Amtrak intro­duced a new Web site designed to show trav­el­ers how con­ve­nient it is to travel by train to visit the country’s national parks.

With the theme “Parks in Your Backyard,” Amtraktoparks.com allows users to see the near­est Amtrak route to fea­tured national park sites, each of which can be reached using pub­lic trans­porta­tion from an Amtrak station.

On the heels of the PBS pre­sen­ta­tion of America’s Best Idea, a doc­u­men­tary on the national parks by Ken Burns, the National Park Service (NPS) has devel­oped the web­site Plan Your Visit to America’s Best Idea (Your National Parks): Fall, Winter, Spring 2009—2010 to help vis­i­tors find activ­i­ties, events, and com­mer­cial ser­vices at NPS areas dur­ing the fall, win­ter, and spring months.

Air pol­lu­tion is shrink­ing scenic views, dam­ag­ing plants, and degrad­ing high ele­va­tion streams and soils in the Great Smoky Mountains. Even human health is at risk. Most pol­lu­tion orig­i­nates out­side the park and is cre­ated by power plants, indus­try, and automobiles.

Visiting Yellowstone Park in the fall has been one of the best kept travel secrets for sea­soned park trav­el­ers. This is the time of year when the sounds of the rivers and thump of the ther­mals replaces the sum­mer sound of summer’s stream of pass­ing cars.

The Gateway Arch, sit­u­ated along the banks of the Mississippi in the mid­dle of down­town St. Louis, can be seen from a great dis­tance away. As a child, I have many fond mem­o­ries of see­ing the arch appear out across the flat expanse of Illinois.