True, the year-end holidays are a ways off yet, but the lights on the National Christmas Tree in Washington will be turned on December 6, and if you want to be there in person it's time to start planning.

Though it's surrounded by development, cross into Shenandoah National Park and you'll find a surprisingly large amount of acreage that is managed as wilderness and which appears much as it did 100, or even 200 years ago. This weekend you can celebrate that wild setting during the park's annual "Wilderness Weekend."

As summer gives way to fall, and fall to winter, we usually have more time to read, as there's less daylight outside. So what related to the national parks are you reading these days?

Snowfall already has been recorded in Utah's high country, and for Cedar Breaks National Monument that means the end of the busy travel season and time to prepare for the quieter winter season.