NPS Unit Count: 86, 87
Hey there Adventurers! Continuing Bark Ranger Maisy’s first big Bark Ranger Adventure finds us checking out two more sites in the Carolinas. After departing Nintey Six National Historic Site we headed north to Cowpens National Battlefield.
I will begin by saying that I appreciate the battlefields, but generally speaking, there isn’t a whole lot to be found at these sites. From my limited experience, the battlefields are pretty bland. They are mainly open fields surrounded by woods, kinda in the middle of nowhere – good spots for a battle I guess! Cowpens seems to be similar: a big open field with nothing particularly noteworthy and a walking trail through this big open area. There is a preserved cabin of a farmer who worked the land before the government acquired it in another section of the park; you need to drive to this spot I believe.
To me, the point of the National Parks (big N big P) is to see the wonders of the natural world. The national park service units of memorials, battlefields, historic sites, etc, provide opportunities to LEARN about our history. This trip really hammered home that learning part for me. For instance, I was fully expecting all of these sites that Maisy and I visited to be Civil War sites. Instead most of them were more associated with the Revolutionary War, or even predated that. Cowpens National Battlefield preserves the site of the Battle of Cowpens in 1781. This battle was one of the largest victories of American General Daniel Morgan and one of the worst defeats of Lt. Col. Tarleton, the leader of the British Legion toward the end of the war. If you are wondering about the name, that’s the name of a nearby town.
Leaving the visitor center, which has a nice memorial, you take a semi paved/semi gravel path around the battlefield. The site does not offer a site specific Bark Ranger tag or sticker, just generic ones, but does offer a nice Cowpens Bark Ranger Certificate! There is a suggested checklist of activities to do with your Bark Ranger, but the human ranger in the visitor center didn’t really seem to care too much about any of that. You can find the Cowpens Bark Ranger info here. If you read my previous entry and look at the Bark Ranger link there, you will notice some similarities. What I really appreciated, and Maisy and I had to do, was the tip for how to shorten the walk through the area. By this time in the early afternoon, it was quite hot. These battlefields do not really offer much shade. Nintey Six was already pushing it a bit with the mid-morning summer heat. At some point on this walk, when we hit a rare shady spot, Maisy just stopped and laid down. That was all I needed to know that we were not going any further, so we took that suggested route back to the visitor center to wrap up the trip here.
After finishing up at Cowpens we continued on up into North Carolina to check out the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. I hate to admit this, but I wasn’t really all that aware of the man and his life, so I got some more education! Sandburg was a three time Pulitzer Prize winning poet, biographer, and editor. He was also a folk musician and a civil rights activist. One of his big claims to fame was his work on the life of President Lincoln, including a spoken word performance that also netted him a Grammy Award. His house and grounds here in North Carolina is beautiful. There is also a farm on the site plus some goats and cats, just as an FYI to the dog people!
I did make a mistake in my visit here. I made some assumptions and did not check the park website. Had I done so I would have discovered a few important things. First, I pulled into the parking lot just a few minutes before 4 PM. This is one of the parks that actually closes the visitor center (the house, in this case) at 4, rather than the normal 5! Secondly, had I bothered to check, I would have seen that the first parking lot takes you to the walking path that leads to the house, except that it has a footbridge that is currently washed out. This meant taking a half mile or so detour up the mountain and around the creek just to get to the other side of the footbridge! Then it was almost straight up hill to the house. I had grabbed Maisy, of course, and we tried to book it, but there was no way to make it by 4. I made a call from the trail just a few minutes before 4 and the ranger who answered was super excited to hear about #USBarkRangers and she was nice enough to leave the activity cards and some cool wooden tags sitting out for me! Turns out, we actually made it to the front door exactly at 4:00 and it was locked. They are prompt! Obviously I didn’t get to see the inside of the house; however, with the dog, that wasn’t an option anyway. Dogs are generally not allowed inside the buildings, even in the most dog friendly of sites.
Despite the house/visitor center being closed, the grounds were still open, so Maisy and I did some exploring and checked out the area. We actually ran into a few rangers and had some chats about the site and Bark Rangers. I also discovered there was a second parking lot that actually came up the mountain a pretty decent way which would have been great info to have…again, be sure to check out those park websites! The last thing I will add is that there is a popular and pretty interesting looking trail that goes to the summit of the mountain the house sits on. As it has been a long day, and I think we were both pretty pooped, we just opted to head into the local town and find a good beer. A good dog friendly spot I found is Trailside Brewing Co. It is dog friendly and has both a large indoor and outdoor area, plus food truck service. It was a good spot to end this portion of the trip!
It was a long day trekking through the Carolinas and another great Bark Rangering day was in the books! The next day took us to Georgia to see Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area and Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield.
The Parks Adventurer 