Freedom!

265 of the country's 395 National Park properties never charge an entrance fee!

So that means that 130 of them do - and the fee-chargers tend to be the bigger and better known parks. That seems like a good reason to visit the smaller, less well known ones - the ones that my book "Treasures On Your Doorstep" focuses on!

However, the NPS graciously offers a number of fee-free days throughout the year, to celebrate various good ideas.




Save yourselves $6 per person by visiting
Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico
on one of the fee-free entrance days!

 Here are the entrance fee-free dates in 2013:

• Monday, January 21
  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• Monday, April 22- Friday, April 26
  National Park Week
• Sunday, August 25
  National Park Service Birthday (97 years young! Can't wait for 2016!)

• Saturday, September 28
  National Public Lands Day
• Saturday, November 9- Monday, November 11
  Veterans Day weekend

 

So start Planning Your Visit!

Maybe take in a waterfall like this one at Shenandoah National Park - one of many to be found there!!



"Living History": Ranger Jane's 1939 persona enjoys a little downtime
 at Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park.



Spice of Life

It’s easy to get into a mindset: north=cold, south=hot.

Not in Argentina!

I spent some time in that vast country in the past decade and I found a lot of my ideas being turned topsy-turvy: Orion is upside down in the night sky in the southern hemisphere. But, wait a minute – maybe he’s right side up there and upside down here!

It’s the same with visiting National Park properties. Many of us see summer as the time for that – but, hey, wait a minute, it’s not such a good idea to visit Death Valley in the summer!

This coming weekend, Columbus Day, set me thinking. Here in the northeast it’s the busiest time of year. Maybe the weather isn’t wonderful, but, y’know, those russet, golden, yellow and red leaves sometimes look their best through morning mist. The Vermont valleys are lovely and mysterious as the mist settles down into them and you stand in sunshine above.

And right now is prime visiting time in the desert southwest – Joshua Tree National Park just tweeted that all its reservable campsites are – well – reserved for the weekend!

Nature Note: Backyard Raptor

My friend Marie took this photo of a broad-winged hawk on her back porch in Vermont the other day – not the first time she’d seen it recently. Her observation intrigued me. She said: “I wondered why I was suddenly seeing a raptor so close to the house. I watched it and realized it was watching the compost heap. Do hawks eat kitchen scraps? No! But who does eat kitchen scraps? Rodents!

“The compost was attracting mice and the hawk had found a good perch for hunting the mice.”

I was impressed that marie not only noticed the hawk, but

got a photo, and then went further, asking why the bird was there and working out the answer. We don’t have to stray far from our homes to learn about the natural world!

Nature Note Today!

I’ve been staying in the north woods in Franconia New Hampshire and encountered some pretty little hairy caterpillars that seem to irritate my skin a little. They turn out to be caterpillars of the hickory tussock (tiger) moth, Lophocampa caryae. They eat hickory and oak leaves.

They are among several species of “stinging hair” caterpillar. Skin reaction varies with people, mine was mild – just a question of : “Oh what’s that prickling on my neck?” and I swept up my hand to dislodge one of these little caterpillars, not an inch long.



Hickory tussock moth caterpillar
photo credit: http://www.edupic.net



If caterpillar stings are an issure for you, treat the affected area with ice and a paste of baking soda.  In general (and I know that all generalizations are exaggerations) insects stings are acidic so the alkalinity (OK – basic-ness) of baking soda counteracts them.

As children, bitten by gnats (I lived in Britain, we didn’t have mosquitoes) we decorated ourselves with dabs of baking soda paste and became polka-doted children. Oh and btw, we called it “Bicarb” for "bicarbonate of soda", which is the chemical name, rather than “baking soda”.

Here’s a link to some info about the hickory tussock moth: http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Lophocampa-carya

Happy camping!



Most Ranger programs?

If I ran a competition for the NPS unit with the most ranger programs it might very well be won by Gettysburg National Military Park, where about 16 different programs are offered every day during the summer.

If you were really into the battle, you'd get an almost blow-by-blow account of it by attending conecutive programs. Roll over, CNN war correspondents!

Treasure Hunting Made Easy

The National Park Foundation, which is the official charity of the NPS – a fund-raising non-profit working solely to support the NPS, its programs and units – has a magic “Parks Near You” app on its homepage that detects where you are and tells you your nearest parks.  It's a great new way to discover the Treasures On Your Doorstep.



Sounds easy! A visitor listens to the natural soundscape through a glass vessel created by 2012 Artist-in-Residence Andrea Polli at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont.