A Happy Halloween!

Postcard US-6314090 from Maryland shows a vintage Halloween image from the early 20th century of a boy with his dog, checking out three funny pumpkins.

The US Postal Service issued four Forever stamps at the Milford Pumpkin Festival in Milford, NH on October 11,2019 for Halloween. The Spooky Silhouettes stamps feature a cat, two ghosts, a spider, and three bats rendered as black silhouettes against eerily backlit windows.

Tortoise: Guinness Ad Campaign

Postcard US-4015876 to Germany shows "Tortoise" from a vintage Guinness ad campaign poster. The tortoise was an appropriate candidate to promote Guinness beer as a pick me up, circa 1936.

Western Horseman: July 1954 Cover

Postcard US-4002384 to Japan shows the July 1954 Western Horseman magazine cover. It captures that tense, explosive split-second after the chute gates open and the cowboy says "Turn 'im out!" This photo was shot by Clarence Coil, a frequent contributor to the magazine during the 1950s.

Vista of Engineer Mountain

Postcard US-4005401 to Thailand was a vintage card from the 1960s, with a view of Engineer Mountain Vista in autumn from the Million Dollar Highway, US 550 between Durango and Silverton in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado.

F Line Streetcar in San Francisco

Postcard US-4010006 to Germany shows the F Market & Wharves line, one of several light rail lines in San Francisco, California, that runs as a heritage streetcar service. Distinctive from most other lines in the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) system, the F line's operation uses exclusively historic equipment both from San Francisco's retired fleet as well as from cities around the world. Market Street Railway, a nonprofit organization of streetcar enthusiasts, provides a support role by raising funds and helps to restore vintage streetcars.

Seven Caves at La Jolla, California

Postcard US-3934052 to France shows the Seven Caves of La Jolla, near San Diego, California. Nestled between La Jolla Cove and La Jolla Shores, only one of caves is accessible by land while the other six can only be accessed by guided kayaking. Housed in a seventy-five million year old sea cliff, each of them has a unique name: White Lady, Little Sister, Shopping Cart, Sea Surprize, Arch Cave, Sunny Jim’s Cave, and Clam’s Cave.

Sunny Jim’s Cave, named after a cartoon character from a brand of cereal that was common at the turn of the century because of the similarity of the shape of their mouths, is the only known land accessed cave along the California coastline. In history, the cave's tunnel, leading to Coast Boulevard in La Jolla, was carved out by Chinese immigrant laborers for smuggling Chinese and other immigrants into the United States. Those intriguing caves were also once used to smuggle illegal whisky during the prohibition from 1920 to 1933.

I Can't Bear to Leave Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin

Outgoing postcard US-3935012 to Finland was a vintage linen postcard showing a bear in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

All eyes on the April 5 Wisconsin primary Tuesday, with its 96 delegates up for grab on the Democratic side and 42 delegates on the Republican side. Bernie Sanders wins Wisconsin Democratic primary. It added to his momentum, but he still trails Clinton in delegate count. Republican Ted Cruz crushes Donald Trump, hoping that party will unite behind his campaign from now on and the future contests will lead to a rare contested convention.

Cherry Blossom in DC Signaling the Start of Spring

The National Park Service announced last Friday that the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin in Washington DC were officially at peak bloom on March 25, 2016 with 75% of the trees in full bloom. It was peaked more than two weeks earlier this year than last year.

Postcard US-3373353 to Czech Republic shows the cherry blossoms around the Lincoln Memorial with a matching USPS Gifts of Friendship stamp.

They Tickle

Postcard US-3903405 to Finland shows a pig with her piglets on a vintage postcard by Baxter Lane Company. It's funny that I thought those piglets were rats initially.

Arundel Castle

Postcard US-3592467 to Finland shows a great dane with Arundel Castle in the background. A restored and remodeled medieval castle overlooking the River Arun in Arundel, West Sussex, England, the castle was built by Roger de Montgomery at the end of the 11th century. The castle was damaged in the English Civil War and was restored in the 18th and 19th centuries.

There Is Always a Table Especially for You

Outgoing postcard US-3891824 to France shows the Court of Two Sisters at 613 Royal Street and 614 Bourbon in the heart of the Historic Center of old  New Orleans. The name was gained from the fact that two sisters conducted a fancy and variety store here. The present structure was erected in 1832 on the site of the residence of Sieur Etienne de Perier, the second royal governor of the French Colonial Louisiana. Currently, it serves daily jazz brunches with a buffet of Creole classics as well as à la carte dinner.

Jimmie Cooper, the owner between 1940 and 1956, used this card to offer "greetings from as romantic a place as you ever ate in - drank in - wrote home about." It reads on the back of the card: It's been here a long time, since way back, and the "Two-Sisters" have long been gone - but the famous "Court" remains more charming and beautiful than ever. One of the nicest things about the place is - "There's always a table especially for you." Jimmie guided the Court to reach the great popularity among the servicemen and women from all over the world when New Orleans was a major shipbuilding and embarkation center.

The charm gates seen on the card were wrought in Spain especially for the Court of Two Sisters.

Survival against the Odds

Postcard GB-749952 from the United Kingdom shows an illustration of St Paul's Cathedral by Dave Thompson,

St Paul's Cathedral, an Anglican cathedral, sits on the highest point of Ludgate Hill in London., originally founded in AD 604. The present English Baroque style church from the late 17th century, is one of the most famous and most recognizable landmarks in London. At a height of 365 feet  or 111 meters, it was once the tallest building in London between 1710 and 1962. It held peace services for the ending of World War I and World War II.

The card came with one of the eight stamps from Great Britain’s Royal Mail, honoring Ernest Shackleton’s survival story against the odds during his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition from 1914 to 1916.  The stamp depicts the crew Striving to Free Endurance from the ice in February, 1915,

The cathedral itself was also a survivor of the Blitz, a period of strategic bombing of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany during World War II between October 1940 and April 1941.

Buffaloes, Custer State Park, Black Hills, South Dakota

Postcard US-3761486 to Germany is a vintage card showing Custer State Park, a state park and wildlife reserve in the Black Hills of southwestern South Dakota. On the back of the card, it reads: "Custer State Park is one of the largest State Parks in the U.S.A. It contains 128,000 acres of wonderful scenery, consisting of mountains, picturesque gorges, beautiful lakes and streams. 90,000 acres are under fence, and roaming unmolested within this enclosure are Buffalo, Elk, Deer, Big Horn Sheep, Rocky Mt. Goats and Antelope."

Wikipedia lists the park area as 71,000 acres. Founded in 1912 and named after Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, the park has an annual buffalo roundup and auction in September, where buffaloes are rounded up, with surplus sold at auction so that the remaining number of animals can be sustained by the rangeland forage. However, those "buffaloes" are actually American Bison as shown on the card.

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway

Postcard US-3429537 to France shows a northbound San Diegan train, in the form of two Budd-built Rail Diesel Cars (RDC's), pulls out of Santa Ana, California. The photo was taken by Thomas H. Gildersleeve on July 3, 1952. Those cars were brand new and were placed in service on May 21, 1952.

According to Thomas H. Gildersleeve, "the first San Diegan was inaugurated as a diesel powered streamlined train on March 27, 1938, and it soon evolved into an entire fleet of Los Angeles - San Diego trains encompassing three sets of equipment, each of which made two daily round trips. After the RDC was introduced, Santa Fee purchased this one pair to replace one of the conventional streamliner sets in San Diegan service."

"The RDC San Diegans lasted until January of 1956, at which time they were reassigned to train No's 311 and 312 between Newton and Dodge City, Kansas, as it was felt they lacked sufficient seating capacity for continued service on the popular San Diego line. In their new assignment, the cars displayed a more conventional Santa Fe paint scheme with the usual red and yellow front end, and one of the cars sported a baggage section, making it similar in appearance to an RDC-2. The cars climaxed their career on the Santa Fe by operating out of Carlsbad, New Mexico."

The card features two of the five 1999 33-cent USPS commemorative stamps titled "All Aboard!" The original water color illustrations used on the stamps depict art deco-style passenger trains of the 1930s and 1940s. On the far left was the Super Chief, famous for carrying motion picture people between Chicago and Los Angeles, also known as the "Train of the Stars." On the second left was the Congressional which followed a route between New York and Washington, D.C. Its slogan was "Every Mile Electrified."

The stamp on the far right shows one of the five 2015 Forever USPS commemorative stamps with Mexican artist Martín Ramírez's drawings from circa 1960–1963, a gouache, colored pencil, and graphite drawing on pieced paper “Untitled (Trains on Inclined Tracks).”

Chalet Motels

Postcard US-3429629 to Michigan was a vintage card that advertised Chalet Motels for being "Luxury and Economy Across the Nation." It boasted amenities such as air refrigeration, television, kitchens available, heated pool, and room phones

Recommended by AAA, it offered free reservation service to all other Charlet Motels. Major credit cards accepted.

The credit line stated "Litho by bob Plunkett, R. S. Los Angeles 6."

United States Post Office at Phoenix, Arizona

Postcard US-3372307 to Poland was a 1950s vintage card of a street view looking north on 1st Avenue past the west entrance to the U.S. Post Office in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. Just North is the Hotel Westward Ho.

Also known as Federal Building-U.S. Post Office, it opened on September 29, 1936 and operated as the main post office of Phoenix for over thirty years, A landmark in downtown Phoenix, the Federal Building-Post Office was symbolic of the federal presence as it also hosted several other Federal agencies.

It is currently part of Arizona State University at the Downtown Phoenix campus. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 10, 1983, the Post Office features Spanish Colonial Revival architectural design.

George Washington's Surveying Office

Outgoing postcard US-3373216 to Taiwan shows a vintage card of George Washington's Surveying Office on the Washington Farm, located along the northern bank of the Rappahannock River, across from the city of Fredericksburg, in Stafford County, Virginia.

Also known as the Ferry Farm, it is the George Washington Boyhood Home Site where George Washington spent much of his childhood with the Cherry Tree Myth, and where his father Augustine Washington died on April 12, 1743 at age 49 when George Washington was 11 years old. Augustine had left behind a small set of surveying instruments after he died. The illustration shows the only building remaining which is said to have been used by George Washington as a workshop while acquiring practice surveying.

However, archaeologists later found the building dated to the late 1800s, post Civil War. So it could not have been used by young George as a workshop. "The Surveyor Shed" was a subject of money making schemes by James Beverly Colbert and George Allen England who promoted the non-important structure as a genuine relic, in an attempt to profit from the land's associations with Washington in the 1920s.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Postcard US-3263831 to California was a vintage card showing St. Patrick's Cathedral, a decorated Neo-Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral church and a prominent landmark of New York City, directly across the street from Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan and specifically facing the Atlas statue. The cathedral was completed in 1878, The cathedral and associated buildings were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976. According to a spreadsheet of NRHP list from the National Park Service, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on December 8, 1976 with a reference number 76001250.

Vista of Capitol through Cherry Blossoms

Outgoing postcard US-3372297 to Japan was a reproduction of vintage linen postcard Vista of Capitol through Cherry Blossoms, Washington, D. C. by D.C. Reynolds Co in the 1930s. It shows the famed cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin with the U.S. Capitol Building in the background. It has one of the USPS Gifts of Friendship stamps featuring the U.S. Capitol building surrounded by white and pink dogwood trees.

According to a USPS news release, "in a ceremony at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first two of 3,020 flowering cherry trees gifted to the nation’s capital from the city of Tokyo. As a show of gratitude for this generous gift, former President William Howard Taft arranged for the United States to send 50 flowering dogwood trees to Japan in 1915. This reciprocal gift featured a species of tree native to the eastern United States and Canada."

Yuccas Blooming on the Desert

Postcard US-3285001 to Finland was a vintage linen card Yucca Whipplei blooming with a background of mighty San Jacinto Mountain in California.

Native to southern California, United States and Baja California, Mexico, Yucca whipplei ( Hesperoyucca whipplei) is a species of flowering plant in the genus Hesperoyucca, but closely related to, and previously usually included in, the genus Yucca. It is extremely drought tolerant and thrives in clay soils. The fiber from its leaves was used extensively by Native Americans for making sandal, cloth, and rope.