Around the country, as the partial government shutdown moves into its second week, taxpayers angry with the closure of national parks are showing their disgust through civil disobedience, mockery, and anger directed at the National Park Service.

Seventy-five years ago, in June, 1938, Congress passed and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the bill creating Olympic National Park. With this act Americans embarked on something new in land conservation: creating a wilderness preserve large enough to protect intact old-growth forest communities and the hosts of forest-dependent wildlife they contained.

Google Maps has become a useful electronic option to paper maps for many people, and one feature of that site—"Street View"—allows users to see a ground-level, 360 degree photographic view of many locations around the world. Now that service is adding parts of some national parks, including the Grand Canyon and even one rather surprising location that lies beneath the ground.

The arrogance of Congress is withering and shameful.

Once-in-a-lifetime trips to majestic places such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone crumbled Tuesday as Congress's failure to avert a shutdown of the federal government interrupted countless vacation plans as closure gates came down across the National Park System.

With Congress at odds over whether to pass a Continuing Resolution to keep the federal government in business, National Park Service and concessions staff were preparing Monday for possible closure of the National Park System.

If Congress and the Obama administration fail to avert a budget impasse next week, the National Park Service will move to furlough more than 21,000 employees in the process of closing down the National Park System.

High among the pinnacles of Mt. Whitney’s sheer western face, we hiked upward with measured breath and watched from our shifting, precarious vantage as the sun’s first light peeled back the long gown of night, revealing the contours of so many miles we’d recently walked, cragged mountain faces and clear sky aglow in lakes like mirrors, far below.

If you have ever stood on the shores of Yellowstone Lake and looked way across the water to the southeast, into that area of the park where few visitors go, and wished to experience life in the backcountry without hiking with a heavy backpack, go glamping!

In 1928 a highway known as the Tamiami Trail was built across the southern Florida peninsula, and while it was a boon for developers, the dam-like road fill created serious problems for Everglades National Park. A partial solution—replacing some of the road's berm with bridges—got a welcome boost with a recent pledge of $90 million from the State of Florida.

Brochures promoting national parks have changed -- a lot -- during the past 50 years.

West Yellowstone is a welcoming Montana town that serves as a perfect base camp for exploring Yellowstone during the fall.

Prince Edward Island, one of the three Maritime Provinces on Canada's Atlantic coast, includes a lovely landscape that evokes a Grandma Moses painting of rural New England. A prime attraction on the island is Prince Edward Island National Park, where the combination of some serious literary nostalgia and fine natural features create what amounts to two parks in one.

Fall, that lofty season when Eastern hardwood forests don foliages red, gold, and orange, lures us like motorized lemmings into national parks to admire nature’s wizardry. We inch along, practically bumper to bumper at times, to be dazzled in a final seasonal hurrah before the paint-by-number leaves are shed and winter’s first squalls convince us that being inside really isn’t such a bad thing.

Many Americans aren't familiar with the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site, but in the mid-1700s, this heavily fortified town in present-day Nova Scotia was one of the most important ports and military posts in North America. A visit to the largest historical reconstruction in Canada offers a fun and enlightening glimpse into the past.

Wonderment and joy unfold in the national parks come fall when the wild kingdom becomes more visible, literally voicing the call of the wild in parks such as Great Smoky Mountains or Rocky Mountain or winging overhead in any number of parks.

I’m sitting on the shore of Lake Superior just looking across the water from the mainland of northern Wisconsin toward Madeline Island, one of 22 islands that comprise the Apostle Islands. A parade of sailboats works upwind across the water and I’m breathing air so fresh it still has labels attached. I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. With regrets.

If you mention "Canadian National Parks" to travel buffs, that nation's spectacular western sites such as Banff and Jasper National Parks will likely come to mind. There are, however, some worthy candidates for your "gotta plan a trip" list on the opposite side of the county in Canada's Maritime Provinces. One not to miss is Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Fall hiking in the East conjures immediate thoughts of Acadia National Park in Maine, Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, or Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee. All three are justly famous for fall color, have hundreds of miles of hiking trails…and lots of traffic on the roads, especially on autumn weekends.

Ahab had his white whale, Moby-Dick, which drove him to his death. I had the Common Loon, a fish-loving, deep-diving waterfowl that mocked me with its tremolo call as I stood on the shore of Shoshone Lake in Yellowstone National Park.