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El Capitan

Earlier this year Dave and I visited a cousin of mine and his family in Colorado. While we were looking for something in the basement, he showed me boxes and boxes of beautiful engraved stamps, whole, unperforated blocks, carefully encased in archival glassine envelopes. They were from our grandpa, he said. A lot of them were quite valuable. He mentioned a couple of blocks that were missing from the collection and wondered if my dad might have them. I promised to look into it the next time I was at my parents' house.

When I visited my folks a couple of weeks ago, my dad's response to the story was, "My father never collected stamps. Those were mine!" Heh.

My mom had carefully set aside three notebooks filled with single stamps, but the only entire block I found was this set of one-cent Yosemite stamps from 1934. It's part of a series commemorating national parks. The engraving is gorgeous. I have always had a thing for fine engraving and printing and I want nothing more than to run my fingertips over the tiny lines of raised ink on this stamp block. But I won't, because I know that's not the philatelically correct thing to do. Even though these stamps aren't terribly valuable, I will keep my greasy fingerprints off them.

I was thrilled to find this particular block because I love Yosemite. I'm sure it has a special place in the heart of everyone who has ever been there. Yosemite is reminiscent of Disneyland in the summer months, but in the last few years Dave and I have discovered that it is heavenly in the winter. The crowds are much, much smaller and mellower and the quiet is surreal. Many of the trails are inaccessible, but those that are open are magical when you have them mostly to yourselves.

Yosemite Valley last December. See the entire photo set.

November 14, 2006 3:20 PM