I am going to skip a significant chunk of pages here. Between the Blue Ridge Parkway and today's William Howard Taft National Historic Site entry, I made 2 significant stops. First, I stopped at the Beckley Mine in West Virginia. There were many pages on the mine and the mining village and a lot of reminiscing as it is very similar to the area where I grew up. But the NPS link is small- part of a heritage trail- so to keep progressing through my pages, I'll pass for now. If I get caught up and need more, I can always add it later. Next, my journey took me to Louisville for a Health Professions Network conference. While we did a lot of touring, none of it was related to the NPS. So nearly a week later, we pick up with my journey home.
After leaving Louisville I headed north to Ohio and visited the Taft site. As I said in the title--he was a big man. Not only in size but in accomplishments. He is the only man to hold both the presidency and supreme court justice roles. The house tour was quite interesting and full of a lot of artifacts from his various roles. I was impressed that he also spent time in the Philippines as I did. The chair below is from his visit there.
I did take many more photos than these. However, I was getting to the end of the album and worried I wouldn't have enough room for everything. I chose just a few objects and the seals from the entry (well 3 of the 6 that he had) and decided on just one double-page layout. When I put all the photos together I realized how fancy they seemed. I had earned a free pack of blue and gold papers with some beautiful foiled detail and I wanted to use them for this layout. I made this as part of my February 2022 Scrap Your Stash class with Noreen Smith. The sketch called for six small photos --3 on each page I had originally considered using all 6 emblems but decided to substitute the 3 on the left for the unigrid. By using papers from one pack, they coordinate easily so mixing 4 patterns was simple. Just choose different sizes of patterns (tonal for underneath and the 2nd strip, small print for the top, and larger print as the 3rd strip). The journal box and title sticker are also from that collection and felt "presidential" to me.
