Systems at Work

During my trip to Washington D.C., I managed a brief late afternoon visit to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum near the Union Station. The museum was established through a joint agreement between the United States Postal Service and the Smithsonian Institution. It opened in 1993. The building housing the museum was constructed in 1914 and had served as the Main Post Office of Washington D.C. until 1986.

Although the museum is small when compared to its Smithsonian cousins, it houses many interactive displays about the history of the United States Postal Service, and the history of mail service and stamp collections around the world. Among them, "Systems at Work" leads visitors through 10 different periods and reveals the evolution of the postal system in the U.S. over time. You can participate simulated postal activities by tossing packages into mail pouches as mail clerks did in 1917, keying letters on a computerized version of a multiple position letter-sorting machine operated in 1968, or scanning barcodes using handheld intelligent mail devices.

My favorite part was to gather cancellation marks from various eras on a postcard.

The admission is free. For those who can't attend in person, you can visit the online version on the web.

March On Washington: a Maxi Card

The maxi card posted in the morning of the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington traveled from Washington DC to my mailbox in Las Vegas in 2 days. It shows an aerial photo of the Lincoln Memorial where the gathering was taking place on August 28, 1963. It bears a postmark of the USPS post office at the Union Station (Zipcode 20002) where the postcard was dropped off.

Airport Mailboxes: Chicago

I just came back from a 3-day flash trip to Washington D.C. for the 50th Anniversary of March on Washington. I had a connection at the Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) on August 27, 2013 on my way to the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).

I found a CNN Newsstand store near Gate B6 that had Chicago postcards for sale. Since I had some stamps with me, I decided to post a postcard to myself. There was a USPS mailbox just down the duty free store next door.

The postcard arrived today in Las Vegas bearing a postmark from Carol Stream, IL, a village next to ORD with a population of 40,438 as of the 2000 U.S. census. It was incorporated on January 5, 1959, and named after the developer's daughter.

You can find mailboxes in some other airports at airportmailboxes.com.

Retracing the Footsteps: 50 Years Later.

This is one of the dozen postcards I sent off today to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. I used a newly issued "1963 Match on Washington" stamp to replace one view on a multiview card, then drop it off with others at a post office for hand cancellation before I headed to the March.

Tens of thousands people celebrated the anniversary by retracing the 1.7 mile historical march during the on-again off-again rain at 9 am. It started at the Georgetown University Law Center and ended at the Lincoln Memorial.

Baltimore's Harborplace

I flew into Washington D.C. via Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) earlier today. When I was at the airport. I picked up a postcard showing the USS Constellation at Baltimore's Inner Harbor in Maryland. Baltimore has been one of the major seaports in the United States since the 1700s. It has grown into the cultural center of Baltimore since the 1970s.

The Inner Harbor is home to four historic ships: the USS Constellation, a sloop-of-war from 1854; the USCGC. Taney, a Coast Guard cutter; a WWII-era submarine named the USS Torsk; and a lightship the Chesapeake. 

USS Constellation, shown on the postcard, was the last all-sail ship built by the United States Navy. A sailing ship is usually referred to a wind-powered vessel. Among its early missions are disrupting the slave trade, and delivering famine relief supplies to Ireland.

California Natural Wonders

Postcard US-2380934 from my neighboring state - sunny California features many treasures of its natural resources. I was fortunate to visit Lake Tahoe, the Yosemite National Park, the Joshua Tree National Monument, and many famous beaches. Death Valley has been on my to-go list for a while.

Minsk National Airport

Minsk-2 Airport

Postcard BY-872058 from Belarus shows the Minsk National Airport (MSQ). Its former name was Minsk-2 so as to be distinguished from the smaller city Minsk-1 Airport in Minsk downtown. It is the main international airport in Belarus, located 42 km or 26 miles to the east of the capital.

The airport construction started in 1977 and the new 3,640 m long and 60 m wide runway was completed in 1979. The airport opened in 1982 with the terminal capacity of 5,8 million passengers per year. The regular flights began in 1983.

From the postmark, the postcard had traveled 120 days before it showed up in my mailbox Saturday.