Mammoth Mountain Bike Park To Open In Time For Memorial Day

Good news for mountain bikers looking to hit a trail this long Memorial Day Weekend. The fabulous Mammoth Mountain Bike Park will open to riders this Saturday, kicking off another great summer season with a variety of trail options for riders of all skill levels.

Located in California‘s scenic Sierra Nevada range, Mammoth Mountain is a year-round outdoor playground for those who like to get away from it all. In the winter it offers some of the premiere skiing in all of North America and in the summer the bike park opens for a completely different type of fun. The park offers more than 80 miles of trail that includes cross-country, single-track routes with breathtaking views and adrenaline-inducing downhill courses for the more adventurous amongst us.

Mammoth Mountain’s trails offer gentle riding for beginners and more technical and leg-straining options for the experienced mountain biker. When the park opens on Saturday at least 12 of its trails will be ready for action. If you’re already familiar with what the park has to offer, the list of trails that will be open include: Downtown, UpTown, Big Ring, Paper Route, Juniper, Timber Ridge, Shotgun, Lower Pipeline, Lower Bullet Lakes Trail and Pioneer Practice Loop.

To celebrate the opening of the park for the summer, Mammoth is also offering an outstanding deal for this weekend. Just $69 will get you both lodging and a bike pass good for unlimited riding. You’ll have a hard time getting on this course for less cash than that anytime soon. What a great way to kick off the summer!

Memorial Day Travel Ideas: Consider The Source, No Cheating

Memorial Day weekend begins Friday, May 24, and marks the start of the summer travel season. One of the most popular times of the year to travel, finding a destination that fulfills our three-day weekend dreams can take some work. Considering a visit to the Upper East Coast? Maybe not such a good idea to visit beaches ravaged by last October’s hurricane. Or is it?

If you are looking for a quiet break from your normal routine, avoid busy places like big cities, theme parks and major tourist attractions. Reverse that decision if daily life rides a cubicle and getting lost in a crowd is required. We could do a lot of research, compile lists of possible destinations and make up budgets to get the plans – or we could cheat.

Earlier this month, Kayak released the results of 100 million monthly searches made so far this year. These are numbers that represent places Kayak users are actually thinking about going as opposed to destinations promoted by airlines, hotels, tour operators or cruise lines.In the results, Kayak saw searches cut in half for Atlantic City, New Jersey, a top Memorial Day destination last year. That makes sense: thank you hurricane Sandy. Digging a bit deeper though we find a different scene.

“Despite the vast destruction caused by Superstorm Sandy, all of our State parks and beaches on Long Island are expected to be open for New Yorkers and visitors by Memorial Day weekend,” assured Governor Andrew Cuomo in a LongIslandPress article.

Your mother was right, cheating is wrong.

Instead, consider a variety of sources and read between the lines. Look down deep inside and ask, “Where do I really want to go?” The answer might take you no further than your own back yard.


Witness to War: important reading this Memorial Day


Every Memorial Day weekend we remember the soldiers who fought for the United States. For those of us who have never experienced war, however, it’s hard to understand their experiences.

The Witness to War program is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the wartime memories of veterans and helping to give civilians a better idea of what they went through. As their website says, “These are the stories of scared 18 and 19 year olds thrust into circumstances of such intensity and violence, that they became the defining moments of their lives.”

Some are video interviews, like Hap Chandler’s thoughts on his involvement in the Dresden bombing, and Jim Paine’s harrowing memory of being the only survivor when his Jeep ran over a German mine. There are also written memoirs and wartime diaries. Some are short anecdotes while others are more extensive. Tucker Smallwood gives us 23 pages of his gripping Vietnam memoir.

All of the stories Witness to War collects will be donated to the Library of Congress Veterans History Project and other non-profit organizations willing to spread their message.

There’s plenty of reading here and a lot of food for thought. So sometime this Memorial Day, take a break from the cookouts and TV and check this out.

[Photo of American soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge courtesy Wikimedia Commons]