At the Samoset Resort in Maine, you can play as much golf as you want. The new program offered by the resort offers unlimited use of its 18-hole golf course. If you get tired of watching hooks and slices, keep in mind that seven of the holes are ocean-side, and 14 offer great views of the shore. At $299 a night, you’ll pick up a savings of more than $100 a night. In addition to the unlimited golf, the package includes breakfast for two, use of a golf cart for two people as they hit the links as much or as little as they choose and a golf-related gift from the pro shop.
The Samoset Resort is located between Rockland and Camden, offering easy access to the restaurants and sights of the former and the rural bliss of the latter. To take advantage of this deal, you’ll need to grab your bags and hit the road by October 31, 2009 (and use the code GCGOLF).
Also on the tour are the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, Rose Garden, Children’s Garden, and South Lawn.
Even though it’s free, you’ll need to get a ticket to attend. Pick up your timed ticket at the Ellipse Visitor Pavilion (15th & E Streets) on the dates of the tours, starting at 8 a.m. The tickets are first-come, first-served.
The tours run 10:00 a.m-4:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 17, and 10:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 18.
In bad weather, the tours will be canceled, so be sure to check on the status of the event by calling the information line at 202.456.7041.
In honor of National Public Lands Day, the Park Service has announced that it is offering free tours of Mammoth Cave this Saturday, September 26th.
Located in central Kentucky, Mammoth Cave is part of the largest cave system in the world, All told, there are more than 365 miles of twisting passageways that make up the system, with multiple tours available that range in length anywhere from one to six hours in length.
The free tour his weekend is called the Mammoth Passage Tour, and will last roughly an hour and a half, while trekking through about 3/4 of a mile in the cave. To take advantage of this opportunity, you’ll need to stop by the visitor’s center to pick up your tickets. Tours will depart from that location starting at 9:30 AM, with new tours starting every hour until 4:30 PM Central Time.
This is a great opportunity to see an amazing place that is not only a part of the U.S. National Park Service, but is also a World Heritage Site. Mammoth Cave is well known for its striking beauty and massive size, and this is a fantastic chance for anyone to explore it. But with free tours all day on Saturday, it is likely to be very busy. Get there early and grab your tickets while you can.
Something must be in the air in Monterey this fall, because there are so many anniversaries and celebrations it would be hard to pass up a trip to California’s coast to catch some art and culture with a little history mixed in.
This October 3 & 4, Pacific Grove will celebrate its heritage an annual butterfly parade on Saturday and historic homes tour on Sunday. On Saturday, the Butterfly Parade and accompanying Butterfly Bazaar celebrate the return of the Monarch Butterfly to Pacific Grove. The parade has been a near 75-year tradition. Butterflies make their annual winter stop, and local children dress in cute butterfly costumes while older elementary school kids dress up as Native Americans, pioneers, and clowns as they march down the town’s main street. The parade and bazaar begin at 10:30am.
On Sunday, visitors can get a sneak peek inside the classic Victorians of Pacific Grove during the Historic Home Tour. Some of the most interesting historic homes and public buildings in Pacific Grove will open their doors for self-guided tours between 10 am and 4 pm. Docents are on hand at each location to answer questions and give more information about the buildings and the people who lived and worked there when they were first built. Tickets can be purchased from the Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce.
There are also free guided tours of Pacific Grove’s downtown, held at 11am, 1pm and 3pm on Lighthouse Avenue. Local artists will have their work for sale at Chautauqua Hall, while birdhouses inspired by Pacific Grove’s traditional homes will be auctioned off at “Heritage Houses For the Birds.”
Together, Pacific Grove’s Butterfly Parade and Historic Home Tour make for a good, old-fashioned, Americana weekend. Both visitors and locals come out to enjoy a weekend of fun and facts.
I recently went on a “Maunalei Magic Hike” at the Kapalua Maunalei Arboretum Rainforest in Hawaii, and if you think you have to leave the United States to find rich, tropical biodiversity and exotic plant life you’ve never heard of, think again. The Maunalei Arboretum, just below Pu’u Kukui Watershed Preserve, is home to an endless supply of plants thriving in the volcanic soil — some local, some planted in 1926 by D.T. Fleming. And it’s less than an hour to the nearest Office Max.
I saw many amazing things up there — and ate guava and passion fruit right from the trees — but want to tell you in particular about three: banyan trees, moa and awapuhi.
Banyan trees are ficus relatives which grow to over 100 feet tall and have “aerial roots,” long roots that grow down from the branches and eventually plant themselves in the ground, where they continue to grow and eventually look like tree trunks themselves. The aerial roots can cause one banyan tree to look like a whole forest, as was the case with the particular tree above in the Maunalei Arboretum. This tree was so old and so vast, the ground space it covered was larger than my apartment — and you can swing on the aerial roots (click here to watch me do it) and even bounce on the root-filled ground beneath it (above). Can you do that on your ficus? I bet not. %Gallery-73568% Moa: Moa is, as our guide Jaclyn from Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ambassadors of the Environment center at the Ritz-Carlton (she’s featured in that root-bouncing video above) told us, is “nature’s gold bond powder.” Scrape the little yellow bits off this bright green plant and put them wherever you’re sweating — yes, even in your pants — it’s what Hawaiians have been doing for centuries. Oddly enough, “moa” means “chicken.” The weird, section-y, bumpy texture of the plant made ancient Hawaiians think of a chicken leg.
Awapuhi, also known as “shampoo ginger,” is an ingredient you might find in your Paul Mitchell shampoo. Why? Because if you squeeze that bud, it has a rubbery crunch and a natural shampoo pours out — locals have been known to use just that to wash their hair; no other ingredients necessary.
There are a lot of good reasons to visit Maui, but a hike through the Maunalei Rainforest is one of the best. If you’re still not sold, check out the views from the near-summit (mountaintops are sacred in Hawaii, the path stops just a few feet below) in the gallery!
This trip was paid for by Kapalua Resort & The Ritz-Carlton, but the views expressed within the post are 100% my own.
