It’s hot here. Welcome to the beginning of summer in the Southwest. Two days ago it was raining and near freezing and I was complaining about it at Mesa Verde and now it’s sweat time. But those rains have turned the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park into a veritable flower garden. Everywhere I look there are blooms.

Washington state’s Puget Sound is a forested metropolis, braided with inlets and bays and ringed by steep, glacier-clad peaks. On the west skyline, the stately, wet Olympic Mountains grab moisture from the ocean clouds to nurture the temperate rain forest of Olympic National Park. To the east the queen-mother’s throne, nearly three-mile-high Mount Rainier, holds court on clear days in its namesake park.

Fontana Lake, which ebbs along the southern border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina, is a watery aspect to the park that might get lost among the forests and mountains. But it offers a rich recreational side to the park, as this video shows.

It’s been a while since I’ve used this space to tout the benefits of eBird, but the project keeps getting better and better, so it deserves another mention.