Items to Memorialize Our Honeymoon
March 6, 2018 3:05 AM Subscribe
My partner and I married last year and had a fantastic honeymoon, mostly spent at a couple national parks. I'm interested in finding things to memorialize our honeymoon--in a subtler fashion than a photo album.
The classic things come to mind---an album of our photos, or artwork from or referencing the parks. But I'm interested in things that are a bit more oblique. For example, I once saw a website that would create jewelry out of the shape made by lines connecting different points on a map (so if you selected Seattle, San Diego, Miami, and Boston, you'd get a trapezoid-ish shape), but I can't find it now--and the route of our trip didn't lend itself to a particularly pleasing shape. What else can you think of?
The classic things come to mind---an album of our photos, or artwork from or referencing the parks. But I'm interested in things that are a bit more oblique. For example, I once saw a website that would create jewelry out of the shape made by lines connecting different points on a map (so if you selected Seattle, San Diego, Miami, and Boston, you'd get a trapezoid-ish shape), but I can't find it now--and the route of our trip didn't lend itself to a particularly pleasing shape. What else can you think of?
A friend and I traveled together in Rocky Mountain National Park, and he sent me a set of these super-cool pint glasses with 14'ers (made with real live USGS data) etched in the bottom. They also have Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, Yosemite's Half Dome, and Camel's Hump in Vermont.
And maybe this is too close to traditional, but after we went to Glacier park we got a nice wool blanket in Glacier's colors from Pendleton Wool. They are spendy but made in the USA and super nice, and a portion of the proceeds goes toward parks restoration projects. They have a pretty good range of parks to choose from.
posted by AgentRocket at 6:46 AM on March 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
And maybe this is too close to traditional, but after we went to Glacier park we got a nice wool blanket in Glacier's colors from Pendleton Wool. They are spendy but made in the USA and super nice, and a portion of the proceeds goes toward parks restoration projects. They have a pretty good range of parks to choose from.
posted by AgentRocket at 6:46 AM on March 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
If you want to take a DIY approach:
- find images from the park or use your own photos, and decoupage them on a storage box or a tray or some other container.
- get topgraphic maps of the parks, or of a corner of the park where you were, and frame them as art. ...Topographic maps, or blow-ups of just a portion of the parks, won't read as obviously "This Is Yosemite!" as an Ansel Adams print, say.
Could-be-DIY, could-be-not:
- think of the smells you associate with the places you were, and either find (or make) a candle with those scents.
Other stuff:
- The National Parks Passport! I picked this up while randomly visiting something near home, and it's been kinda fun; at every national park, national memorial, national recreation area, national monument, etc., the ranger station has a specially-designed commemorative rubber stamp at the ranger's desk. The idea is that you collect the stamps in your passport as you visit each place. There are also stickers you can pick up in the gift shops and put in your passport as well. This may be a thing to get for future travel too.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:56 AM on March 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
- find images from the park or use your own photos, and decoupage them on a storage box or a tray or some other container.
- get topgraphic maps of the parks, or of a corner of the park where you were, and frame them as art. ...Topographic maps, or blow-ups of just a portion of the parks, won't read as obviously "This Is Yosemite!" as an Ansel Adams print, say.
Could-be-DIY, could-be-not:
- think of the smells you associate with the places you were, and either find (or make) a candle with those scents.
Other stuff:
- The National Parks Passport! I picked this up while randomly visiting something near home, and it's been kinda fun; at every national park, national memorial, national recreation area, national monument, etc., the ranger station has a specially-designed commemorative rubber stamp at the ranger's desk. The idea is that you collect the stamps in your passport as you visit each place. There are also stickers you can pick up in the gift shops and put in your passport as well. This may be a thing to get for future travel too.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:56 AM on March 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh, I found this Etsy shop - a jewelry maker who does a couple of different styles of simple pendants with the coordinates for a specific place engraged on them. She already has a couple parks pre-made, but can also do custom orders.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:03 AM on March 6, 2018
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:03 AM on March 6, 2018
Hiking medallions for your walking stick (or something else to which you can affix hiking medallions).
Ornaments that you could hang on a light-up tree year round.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:14 AM on March 6, 2018
Ornaments that you could hang on a light-up tree year round.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:14 AM on March 6, 2018
A friend and I traveled together in Rocky Mountain National Park, and he sent me a set of these super-cool pint glasses with 14'ers (made with real live USGS data) etched in the bottom. They also have Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, Yosemite's Half Dome, and Camel's Hump in Vermont.
I came in to recommend something like this. I have a set of etched glasses I brought back from an absolutely wonderful vacation. Since they're the same as the ones I drank from there, they can really transport me back in time. And I use them every day.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:02 AM on March 6, 2018
I came in to recommend something like this. I have a set of etched glasses I brought back from an absolutely wonderful vacation. Since they're the same as the ones I drank from there, they can really transport me back in time. And I use them every day.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:02 AM on March 6, 2018
get a menu from a memorable meal/restaurant and frame it.
posted by mrmarley at 10:54 AM on March 6, 2018
posted by mrmarley at 10:54 AM on March 6, 2018
We had already been collecting fridge magnets, and we eventually figured out that for NPS sites specifically we could buy postcards and then stamp them using the passport stamps. I like the sort of chaos-as-aesthetic thing we have going on but I still have to admit things have gotten out of hand. We don't have postcards from the parks we visited on our honeymoon in Puerto Rico (or Mount Rainier, the next big one we visited) but we have a bunch more park postcards we haven't put up on the fridge, and the magnets have now expanded to the second fridge in the basement.
You may want to check out the serigraph prints of WPA posters (as well as some new designs) available from Ranger Doug. Some park gift shops also sell art by locals, but online availability might be spotty.
On the small thing front I used to grab matchbooks whenever I saw them, but fewer restaurants have them these days.
posted by fedward at 3:35 PM on March 6, 2018
You may want to check out the serigraph prints of WPA posters (as well as some new designs) available from Ranger Doug. Some park gift shops also sell art by locals, but online availability might be spotty.
On the small thing front I used to grab matchbooks whenever I saw them, but fewer restaurants have them these days.
posted by fedward at 3:35 PM on March 6, 2018
The traditional 1st anniversary gift is paper. The National Parks have some gorgeous postcards; send 1 a day for a week or a month.
posted by theora55 at 4:56 PM on March 6, 2018
posted by theora55 at 4:56 PM on March 6, 2018
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- find coasters/placemats/dish towels with topographical maps of the places you visited (could you make these yourselves using public domain maps?) - it's important that these be things you use every day, not dusty photos hanging in a forgotten hallway
- buy and arrange houseplants which are species that grow in the parks
- create phone/computer backgrounds/screensavers made up of photos from your trip
- put a collection of interesting minerals or rocks from the area on the ground somewhere like a private part of your yard/garden, or display them in some sort of decorative vessel in a place of pride like a mantle or on your dining table
- create a playlist that features artists from the areas you visited
- order foods from local park-adjacent businesses you liked, or send them as mail-order gifts to people who went to your wedding/celebrated with you
- on your anniversary every year, give a National Parks pass to someone you think should have one
- donate camping gear and other outdoor supplies to a local youth group, especially if you live in a large city or an economically diverse area with lots of kids who might never get to visit a national park
- make your home [and vehicle(s)] more energy-efficient to lessen your carbon footprint and keep our planet that much cleaner for future generations
- on the day of your wedding each month, take 15 minutes to take one action to protect parkland and wild spaces near you: plan to attend a meeting, contact your local representatives, get in touch with a local parks authority and see what volunteering actions are happening nearby
posted by mdonley at 4:29 AM on March 6, 2018 [8 favorites]