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Tag: national parks

  • Jenna Bush Hager, Former First Lady Laura Bush Writing Children’s Book Together

    Jenna Bush Hager and her mom, former First Lady Laura Bush are writing their second children’s book together. Our Great Big Backyard is scheduled for publication in May of 2016 by HarperCollins, according to the Associated Press.

    The picture book will help children see the world around them as the story’s character, Jane, travels with her family to see some of the country’s national parks.

    Jenna Bush Hager, a mom of two girls, likely knows a thing or two about traveling with children. Laura Bush, along with current First Lady Michelle Obama, serve on a committee for next year’s centennial celebration of the National Park Service.

    This weekend, Jenna Bush Hager has far too many plans to be working on the upcoming book. She has to take daughters Mila and Poppy trick-or-treating. Mila will likely rake in an ample candy stash, however, as Poppy is way too young for candy.

    Jenna Bush Hager shared photos of her adorable girls in their Halloween costumes via Instagram.

    “Happy Halloween from two Ballerina Cowgirls!” she captioned the shot.

    A photo posted by jennabhager (@jennabhager) on

    Does it get any better than being a ballerina and a cowgirl at the same time? Jenna Bush Hager sounds like the kind of mom who allows her daughter’s creativity to shine.

    That creativity will shine even brighter for both Mila and Poppy as they grow a little older and learn that their mom and grandmother co-wrote not just one, but two books.

    Kudos to Jenna Bush Hager and former First Lady Laura Bush for helping to open the eyes of children to the beautiful national parks that grace the country. What a wonderful upbringing Mila and Poppy Hager will have in the company of these wonderful women.

  • Summer Vacation Ideas On A Budget

    Summer Vacation Ideas On A Budget

    Summer vacation time is here and generally, that makes the wallet cringe. With the economy still on the slow rise people are traveling more, but are being a little more cautious.

    If you are in this situation, but want to give your family a great summer vacation, here are some ideas for more cost- and family-friendly summer vacations to take this year.

    Great Wolf Lodges are a good choice. All Great Wolf Lodge locations are convienently placed around the country so that no matter where you are, if you don’t want to spend the money for a plane ticket, or four or six, there is usually one within driving distance. And families LOVE Great Wolf Lodge!

    It’s a hotel/indoor waterpark where they make everything fantastically fun and even convenient for families.

    They have locations in Charlotte/Concord, NC, Cincinnati/Mason, OH, Grand Mound, WA,Grapevine, TX, Kansas City, KS, New England/Boston, MA, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Pocono Mountains, PA, Sandusky, OH, Traverse City, MI, Williamsburg, VA and Wisconsin Dells, WI.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCtruAAtZe8

    If you have a little more money to spend, but are looking for a bargain on something a little more exotic, this place looks awesome! You could take advantage of off-season rates and ticket prices and head over to St. John. Between May and December, the hotter months in the Caribbean, Concordia Eco-Resort on St. John is a great deal for families.

    Concordia Eco-Resort is an eco-resort camp with platform tents connected by a series of wooden bridge walkways. The spectacular beach offers swimming, sailing and snorkeling in US Virgin Islands National Park.

    For the crafty kid (or parent for that matter) they have a really cool Trash to Treasures Art Center where you can create “green” masterpieces from recycled goods and natural elements.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACO-sNn9KnU

    Or, you could just take a week or two and visit a National Park that is close to you or even across the country if you have the time. Our country is full of natural beauty to be enjoyed on any size budget.

    You could rent an RV or if you can’t afford that and don’t own a camper, get a tent and enjoy nature as you reconnect with the family over star-gazing and s’mores.

    Enjoy your budget-friendly summer vacation!

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Google Gets Awesome New Street View Imagery From National Parks

    Google’s Street View team has been working with the U.S. National Parks Service and Parks Canada to get new imagery on Google Maps for a plethora of interesting locations in the two countries.

    So far, Google has utilized its Street View cars, trikes and Trekker backpack system to add imagery for 44 locations. Here’s a look at some highlights.

    Sequoia National Park

    Google Street View

    Grand Teton National Park

    Teton

    Joshua Tree National Park

    Joshua Tree

    Banff National Park

    Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park

    Old faithful

    Lincoln Memorial At West Potomac Park

    Lincoln

    Mt. Rushmore National Memorial

    Google points to some additional highlights in a blog post.

    Last week, Google unveiled new Street View imagery from Venice.

  • Statue of Liberty Reopens Amid Government Shutdown

    A vast number of federal sectors were effected by the partial federal government shutdown. But, what most people weren’t aware of prior to the shutdown was that it would cause a ripple effect that would merge into other areas. The Statue of Liberty was one entity that suffered the consequences.

    Liberty Island National Park is one of the 33 sites under New York’s National Park Jurisdiction to be effected by the shut down. The sites have been closed since Oct. 1, as a result of the shutdown.

    A message was posted on the official Twitter time-line for the Statue of Liberty to announce the park’s closure due to the shutdown.

    However, on Saturday, a decision was made to reopen the park. But, the executive decision to reopen didn’t come as a government call. In a brief statement released on Friday, Gov. Andew Cuomo announced that the state of New York would initially foot the bill. According to USA Today, the statement entailed that the state of New York would pay approximately $61,600 a day to reopen through Oct. 18. The daily expenditures will be used to operate the park and the ferry which transports visitors to the monument site on Liberty Island in New York Harbor.

    An official announcement of the re-opening was also placed on the official Statue of Liberty Facebook page. The statement said:

    The Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island will be open October 13th through October 18th due to an agreement with the State of New York. Liberty Island is open to all ticket holders. The Pedestal and Crown will be open to those who have made reservations in advance. Reservations should made with at Statue Cruises www.statuecruises.com. Ellis Island remains closed at this time. 

    Liberty Island National Park. Liberty Island, located on the New York Harbor, brings in approximately 4 million visitors per year, which equates to an estimate of $174 million in economic activity. Today, Cuomo stressed how imperative it is to reopen the tourist attraction in the best interest of the state and its visitors. “When you close down the Statue of Liberty, you close down a good portion of the tourism that comes to New York City, and that is untold millions of dollars of damage,” Cuomo said.

    The Statue of Liberty landmark park was one of 10 national parks and monuments to reopen this weekend under similar state government stipulations.
    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Gov’t Shutdown: Nat’l Parks Reopen, NIH in Peril, Wars, Foreign Aid Continue

    In the ongoing government shutdown soap opera, WWE style pre-determined battle lines have been drawn.

    Conservative Republicans are pretending to stand on “principle” in the hopes that gullible America will be impressed by their theatrics and reward them with re-election.

    Of course when it comes to rewarding questionable corporations like OSI Systems who are prime beneficiaries of government monopoly over airport security at the expense of taxpayers, “conservatives” remain as clueless as ever.

    Liberal Democrats who pretend to champion “human rights”, “minorities”, “women and children”, the American middle-class – or whatever is left of it – do not blink an eye before funneling tens of billions in tax-payer money to regimes in countries like Pakistan, who terrorize and oppress ethnic minorities with impunity.

    At the same time America’s great cities like Detroit and Chicago are reduced to squalid hell-holes for want of infrastructure funds. Both sides blame one another in front of the cameras, and then rush to vote for more appropriations to “help the world”, except America.

    Remarkably, true to the penny wise, pound foolish idiom, while billions are being plundered from Americans and funneled abroad, the Congress is unwilling to permit millions to keep the national parks open.

    But lo and behold! Just when we thought that White House couldn’t get anymore loathsome, the Obama administration said it would “allow” the states to break their own piggy-banks to fund park operations.

    States like Utah, with some of the most beautiful landscapes and natural artifacts in the world, including the Arches national park, were thrilled to hear this “compromise” by the White House and immediately threw open the gates.

    The meager Social Security and Medicare benefit stream also continues, as inflation relentlessly erodes American standard of living.

    National Institutes of Health (NIH) is one of the least controversial segments of Federal Government. Research done at NIH contributes to maintaining US technological competitiveness in cutting edge medicine and biotechnology. However, when some sane Republicans want to at least fund the NIH amid shutdown impasse, the juvenile bipartisan intransigence torpedoes those efforts, leaving life-saving research in limbo.

    With 66% of personnel furloughed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has its capabilities seriously threatened to monitor and track infectious outbreaks such as flu and yet unknown MERS virus from Middle-East. The FDA’s bureaucratic machinery which failed to timely uncover massive fraud at India’s Ranbaxy laboratories, has stopped the investigative review and approval of new drugs and devices.

    Even the CIA has started complaining, and director John Brennan made it public last week that he would begin bringing back operatives working on intelligence collection, analysis, covert action and counterintelligence.

    So is it time for America to switch off the 24/7 TV and radio, and do some of their own intelligence analysis to figure out the state of American Republic? You bet.
    [image from wikipedia]

  • Statue of Liberty Reopens Despite Government Shutdown

    The government shutdown has been hard on the National Parks Service. Many of its parks shut down earlier in October due to lack of funding from the federal government. In some cases, park closure meant a huge hit to state economies from lost tourism revenue.

    “Every day that Liberty Island is closed means we are losing visitors who would otherwise be spending at our local businesses – not to mention the employees who maintain the park and have been forced out of work,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement on Friday.

    So states struck a deal with the federal government that would allow parks to reopen at least temporarily with the help of state funding.

    The National Parks Service provided a list of parks that will temporarily reopen on its website. Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks and Mount Rushmore are among those listed.

    Both the Grand Canyon and Zion had been sites of protests in response to the shutdown:


    Of the reopening of the Grand Canyon, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said:

    “I’m gratified the Obama administration agreed to reverse its policy and allow Arizona to reopen Grand Canyon, Arizona’s most treasured landmark and a crucial driver of revenue to the state.”

    Utah Governor Gary Herbert called the reopening of state parks in Utah a “godsend.” He said that “Utah’s national parks are the backbone of many rural economies and hard-working Utahns are paying a heavy price for this shutdown.”

    The price tag to reopen, even temporarily, will be steep. NPR provided the following information earlier today:

    • The Statue of Liberty – $369,300 for six days from Oct. 12-17 (New York)
    • Mount Rushmore National Memorial – $152,000 for 10 days from Oct. 14-23 (South Dakota)
    • Grand Canyon – $651,000 for seven days from Oct. 12-18 (Arizona)
    • Rocky Mountain National Park – $362,700 for 10 days from Oct. 11-20 (Colorado)

    The jubilant reactions to the reopenings by governors and other state officials indicates that the benefits to their economies far outweigh the price tag.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Government Shutdown: States Fight to Re-Open Parks

    One of the major and very visible effects of the government shutdown of last week has been the closing of national parks. Well, not everyone is taking it lying down. Despite the order from the National Park Service (NPS) to close down nature, Wisconsin Governer Scott Walker is not letting that happen.

    Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources decided instead, that parks only partially funded by the federal government should stay open and run on state money. Federal funding only amounts to about 18% of the funding for the parks affected.

    Wisconsin has also decided to not fully follow a Fish and Wildlife agency’s directive that hunting and fishing be prohibited on federal lands during the shutdown. Hunting access would be allowed in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, state officials said.

    Walker directed his cabinet to “streamline things and make sure services are available,” Wisconsin’s Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp said, who has spoken with him directly. “It was his direction that let me pursue this further to find out what rights do we have from the state’s perspective regarding contract language and long-standing agreements, and is there something that we’re legally grounded to do.

    In the wake of the government shutdown a week ago, barricades were put up at a boat launch on the Mississippi River in the state, because the river ran through federal land. Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources came behind and took them down.

    “We respect the magnitude of the process the federal government has had to undertake to close its properties and certain activities on properties they own and manage,” Cathy Stepp told department employees in an email obtained by The Hill.

    “However, after close review and legal consult, DNR has clarified areas where the federal procedures are over-reaching by ordering the closure of properties where the state has management authority through existing agreements.”

    The boat launch was “the easiest, glaring example of the over-reach to me,” Stepp said in a phone interview to The Hill Friday. “In essence, what they were doing is expecting us to enforce closing the Mississippi River. First of all how do you even implement something as gigantic as that?”

    However, according to the Wall Street Journal, the federal government turned down Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s offer to privately and state fund the re-opening of parts of the Grand Canyon for tourists to keep the economy from crashing in nearby towns that need the park to stay afloat.

    They also quashed Republican South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s offer to keep the Mount Rushmore National Memorial open with state workers. The National Park Service told state officials that it was required to use federal employees, not state employees, at the monument, and that opening Mount Rushmore would set a precedent to open the other federal parks.

    “It makes sense for the federal government to shut things down because there isn’t funding available, but it doesn’t make sense to close something because they are trying to make a point,” said Tony Venhuizen, a spokesman for the governor. “Our offer still stands if there is a change of heart on the part of federal officials. We certainly would be pleased to talk to them if they seem interested.”

    Image via wikipedia

  • WWII Vets Memorial: Veterans Force Their Way In

    A group of World War II veterans refused to let today’s government shutdown prevent them from entering the WWII memorial site this morning. As much of the country is certainly aware of already, as of midnight on September 30, the federal government was effectively shutdown. As a result, all of the national parks and national monuments were also closed off from the public. Congress has been working federal spending deal, but was unable to do so, and the government was forced to shut down as a result.

    That information was not enough to stop a group of 92 Mississippi Gulf Coast Honor Flight Veterans from entering the memorial in Washington D.C. this morning. Although it was technically closed, they found a way in and were able to tour the site anyway. ABC News states that the vets were taking part in the Mississippi Gulf Coast Honor Flight that was originally established in 2011 in order to help WWII veterans fly from Mississippi to Washington D.C. It will help them travel to the memorial free of charge, and provide tours in order for them to see the memorials dedicated to their honorable service.

    Honor Flights scheduled for the month of October have been notified that the memorial will be closed until the federal government re-opens. Those that were able to tour the memorial today because the memorial was re-closed this afternoon and will remain that way until funding is restored. When the veterans arrived today, the memorial was encased with metal barricades. Dozens of people, including several in wheelchairs, made their way onto the grounds of the monument just before noon. They took a tour of the historic memorial while being watched by police officers, national park personnel and tourists, according to the Washington Times.

    The group was accompanied by a group of Congress members and Senator Steve King, of Iowa, reportedly distracted the guards and gave them the opportunity to break through. King, along with other members of Congress, voiced their support for the veterans after the incident. The group of veterans was only able to stay for less than a hour, but Park Service spokeswoman Carol Johnson said the officials were trying to be as accommodating as possible. It is hard to know how long it will be before these national parks and monuments are open to the public again, but let’s hope that this government shutdown does not last long and Congress can figure out what to do soon.

    Image via Youtube