The Great Outdoors

Hi All,

Welcome back from the weekend. Hope you had a nice one - boy they do go quickly don't they?

On to another week of reference, questions, blogging and more...

Today we are going to dive back in with 2 nature type sites so that you can enjoy the great outdoors once this crummy, rainy, cloudy weather passes on Wednesday or Thursday.

Have you ever visited Enature.com? I didn't think so, but if you do want to visit the site click here. So you ask, 'what Mr. Blogger is Enature about? What does the site do for me?' Indeed, a good question since the site claims to 'Bring nature to life.'

All well and good - and the site has fairly comprehensive Wildlife Guides, users can use the 'Ask an Expert' feature to have questions answered and there is a helpful Blog. Only issue with the site is that there is a bit too much advertising. For example the site has a Ringtones link and there are some advertisements on the top of the many pages. Interesting section on the site is the ParkGuide link that has information on over 300 National Parks and Wildlife Refuges.

Now, I didn't want to have this as the only site mentioned today; so I figured I would pair it with
a site called Gorp.com. GORP is an acronym for the 'Great Outdoors Recreation Pages' and is a part of the Away Network which helps travelers plan and choose future vacations. I am not soliciting, selling for GORP - I'm just mentioning it because it is an interesting travel/outdoors website.

In any event, Gorp is one stop shopping for 'things outdoors. For example, there are links (and guides) to Parks, Weekender Guides (organized by state - very easy and intuitive to use), Hiking Guides and Camping Guides. There is a Gear link also on the site - click here. I suspect now you realize why I wanted to pair up Gorp with Enature now? They kind of go hand-in-hand with each other and complement one another...

Upon your first visit to the site, you might want to look on the right side of the screen for the Park Finder feature. This helps you find a park using various criteria (for example you can find Parks by state or region, and by activity like campling, climbing, biking, backpacking, sailing, paddling and scenic drives among others) and more. Results are easily read and have direct links to the particular park/forest/monument that fits the criteria you searched for. Users can then click on the park name and link to an article that discusses the event searched for.

Interesting site - nothing earth shaking, but definitely worth a look-see for travelers who like the outdoors.

I want to mention one other good site for the 'great outdoors'. Trails.com claims to be 'Your guide to the outdoors'. Indeed it is. On Trails.com users can find Topo Maps, Forums (Q&A type bulletin boards with long running discussions on a great variety of outdoorsy topics). Click here to visit Trails.com. Click here to visit a hike on the Connetquot River in Suffolk - just to see what the site shows when you find a hike. Users can also find a Trail Guide, Photos, User Reviews of the hike and GPS info (in beta currently) on the site.

Neat stuff for those who like the outdoors. So now that you have the maps, directions, information about the hike or the national park that you want to visit...all we need is some good weather. I can't wait for the end of the week.

Regards and I hope you make it outdoors before the winter comes along!
Stu