Orphaned Postcard Project

Sender: Postmuse

A beautiful folded art card of a tree, enclosing postcards for my adoption.

Back in April 2011, I discovered the Orphaned Postcard Project by Postmuse via the Postcrossing Official Forum. Postmuse collects blank postcards from all over the world and lists them on her blog for people to "adopt". You can choose the postcard you wish to "adopt" if you have lived in the postcard's location (or have some sort of connection to it) and inform her and she will send the postcard to you, already addressed to her. Then you just write on the postcard (preferably about the subject of the postcard), add the proper postage, and post it back to her. I've adopted some, of places that I've been to, or stayed in. In return, Postmuse sent me some postcards, which I didn't expect and was very, very happy to receive! :)

A Katharine Hepburn stamp! I love her when she plays strong independent women with minds of their own.

"I find a woman's point of view much grander and finer than a man's." 

~ Katharine Hepburn

The Washington Monument. Washington, D.C.

Text on card: A sunset view of the Washington Monument, located at the west end of The Mall in Washington, District of Columbia. Built in honour of George Washington, this monument is the tallest stone structure in the world at a height of 555 feet.

Postmuse writes that D.C. is one of her favourite "haunts" as the museums are free. How lovely! I don't think we have free museums here..I think there is a charge for all...

Benjamin Banneker (9.11.1731 - 9.10.1806). Born in a time of unequal rights for African-Americans, Benjamin Banneker succeeded in becoming a well known and well respected mathematician, inventor, and astronomer.

Francis Parkman (16.9.1823 – 8.11.1893) is an American historian, chiefly remembered for his works on the history of British and French exploration and conflict in North America.

Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota is a water-based park to be explored mostly by motorboat, houseboat, canoe and kayak.

Text on card: Charley Harper, Birds. Anhinga (Water Turkey)

Charley Harper (4.8.1922 - 10.6.2007) was an American wildlife artist known for his graphic illustrations of nature, animals, insects, in a style he called "minimal realism". Postmuse likes his art and has seen Anhinga before, on a trip to the Everglades.

Celia Cruz (21.10.1925 – 16.7.2003) was a Cuban-American salsa singer, known as the "Queen of Salsa".

Text on card: The Totempole stands as a sacred landmark within the Navajo Tribal Park, in the Navajo Nation.

Postmuse writes that the landscape in the U.S. Southwest is other wordly. I really wish to experience it with my own eyes. It is an alien landscape to me... 

Selena Quintanilla-Perez, (16.4.1971 – 31.3.1995), a Texas born tejano singer, tragically murdered on 31st March, 1995. She was known as “The Queen of Tejano”.

Text on card: Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde, Spanish for "green table", rises high above the surrounding country. For about 1,300 years, agrarian Indians occupied the mesa and surrounding regions. From the hundreds of dwellings that remain, archeologists have compiled one of the most significant chapters in the story of prehistoric America.

Mesa Verde National Park was designated a World Heritage Site in 1978. The park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States. Postmuse got sunburnt on her last visit there, but the sunburn was worth it!

Text on card: On this night, the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights were vividly displayed over Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Postmuse has only seen the Northern Lights once in her life, while walking home. She thought it was a nuclear disaster before she found out what it really was the very next day. I would have freaked out if they happen here (which they never will, as we are not in the high latitude regions!)

Carmen Miranda, (9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955), a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s.