"Monte sano" is Native American for "mountain of health." Despite the urban development that encircles it, 1,650-foot Monte Sano is said to have cooler, cleaner air than its surroundings. So refreshing was its air that the mountain at one time was the site of a sanatorium. Located in Huntsville and in existence since 1935, Monte Sano's 2,140 acres combine the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps with the space age technology of the future. Hike a trail in the morning, stroll through the Ja...

Located in Dothan, the Wiregrass Museum of Art offers art exhibits, education programs, and special events.

The fort features an active living history program that interprets all the military periods and holds an annual event commemorating the Battle of Mobile Bay. Exhibits feature weapons, uniforms, letters, photographs, and personal items of soldiers who served at the fort.

Little River flows for most of its length atop Lookout Mountain in northeast Alabama. The river and canyon systems are spectacular Appalachian Plateau landscapes any season of the year. Forested uplands, waterfalls, canyon rims and bluffs, stream riffles and pools, boulders, and sandstone cliffs offer settings for a variety of recreational activities. Natural resources and cultural heritage come together to tell the story of the Preserve, a special place in the Southern Appalachians. Little Rive...

The 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway commemorates an ancient trail that connected southern portions of the Mississippi River to salt licks in today’s central Tennessee. Over the centuries, the Choctaw, Chickasaw and other American Indians left their marks on the Trace. The Natchez Trace experienced its heaviest use from 1785 to 1820 by the “Kaintuck” boatmen that floated the Ohio and Miss. Rivers to markets in Natchez and New Orleans. They sold their cargo and boats and began the trek back north o...

Located in Birmingham, Ruffner Mountain is a 1,011-acre nature preserve in eastern Jefferson County. Its protected forest, ridges and valleys provide a refuge for a wide variety of native plants and wildlife. Located in the center of Alabama’s largest urban area, it also offers a place for people to retreat to the serenity of the outdoors.

A YahooGroup serving homeschoolers in Alabama.

The Center is a multi-purpose facility that includes Imagination Place (a children's museum), three visual art galleries, a 72 foot model of 1948 Gadsden with working trains, an art studio, and two performance halls which are home to the Etowah Youth Orchestras and the Kings of Swing and the Gadsden Symphony. The Center also has a full service restaurant. Special programs include reservation accepted guided and narrated tours, field trips, planetarium shows, special children's activities, conc...

Explore the animal world at the Birmingham Zoo, featuring an alligator swamp, tropical rain forest, and zoo train and carousel.

Eastern Shore Art Center is a non-profit arts organization located in downtown Fairhope, Alabama. The Art Center houses four galleries with exhibits that change monthly, as well a gallery featuring member artists' work for sale. The Academy offers a wide variety of classes and workshops in five spacious studios. Classes are offered on a quarterly basis to both adults and children.

The CHEAHA support group exists for the purpose of encouraging and unifying Christian home educating families through coordinating activities, communicating information and networking the home education coverings in and around the Anniston area.

The Florence Museums System consists of five separate properties: W. C. Handy Home, Museum & Library, a restored log cabin that was the boyhood home of the famous composer known as the "Father of the Blues"; Indian Mound and Museum; Pope's Tavern Museum, a Civil War era historic site; The Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts; and Frank Lloyd Wright-Rosenbaum House.

CHEF of Alabama was founded to serve all home educators in Alabama by providing information, services, and resources from a Christian perspective to anyone who needs help in the area of home schooling.

Located six miles northeast of Camden, rolling along the 22,000-acre Dannelly Reservoir, this 236-acre park features a nine hole golf course with clubhouse; spacious vacation cottages; modern campground with bathhouse, laundry and camp store; and a scenic picnic area with tables, grills, pavilions and comfort station. With fishing so popular in the reservoir, the park also provides boat launching facilities and bait & tackle amenities.

Support and information group for homeschoolers in southeastern Alabama. (Coffee, Dale, Houston, Pike, Geneva area). Offers events, activities, curriculum swaps, information, and support.

What makes a trip to a national park so wonderful? For starters, America's national park system is more diverse than any park system in the world. You can stroll the seashore at Olympic National Park in Washington or Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, climb craggy mountains in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, or go underground into the world's largest cave system at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. You can marvel at the largest canyon on Earth (Grand Canyon National Park), hike among the planet's largest collection or rock arches (Arches National Park), explore the lowest and hottest place in the Western Hemisphere (Death Valley National Park), or wander a realm of forests and misty mountains (Great Smoky Mountains National Park).

And these are just a few of your park options.

America's National Parks For Dummies gives you guidance to decide which park is for you, when to go, and what to see when you reach your destination. This guide will help you plan the best trip imaginable, whether you are

• An inexperienced traveler looking for guidance in determining whether to take a trip to a national park and how to plan for it
• An experienced traveler who has yet to explore the national park system and wants expert advice when you finally get a chance to enjoy one
• Any traveler who doesn't like big, thick travel guides that list every single hotel, restaurant, or attraction, but instead looks for a book that focuses on the places that will provide the best or most unique park experience

America's National Parks For Dummies is user-friendly and organized in a logical fashion. Each park is broken down in a chapter that delves into the nitty-gritty of trip planning and highlights, including tips for

• Planning your trip by touching on the diversity of the park system, explaining some of your vacation options, and telling you when parks are the most (and least) crowded
• Ironing out the details by describing how you get to the parks and how to find your way around after you arrive
• Exploring America's national parks by giving you the lowdown on 15 of the best parks, detailing things like each park's wild kingdom, the best spots for memorable photographs, and a few safety issues

The pages of this book resemble a great long-distance hike – you never know what's around the next bend in the trail. So throw on a backpack, take a swig of water, and get ready to explore the national parks!

Now in its fourth edition, the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America is the ultimate birder’s field guide. Sturdy, portable, and easy-to-use, it features the most complete information available on every bird species known to North America. This revised edition features 250 completely updated range maps, new plumage and species classification information, specially commissioned full-color illustrations, and a superb new index that allows birders in the field to quickly identify a species.

The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Fourth Edition will continue to be a bestseller among the fastest-growing sector in the U.S. travel market—the nearly 25 million people who travel each year specifically to observe wild birds.

Educational Travel on a Shoestring shows parents how they can help their children learn–and have a blast–while traveling. From researching destinations to sharing activities that both teach and entertain, this priceless guide offers practical information for parents who want to have more fun with their kids, build closer family ties, and enjoy richer educational experiences–all without spending a fortune.

From stunning mountain ranges to arid expanses of desert, America has been blessed with an incredibly diverse land -- and the vision to protect it for our and future generations to enjoy. These lands are ours to view, wander, learn from, and revel in. America's National Parks captures all that is great about all fifty-six parks in the national park system. It also gives interesting, easy-to-understand background on the geological and ecological forces that continue to make each national park so worthy of protection.

Nature lovers will be captivated by gorgeous photos of landforms, flora, and fauna. Families will appreciate the information that is sure to enhance vacations at the parks. And visitors to any of the country's national parks will forever treasure this book as a memento of past visits and an inspiration for future ones.

Unlike any other book published on national parks, America's National Parks is a must-have for anyone who relishes America's natural wonders and wants to learn more about the powerful forces that created them.

Stand amid soaring Douglas fir in the great hall of Glacier Park Lodge or sit in the setting sun and gaze into the Grand Canyon at El Tovar. This beautiful gift book will transport you to the majestic lodges of our national parks to relive the glory of past vacations or plan adventures anew. This book and the PBS television series of the same title (to air in spring 2002) take armchair travelers into these architectural wonders and explore the surrounding natural beauty of our national parks. Lodges, wildlife, and stunning vistas are showcased in 175 full-color and black-and-white photographs, along with historical documents from the PBS series. In his introduction, Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, offers a call to preserve this national heritage, and a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book go toward the rehabilitation of these magnificent buildings.

If a picture's worth 1,000 words, this book--with its hundreds of breathtaking photos of America's National Parks--is a well-stocked bookstore. Accompanied by the words of poet laureate Mark Strand, These Rare Lands is a perfect coffee-table book for anyone who has enjoyed the wonders of nature's wildest places. From a storm over Sequoia National Park in California to the otherworldly stalactites and stalagmites of New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns and an Atlantic sunset in Maine's Acadia, this is a book that draws you back again and again. Photographer Stan Jorstad's obvious love of nature comes through in the thoughtful approach he takes to his life's work, contained in the pages of These Rare Lands.

For tourists, family campers, and serious lovers of the outdoors, here is a big, beautiful, color-illustrated book that describes more than 50 national parks, sites, and seashores that stretch from Cape Hatteras on the Atlantic coast to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Yosemite in California, Haleakala in Hawaii, and Glacier Bay in Alaska. More than 400 breathtaking photographs capture the beauty and atmosphere of each site, and 54 color maps show each park's location and major features. Visitor information panels give important details on access points, accommodations, and recreational activities such as hiking, rafting, birdwatching, and fishing. Here is a wonderful volume that will inspire plans for trips and evoke marvelous memories of past experiences in America's great outdoors.

The concept of the national park is an American contribution to world civilization, and it remains a defining characteristic of our country. From the rocky shore of Maine's Acadia to the barren crater and lush rain forest of Hawaii's Haleakala, America's national beauty is celebrated and preserved in its national parks. This book retells the history of each park, describes its most important features and wildlife, and reproduces its gorgeous scenery in full-color photographs that will enthrall armchair travelers and entice others to lace up their hiking boots and reach for their sporting gear. Organized by region of the country, it includes well-known parks like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Glacier as well as lesser-known destinations like Shenandoah, Biscayne, and Kenai Fjords.

Events include monthly living history programs (the French period and the early American period), monthly meetings of the Historic Blacksmiths, French and Indian War Encampment (held annually in April and re-enacts the time period of the war between the French and the British), Alabama Frontier Days (held annually in November and depicts life on the frontier from 1717 to 1820).