Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park – Hawaii
Visiting Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park on the Big Island is an encounter with a living cultural landscape that reflects how Natick Hawaiians sustained themselves for centuries in balance with land and sea.
In the park are the traditional fishponds built from lava rock and guided by tidal flow. Fish were allowed to enter and grow which provided a renewable food source. The surrounding lava fields hold the imprint of everyday life: house platforms, petroglyphs and the remains of a village.
Recognizing the national significance of this place, Jimmy Carter signed legislation in 1978 establishing Kaloko Honokohau as a National Historical Park. This designation marked a growing acknowledgement that indigenous knowledge systems are central to the American story and deserve to be protected.
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Wright Brothers National Memorial – North Carolina
When visiting the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Erin and I spent a day at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, the very place where powered flight first lifted off the plane and changed human history. Set in Kill Devil Hills, the memorial preserves the windswept dunes where Wilbur and Oliver Wright achieved the world’s first successful, […]
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument – Arizona
Driving through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument at dusk, the landscape does not feel empty, it feels inhabited. As the sun lowers behind the Ojo Mountains, long shadows stretch across the sand. The silhouette of organ pipe and saguaro cacti rise with arms lifted toward a sky painted in amber color. This is the Sonoran Desert, one […]
Fort Larned National Historic Site – Kansas
Along our coasts and across the vast interior of our country, we have built military forts. They rise not in settled times, but in moments of change, when boundaries shift, when commerce pushes outward, when cultures meet in tension. Fort Larned stands as one of those witnesses to transition. In 1859, along the corridor of the […]
