Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri. It is Wednesday morning and we are at Union Station, which at one time was the busiest train station in the world.

How many of us take it for granted that kids know how to stay safe when hiking and how to tread lightly on the landscape? When Catherine Dold's nieces came to visit for a stay in the Rockies, she wanted to ensure their safety, and so she created a "Certified Good Hiker Kit."

A series of inexpensive folding pocket guides can help you easily identify some of the nature you see in national parks.

Small historical parks are often overlooked as possible locations for easy park hikes, and that's a shame, because many of them offer some fine opportunities. That's definitely the case at Carl Sandburg Home National Historical Site in North Carolina, which includes both an easy hike or two plus just a little exercise on a nice network of trails.

At Congaree National Park, a surprise disclosure prompts Ranger Fran to modify his Owl Prowl introductory spiel. It's the ethical thing to do.

Hopscotch the crags of the Rocky Mountains north from Glacier National Park across the border into Canada and you'll find yourself in a mountainous realm, one cupping lakes slowly being fed by melting glaciers and with forests rich in wildlife.

Greetings this Sunday morning from Council Bluffs, Iowa, where we enjoyed a hotel stay following six consecutive nights of tenting along the Missouri River. Both the humidity and temperature are rising as we move southeast, making the cool Montana nights of a little over a week ago a fond memory.

Native Athabascans called it the “High One.” And at 20,230 feet, Mt. McKinley in Denali National Park is a high one. In fact, it's the highest mountain in North America. Everything about Denali National Park is huge, wild and empty.

A mile south of Washtuchna, Washington, State Road 261 – which has been curling through close hills – suddenly straightens and drops down the wide Washtuchna Coulee. On either side of the road the land sweeps up to rocky outcroppings and ledges. Drive 60 mph and you’re shooting across the landscape at about the speed of the ice age floodwaters that first tore open this former river channel some 15,000 years ago.

In 1906, the Antiquities Act authorized the president to create national monuments by presidential proclamation. Fifteen presidents serving since then have invoked the Act to protect nationally significant natural and cultural resources.

Greetings from Bismark, the capital of North Dakota, one of our country’s few economically vibrant states. A low unemployment rate (4.1%), a state budget surplus ($800 million over two years), and an optimistic outlook; that’s what comes with a limited population sitting atop loads of coal, oil, and natural gas.

A signature triple-note staccato rings sharply across the ranch compound from the smithy's anvil in the blacksmith shop, signaling another creation from fire and iron. Though only symbolic these days, the hammering at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site recalls perhaps the greatest cattle baron America ever produced.

There is in the Canadian Rockies a bounty of water. Water streaming in rivulets dripping from glaciers, water impounded by glacial moraines and tinted aquamarine by glacial flour, and water running swift in rivers both thin and deep.

Greetings from Havre, Montana, well north of the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail that at this point requires a canoe trip through the rugged Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.

Long a bone of contention between state, local and federal authorities when it comes to public lands access is a nearly 150-year-old law initially passed to help advance westward expansion. Now Interior Secretary Ken Salazar hopes a pilot program in Utah can generate a solution to R.S. 2477 controversies.

Greetings from Great Falls, Montana, where the Corps of Discovery encountered five large waterfalls on the Missouri River that delayed by several weeks their trip to the Pacific Ocean. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had expected a single falls they would be able to portage in a day. Rather, they found five significant falls that required nearly two weeks of backbreaking toil.

Sometimes a short, easy hike is just what you need for a nice change of pace during a park visit. Here's a pair of suggestions for a visit to Badlands National Park that offer fine views of the classic scenery that gives the park its name.

On July 30, 1956, Verendrye National Monument was delisted from the National Park System and transferred to the state of North Dakota. Congress decided that the claim of historical significance on which the 1917 national monument proclamation had been based was spurious.

Greetings from Barrow, Alaska at the “top of the world” and the northern most city in the United States. It’s also the home of the northern most National Park Service unit – the Inupiat Heritage Center

Just getting out of your rig in the parking lot atop Logan Pass in Glacier National Park offers spectacular views, but with a little effort and perhaps two hours of time you'll be searching for a word to amplify "spectacular."