Emergency repairs to replace a culvert will require closure of a short section of the Park Loop Road in Acadia National Park in Maine between Kebo Street and Sieur de Monts in Bar Harbor.

It's only mid-June, but wildfire conditions are creeping up in some areas of the National Park System, with Voyageurs National Park issuing a ban on wood or charcoal fires and Yellowstone National Park warning visitors of moderate fire danger.

In Tennessee, Great Smokey Mountains National Park harbors a one-way road in bucolic Cades Cove. Its 11-mile paved loop is loaded with scenery, historical sites, and wildlife. But we’d heard about the cove’s famed car jams due to around two million annual visitors: lines of vehicles inching slowly along the road and parking lot congestion that prevented stopping at sites. Clearly, the car approach did not appeal to my sister or me!

With a pleasing whoosh, the water from the acequia was released through a sluice gate at Mission San Juan Capistrano in San Antonio and trickled through a hand-dug irrigation ditch towards a demonstration field teeming with corn, peppers and squash.