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Birds perch on cone-shaped termite mounds, blue-winged kookaburras hee-haw in the paperbark forest, wallabies' big hind feet sound plop-plop-plop on the path linking the cabins to the conference center, pool and restaurant. [...] raise the sunshade in any of the 15 freestanding units, and the rock -- now known by its aboriginal name, Uluru -- is center view, six miles distant.

In July and August 1943 during World War II, the spire, the tallest structure in the harbor area, became a reference point for British and American air raids on the city's shipyards and U-boat facilities. In what Eva Rogge, a Bremen tour guide, called a miracle, St. Peter's and the 600-year-old Gothic City Hall and 1404 statue of the knight Roland next to it on the market square survived repeated Allied air raids that destroyed 65 percent of the city and razed adjacent structures.

[...] many birds funnel through this area where the Central and Mississippi migratory flyways converge, that it's impossible to not see fliers specific to the Rio Grande Valley and others you'd have to travel through several states and Canada to inspect as closely. Cruising the bay Scarlet's Fins to Feathers nature cruise into South Bay pauses at isolated shorelines where privacy-loving plovers, least sandpipers, cormorants, night herons, spoonbills and more are near enough to the idling boat that it's possible to study their identifying marks.

History, military strategies, personalities, what to visit (with driving directions for road-trippers), and where to stay and eat are described for destinations (major and minor) both North and South.

An even bigger, pastel beak snatches it, and the triumphant bird turns and waddles away, playing pitch-and-catch with its prize, its flat feet slapping the bare ground. After a two-hour flight from the mainland, our passenger jet lands at the airstrip on Baltra, first built in World War II by Americans protecting the Panama Canal.

End with at least a day at Mobile, because it would be a mistake to miss the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center, where kids can perform virtual heart surgery or design a roller coaster; the splendidly renovated Battle House Hotel; the Mobile Carnival Museum, where robes of Mardi Gras royalty glitter; the rebuilt, 18th-century Fort Conde; the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park; and the good eats on Dauphin Street. About eight city blocks are fringed with shops ranging from In the Company of Angels, which specializes in seraphs, to the marvelous jumble of Fairhope Hardware, where serious fix-it folks can find what they need and the rest of us will navigate the untidy aisles and love spotting things we haven't seen for years plus a lone boat seat beached behind a batch of rocking chairs.

[...] the \"Second-Hand Food & Drinks\" sign outside a Belgian shop, the \"Congestion\" warning beside a long and empty highway in Oregon, and a Tokyo eatery's cheerful \"If you eat this restaurant you can take chopsticks home as a present.\"

Staff keeps close watch on maintenance, assisted by the nonprofit Partners in Palo Duro Canyon Foundation, which last year supplied new beds and mattresses to the rim and Cow Camp cabins. Each rim cabin has two rooms, at least one fireplace, a picnic table, grill, heating and cooling unit, microwave, small refrigerator, and toilet and shower.

To be front row center on the canyon -- the second-largest in the nation -- you book one of the three cabins on the rim.The trio of rustic, cliff-top lodgings are hot tickets during the run of the musical drama, favorite places to overnight just minutes from the outdoor Pioneer Amphitheater where Texas is staged. Each rim cabin has two rooms, at least one fireplace, a picnic table, grill, heating and cooling unit, microwave, small refrigerator, and toilet and shower.

Lucinda Wierenga, an award-winning international competitor in sand sculpture and a teacher of the moist art, lives up to her nickname. The Gulf breeze toys with her shoulder-length, salt-and-pepper hair as she declares the nascent tower tall enough.