also, once just we two and once with my visiting French friend.  There is a trail or pathway from one fortress to the other that we walked along until we came to a small outpost.  There is a quaint café at one end where we stopped and had a warm apple strudel with a generous amount of whipped cream. 

The walls of this fortress outpost were built in the 1400s.  Notice the slits in the tower where the archers would have fired their arrows at opposing forces.

Selfie to prove we were here!

View from the secondary fortress looking toward the castle

The Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg initiated the construction of the fortress.  It is 820 feet or 250 meters long and 490 feet or 150 meters wide making it one of the largest medieval castles in Europe.  Building began in 1077 as a basic bailey with a wooden wall. 

 

One of several guard houses

There were additions and improvements made to the castle throughout the centuries such as the ring walls and towers that were built in 1462, expansion occurred 1495-1519 under the Prince Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach.  There was a very early and primitive funicular that allowed freight to be hauled up to the castle.  The funicular has been updated but is possibly the oldest operational railway in the world.  Models of the fortress and its successive improvements are on display inside the castle. 

The fortress came under siege once during the German Peasants’ War, 1525, when a group of miners, farmers and townspeople tried to oust the then Prince-Archbishop Matthäus Lang.  They failed to take the castle.  In 1612 the Archbishop von Raitenau died there in prison.  The castle’s defenses were strengthened during the Thirty Years’ War by adding parts to it such as the gunpowder stores and gatehouses.  The fort was surrendered without a fight to the French troops during the Napoleonic War 1800.  The fortress has also been used as barracks, a storage depot and dungeon until 1861 when it was abandoned as a military outpost.  It was used as a prison during World War I.  It has been refurbished, contains a museum, restaurant, gift shop and has become a major tourist attraction.  The fortress is one of the best-preserved castles in Europe.  An Austrian commemorative coin (2006) uses the Hohensalzburg castle as the main motif.  Another coin minted in 1977 was issued to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the castle.

Here are some more photos from our recent visit.

Looking toward the fortress from Mirabel Gardens

The funicular train climbs up to the castle on this rail line.  It is a short ride but very steep.

Looking over part of the old city from the castle wall

The small orange plaque on the inner Bastian gives the construction date as 1497

Parts of this wall date from the 1400s while other sections are a bit newer.  There is a pile of fake canon balls in the small courtyard.

Inside the walls the space is large and there are many separate buildings including this church dedicated to one of the Archbishops.  Bright flowers and plants in full bloom graced the otherwise stark surroundings.

Living quarters for the Archbishop were on the second and third floors of the main castle.  Today evening concerts are held in the Golden Chamber.  The walls of the chamber used to be covered with cloth or leather that has not survived but the gold buttons in the ceiling have lasted through the years and symbolize the stars in the sky.  The funicular ticket gives entrance to the museum but the concert tickets are extra.  

Ceiling buttons and wall decorations

 The Golden Chamber where concerts are held today

Tile stoves used to heat the living quarters

Kitchen

The museum has recreated or restored rooms, musical instrument displays, and a very clever exhibit of invisible puppets dressed in armor and posed as if in battle.  There are also canons and other weapons.

 Bob standing by one of the cannons

 Armor displayed on puppets in battle poses

 Beautiful carved support pillar

Recently discovered very early construction of an inner arch that had been walled over.

Twilight view from the castle wall

For more information, please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohensalzburg_Castle

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 157

 Aerial view, Grand Coulee Dam, prior to 1978

 Aerial view, Grand Coulee Dam, ca 1983

The two postcards shown above are aerial views of Grand Coulee Dam located in eastern Washington State.  Coulee Dam is one of those places like Mount Rushmore (last week’s postcard) that is a “want to see” for many people.  It is the largest electric power producing facility in the United States.  The dam currently has three hydroelectric power plants but was originally designed and constructed with two.  The third plant was completed 1974-1978 to increase energy production.  

Grand Coulee is an ancient river bed once thought to have been carved out by retreating glaciers but later discovered to have been the result of massive floods from Lake Missoula.  As early as 1892 proposals were being made to build a dam across the Columbia River near Grand Coulee to irrigate eastern Washington for farming.  Concerns about the size of the man made lake this would create and lack of funding contributed to the dam not being built at that time.  Several other similar proposals were made and finally in 1933 work commenced on a low dam to provide power and irrigation.  The design was modified to a high dam (550 feet or 168 meters) in 1934 and completed in 1942.  

The 151-mile reservoir lake created by the dam is named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was the President of the United States who authorized and presided over the completion of the dam.  Creation of the huge lake meant that over 3,000 people living in the area had to be relocated and many trees removed.  Huge pumps lift the water into the reservoir.  Hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land have been cultivated in eastern Washington because of the dam. 

The top postcard photograph was taken prior to the completion of the Third Powerhouse.  I am not sure how the photographer managed to achieve such a dramatic reddish color to the landscape but it is very beautiful in a stark way.  Both cards were distributed by Smith-Western Co. of Tacoma, Washington.  The second card was issued in 1983 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Columbia Basin Project and the Dedication of the Grand Coulee Third Powerplant.  There were two lakes created by the dam, FDR and the smaller Banks Lake both shown in the photograph from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. 

I have visited Grand Coulee a couple of times and include some pictures below taken in 1985. Both of the postcards show the dam in full or almost full flood while this picture below has only a small amount of water flowing over the spillway. 

Grand Coulee Dam, June 1985

FDR Lake

Bust of Franklin D. Roosevelt overlooking the lake

In 1952 the U.S. Postal Service issued a Grand Coulee Dam commemorative stamp and since I also like stamps as well as postcards I looked to see if it was possible to find one.  The answer was yes, and here it is below --

Grand Coulee also has a Visitor Center containing many historical photos, geological samples and dam models.

For additional information, please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Coulee_Dam
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/barnes/grandcoulee/museum.html

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 156

The housecleaning project we are in the midst of netted a few forgotten postcards including this one from the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.  Paul Niemann took the photograph and the Rushmore Photos & Gifts, Inc published it.

This massive granite mountainside sculpture is one of the best-known American symbols and is a popular destination for travelers in the United States with over 2 million visitors a year.  Represented are four former Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.  The heads are 60 feet tall and took from 1927 to 1939 to complete.  Originally the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, had wanted each figure to be depicted from head to waist but he died in March 1941 and although his son, Lincoln Borglum, who had helped with the project took over the remaining construction, lack of funding forced an end in October of that year.

Doanne Robinson, a South Dakota historian, conceived the idea of carving likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills region as early as 1923 in order to promote tourism.  Borglum agreed to take on the project but rejected the site selected by Robinson, the Needles, because the granite there was a poor quality and there was opposition from Native American groups.  Mount Rushmore had better quality granite and was facing southeast for maximum sun exposure.  Robinson wanted western heroes such as Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Red Cloud but Borglum wanted a more national focus therefore chose the presidents instead. 

The four chosen presidents were selected because Borglum felt they best represented preservation of the Republic and expanding the territory.   Plaster models of the monument are on display in the sculptor’s studio and show the hoped for head to waist design.  Trivia--the project cost almost 1 million dollars, was notable for its size, and there were no fatalities during the blasting and carving process.

Avenue of the flags

Views of Mount Rushmore from near the visitor center

In September 2000 we visited Mount Rushmore and took a few pictures.  There is a nice visitor center and several viewing areas.  Very near to the parking area is a rocky hillside that on that particular day was a grazing area to several mountain goats.  We could not believe that they were so close to the cars and people but they seemed not to mind and calmly continued to eat what greenery was available.

There is a 0.5 mile hiking trail that offers different views of Mount Rushmore.  It is mostly a boardwalk and labeled as an easy family friendly hike. 


The mountain has had several different names and was originally known as Six Grandfathers by the Lakota Sioux.  After a series of military campaigns (1876-1878) the United States took control of the area.  That claim is still disputed on the basis of a 1868 treaty. It was also variously called Cougar Mountain, Sugarloaf Mountain, Slaughterhouse Mountain and Keystone Cliffs by settlers coming into the area.  The mountain was officially renamed for Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer, during an expedition in 1885.

For additional information, please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutzon_Borglum
http://alltrails.com/trail/us/south-dakota/presidential-trail-mt-rushmore
http://www.travelsd.com/Attractions/Mount-Rushmore/General-Information

Skookum Flats

After the Naches Peak Loop mosquito hike Bob decided to try and find a place without so many bugs hence a return to Skookum Flats near White River, in part of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.   The day was warm, as almost all the days have been this summer, but the trail was in a deep forest with plenty of shade making it comfortable.  And best of all—no bugs or so few we didn’t notice them.  Not one nasty mosquito bite by the end of the day.

We did not expect to find many wildflowers but were pleasantly surprised to find a few really special plants after all.  One of the most startling things was the color of the river.  Now I think I know why it is called White River.  During the spring the water is clear, blue, normal colored but in summer it changes to a white gray because instead of snow run off it is now fed almost entirely from melting glaciers and bringing with the water ground rocks, sand, pumice, dirt and silt.

The trees are beautiful, some huge, a mostly conifer forest comprised of cedar, hemlock and fir but also some deciduous trees like maple and alder. 

Here are a few of the flowers we saw . . .

Indian Pipe

We saw Indian Pipe last year and I thought it was such a strange interesting plant.  It is part of the Heath family and likes to grow in shady forests.  Quite often we have found this plant growing in bunches.  So if we discovered one clump like this one above it was likely another clump would be nearby.

Rattlesnake Plantain

Rattlesnake Plantain is an orchid with very tiny green-white flowers.  Once we noticed this plant we looked about to see if there were others and there were.  I had not seen it in bloom before. 

Western Coralroot

Another first, this Western Coralroot looks a lot like the Spotted Coralroot we have come across before but it does not have the little red and white spots on the flowers.  It is another belonging to the Orchid family.

Bull Thistle

Bull Thistles are weeds but the flowers are so pretty and showy I couldn’t resist adding it to the list. 

We did not expect to find this Penstemon growing at the lower elevation but here it was.  Part of the Figwort family there are several different kinds of Penstemon.

Bunchberry

One of the few Bunchberry plants we saw this one had already set its bright red berries.

There was one place along the trail where these brilliant scarlet mushrooms (or toadstools) were growing.  So far I have not found an exact match so I don’t really know what they are but since they are red they are probably not edible and choice.  They are tiny and rather cute though.

This was a 4.5 mile hike round trip with a 300 foot elevation gain.  The trail is mostly dirt with one rocky section mid-way.  We saw a handful of other hikers and one mountain biker who was traveling with a couple of dogs.  We usually hear more birds and only saw one chipmunk scamper across the trail.