While the best way to tour Manassas National Battlefield is with a park interpreter, a second option is with the "Bull Run Battle App" developed for Android smartphones by the Civil War Trust.

The National Park Foundation has set up a memorial fund to benefit the two young daughters of Ranger Margaret Anderson, who was shot and killed in the line of duty on New Year's Day.

We like to think that national parks are just that: serene, picturesque "parks" where we can, if only for a moment or two, escape the ugliness and stress of the world beyond their borders. But as the New Year's Day shooting at Mount Rainier National Park that left a young ranger dead proved only too well, national parks are not always the sanctuaries we'd like them to be.

If you find yourself in South Dakota during the long Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday weekend, swing by Wind Cave National Park to take one of the free cave tours being offered then.