In my mailbox today were two — and only two — postcards, coincidentally both from Indonesia, and from different senders who got my address from different sources. This card, from Shinta, shows three side-by-side volcanoes in East Java. All told, Indonesia has about 150 active volcanoes, but it looks like only one of the volcanoes in this picture was feeling fiery that day.

Shinta was very generous with the variety of stamps! There are postage stamps celebrating wildlife, traditional food and clothing, the Year of the Rabbit, and… what’s that blue one? Molecular biology? Human cloning? Aspartame?

Check out Girls Go Postal! to see today’s other Indonesian postcard which, in yet another coincidence, also features three smokin’ hotties.

Here’s a little something to cool you off on this hot summer’s Postcard Friendship Friday: “Iceberg Lake, Altitude 11,500 Ft., Trail Ridge Road between Estes Park and Grand Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.”  It was in fact posted from Estes Park, CO on 3 August 1940; I guess somebody else was trying to cool off, too.  But we’ll never know who.

This is a Curt Teich “C. T. Art-Colortone” linen postcard, number 6A-H288, published in 1936.  Odd that there’s no message, but it does happen from time to time.  I received a postcard myself just last week (Update: correction — two weeks ago — Ed.) with no message; I was very put out about it.

Be sure to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

I love these rare occasions when folks not only send me a postcard, but also write my blog entry for me.  But this card also marks a couple of firsts: not only is it my first card from Norway, but it’s also the first time anyone has sent me a postcard containing a message of nearly 300 words.  Anne was very descriptive with regards to her town and to the views on this postcard.  I’m guessing she was inspired by the stamp, which contains the first 30-40 words of Ja, vi elsker dette landet (“Yes, we love this country”), which is Norway’s national anthem.

Even wearing my glasses, I found it much easier to scan this card into the computer, rather than try to read it at arm’s length.  Anne writes, in part: “Here is a card for you from central Norway. The municipality of Verdal is about 95 kilometers northeast of Trondheim. We have a lot of rivers, lakes, woods and mountain areas. The name Verdal is very old. It means the valley with the tranquil river.

“Verdal has 14,000 citizens. About half of them live in the small city centre of Verdalsøra. But Verdal is much bigger, 1,543 km², stretching from the Trondheimsfjord to the border of Sweden. Verdal is most known for the historic site of Stiklestad. The battle at Stiklestad (on) July 29th, 1030 is one of the most important events in Norwegian history.

“The pictures are: Top left: Molana at Stiklestad Museum is built in the traditional building style of my area of Norway. Top middle: Verdal’s railway station. Top right: Part of old Verdal centre. Bottom: Part of Verdal, picture taken to the southeast. The dominant mountain in the background is Hermanssnasa, Verdal’s second tallest mountain (1,035 meters).

“Verdal is divided in two by the main river. Verdal has trade, agriculture, small and medium size businesses, off-shore industry and we export limestone. Both the E6 highway and the railroad connecting northern and southern Norway pass through Verdal. In addition, we have the road across the border to Sweden.

“…Now it is summer, and the days are long. We have 20½ hour(s) of sunshine at this time, and no real night at all.”  That’s it! She’s not sleeping and had time to write all this!  Seriously, though, I appreciate Anne’s time and effort even more than I appreciate the postcard itself.

It took me some time to decide which lake this is; there is no English-language caption on the card, and Winnie, who drew a very cute self-portrait on the back of the card, told me only that the picture “is a famous lake in Taiwan”, and even then only as a postscript.  On the other hand, it’s always nice to get a postcard on which the subject of the message is something besides the postcard itself.  As for the messages that I myself send out, I plead the fifth.

Ultimately, I was able to puzzle out the Chinese caption on the front of the card.  Sun Moon Lake  (日月潭) is named from the notion that  the lake’s east side is round like the Sun, while the west side is in the shape of a crescent moon.  It’s also the place to be in Taiwan if you’re on your honeymoon, much as Niagara Falls used to be the traditional destination for honeymooners in the US.

In the middle of the lake, between the sun and the moon, is Lalu Island, which is sacred ground to the Thao tribe (or Shao, depending on who you ask), who are a people aboriginal to Taiwan.  As a result, no non-tribesman are allowed on the island, nor is swimming allowed in the lake, except for a few special events.

This Turkish card shows the cover image for the book Son Ülke (“The Last Country”).  It’s also a detail of the painting “The Tempest” by Giorgione, painted around 1508.  (According to the card, the title of the painting in Turkish is Fırtına, which is the Turkish word for “storm”; not a lot of synonyms in the Turkish language.)

Yasemin sent me this card from Ankara, writing (in Turkish): “This is my first time writing to someone who knows Turkish, I am excited.  I hope you like my card.”  I do like it, very much.

I also like the stamp, which shows Iğdır, a city in eastern Turkey.  On the right of the stamp, you can see the Ermeni Soykırım Anıtı (Armenian Genocide Monument), which is a memorial to non-combatant Turks killed by Armenians during World War I.  Off in the distance is Mount Ararat, alleged by some to be the final resting place of Noah’s Ark.

“This view presents (the) original Pass of the North (Paso del Norte). It shows the Rio Grande, Highway U.S. 80, the Canal and Santa Fe R.R. emerging from this famous pass. Across the river are seen mountains in Old Mexico and Mt. Cristo Rey with its “Christ the King” Statue overlooking the valley.”

It used to be possible to take Highway 80 from coast to coast but, with the advent of Interstate Highways, the entire portion of US 80 west of Dallas, Texas has been decommissioned.  It’s still possible to take Highway 80 from Dallas and head east, staying with it all the way to the Atlantic Ocean; you’ll end up at Tybee Island, Georgia.

It’s unusual to see the description on the front of the card instead of the back, but there it is.  This is a Curteich “C. T. Art-Colortone” postcard, number 5B-H345, manufactured in 1945, and in pristine condition thanks to Kay Anthony.

“For millions of years this ‘Mighty Chimney’ 225 ft. high, has stood unmoved. The panorama from its top is a memory maker — beautiful mountains, Hickory Nut Gorge, towering cliffs, incomparable Lake Lure, and the Piedmont Plain.” This card from the Asheville Post Card Company is a treasure I almost missed, tucked away in one of the albums that had been owned by Kay Anthony.  Based on the art deco fonts on the back, it was probably made not later than the mid-1930s.

“The magnificent and palatial Sun Valley Lodge is located in the heart of Sawtooth Mountains, south of Galena Pass and near Ketchum, Idaho. The view shown is looking east up Trail Creek Pass. Skiing, skating, tobogganing and dog-sledging (sic) are typical activities attracting international sportsmen. Cost $1,500,000.” I hope they’re referring to the cost of building the Lodge rather than going on a ski vacation.

This Curt Teich card (number 7A-H3945, published in 1937) features a photograph by Wesley Andrews, and was in fact distributed by the Wesley Andrews Company of Portland, Oregon. Andrews started out making real photo postcards early in his career, then apparently outsourced production to the Teich Company later. A beautiful card despite some minor damage in one corner.

This Curt Teich card (number 0B-H2338, produced in 1940) still has gorgeous colors. It came to me from the collection of Kay Anthony.

According to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park website, “World renowned for its diversity of plant and animal life, the beauty of its ancient mountains, and the quality of its remnants of Southern Appalachian mountain culture, this is America’s most visited national park.” Remnants of Southern Appalachian mountain culture? Paddle faster, I hear banjos!

“Illuminated by three banks of lights (about 150,000 watts) the faces of four great presidents, carved on a granite mountain, stand out in awesome splendor against the deep blue of the night sky.”

I spent the 4th of July, 1987 here and sent this card to Aunt Brenda. It is postmarked from Newcastle, Wyoming, just across the border from Mount Rushmore. Why Wyoming? Because I was a young airman at the time, and the drinking age in Wyoming was still 18.

“One of the most panoramic views of the entire Eastern section of the country is this Potomac Valley scene south of Hancock, Maryland. It shows portion of West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania and a great fruit growing section.”

This postcard bears a Curt Teich serial number indicating manufacture in 1943, but the publisher’s mark reads Marken & Bielfeld, Inc., Frederick, Md. From what I can tell, Marken & Bielfeld seems to have been (at least in the past) a publisher of local histories like this one of Carrollton Manor, Frederick County, Maryland. They are still in business in Frederick after over a century.

“To the South and West lies Draper’s Valley, named for John Draper, who settled here in 1765. He moved hence from Draper’s Meadows (Blacksburg), where his wife was captured by the Indians in the Massacre of 1755. Six years later Draper ransomed her.” Six years? “He served as an officer in the Point Pleasant Indian Expedition in 1774.”

Waymarking.com has a little more detail: “Draper first settled at Draper’s Meadows near present day Blacksburg, Virginia but in 1755, Shawnee Indian made their way from the Ohio River Valley to raid the Virginia Frontier. As a result of one of those raids, Bettie Robertson Draper (John’s wife) and her sister-in-law, Mary Draper Ingalls and five other were taken captive and taken back to the Shawnee Camps in the Ohio River Valley. Mary Draper Ingalls escaped and traveled on foot more than 850 miles back to the new River Valley. Bettie Draper lived for (six) years with the family of an Indian Chief before John Draper found her and was able to barter for her release.”

What’s interesting about this card (made probably in the early 1930s by the Asheville Post Card Company) is that the caption made during the original printing contained a mistake. The original caption, under the row of X’s at the top of the card, says that the mountain is between Pulaski and Marion, Virginia. Apparently this error was not considered problematic enough to scrap the whole run, and the cards were simply overprinted with the strikeouts and the corrected caption. Well, some of them were; here’s a guy that has an uncorrected copy of the card for sale. For six bucks. Plus a dollar shipping. Madness.

Byron Harmon left Tacoma, Washington in 1903 to photograph mountains and, realizing that there were no photography studios in the Canadian Rockies, settled in Banff, Alberta. The surviving collection of photos numbers over 6,000.

On this card, barely visible near the bottom center, is the legend “Lake Louise. 118.”, scratched into the negative by the photographer. An identical real photo postcard with a more visible legend can be seen in Toni McLaughlin’s collection of Harmon RPPCs (look for #118). Toni also has images of a dozen white border postcards of Harmon’s published in the early 1920′s, the first of which is Lake Louise taken from an ever so slightly different angle.

The back of the card reads “Along the Line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Photographed and Copyrighted by Byron Harmon, Banff, Canada.”