Pyramid Lake, an hour’s drive outside Reno, Nevada, is a fascinating spot.

For starters, the lake appears like an oasis; a shimmering, naturally occurring body of saltwater in the middle of the desert. The most astonishing attraction: Its namesake, the pyramid-shaped tufa rock formation that juts up from the water.

Fishing is a popular pastime at Nevada’s Pyramid Lake. Photo by Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.

The lake is the biggest remnant of ancient Lake Lahontan, the colossal inland sea that once covered most of Nevada. It’s also an incredibly significant sacred spot in the history of the Paiute Indian tribe, members of which have lived in the area for many generations.

Pyramid Lake is part of the National Scenic Byways program and is the only byway in the country located entirely within a tribal reservation. In 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama designated the area as the first Preserve America Tribal Community in Nevada.

Wildlife lovers will appreciate the area for other reasons. Anaho Island, located in the center of the lake, is the breeding ground for one of the largest colonies of American white pelicans in the U.S. It has had National Wildlife Refuge distinction since 1913. The lake also is one of the only places in the world where you’ll find the ancient Cui-ui fish and the world-famous Lahontan cutthroat trout. Other species include the Lahontan Tui chub, the Tahoe Sucker and the Sacramento Perch.

(To fish, you’ll need to buy a license from the Paiute.)

For a crash-course in the region, check out the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Museum and Visitors Center. This multi-purpose museum features several exhibits and displays about the tribe’s culture and history, the natural history of the lake and why the Paiute people hold it in such esteem.

To learn more about Nevada, click here.

Paso Robles, nestled in the Central California mountains between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is a great place to experience the American farm. Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite summertime destinations in the area. There are dozens of other farms, too; if you go, be sure to give yourself at least a weekend to squeeze it all in.

Central Coast Lavender Farm
This 7-acre lavender farm grows several varieties of lavender, using the sweet-smelling flower to produce such soothing products as bath and body oils, lotions, bath salts, candles and more. Visitors are welcome to stroll among the fields and pick their own. Self-guided tours also are available; on these, you can read all about how the lavender is grown and distilled.

The authentic, circa-1880 stagecoach at Harris Stage Lines is only one of the attractions at farms in and around Paso Robles, California. Photo by Harris Stage Lines.

Harris Stage Lines
The past is alive and well at this family-owned Paso Robles horse farm. The main attraction: an authentic 1860s Western Concord stagecoach, which visitors can ride around the ranch. Elsewhere on site, guests can try their hands at horseshoe pitching. End the day with a true cowboy meal complete with beef tri-tip, barbecued chicken, ranch beans and more.

The Abalone Farm
Yes, they’re really growing abalone at this Cayucos “farm.” Visitors to the facility get a crash course in the farm’s process of growing abalone and the sustainable aquaculture movement in general. Interested guests can sample the mollusk as well – pounded and breaded appropriately, it tastes like fried calamari.

Crossroads Ranch
With more than 10 years of experience as award-winning alpaca livestock breeders, the folks at Crossroads Ranch know their camelids. Visitors to this Paso Robles spot can partake in educational classes to learn about the herd of alpacas grazing on this scenic ranch and how fleeces are shorn to produce warm, sumptuously soft textiles.

Happy Acres Family Farm
This family-friendly goat dairy farm in Templeton offers visitors the opportunity to bottle-feed baby goats, milk momma goats and blend their own goat cheese. Guests also are invited to sample handmade lotions and other all-natural products, and to try some fresh goat milk ice cream.

For more information about Paso Robles, click here. For more on California, click here.

The 3.7-acre Kelly’s Whitewater Park, located in Cascade, Idaho, might be one of the finest and least-heralded water sport destinations in the West.

What makes it cool? For starters, it opened as Idaho’s first whitewater park in 2008, and it remains the state’s only one. Second, the park comprises five sets of rapids along an otherwise quiet stretch of the Payette River, which runs through town. Perhaps most important, the privately funded park located about 80 miles north of Boise is free and open to the public.

Visitors can ride the rapids with by kayak, canoe, raft, tube, surfboard or stand-up paddleboard. An assortment of such watercraft for half- and full-day rental is available from local outfitters such as Gear & Grind.

Paddlers come from all over the world to experience the rapids in Kelly’s Whitewater Park, in Cascade, Idaho. Photo by Kelly’s Whitewater Park.

Later this year, in early July, the park will host the 2012 USA Freestyle Kayaking National Championships.

But of course Kelly’s is much more than just a paddling hotspot. The Pickards have set up a modest Welcome Center, museum and art gallery in a structure near a bend in the river. Visitors can walk “The Strand,” a 2.5-mile trail that follows the banks of the Payette through the park. Every summer, the park also sponsors a kayaking school for kids ages 5-12.

For those who prefer different types of activities, spend some time in Cascade hiking along the flat Crown Point Railroad Grade Trail in Lake Cascade State Park or attend the annual Valley County Fair & Rodeo, a rollicking event held in early August.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the park's name, it was named after Kelly Brennan, a former local who died in a car crash at age 23. Brennan’s sister and brother-in-law, Kristina and Mark Pickard, founded the park and run it today. A statue of Kelly keeps her memory close.

For more information about Idaho, click here.

The Birds of Vermont Museum, located in Huntington, Vermont, opened for the season earlier this month to celebrate two notable milestones: its 25th year in business and its 500th wooden carved bird.

This is big news for a small-town facility, the brainchild of 92-year-old founder and director Bob Spear, who has carved just about every specimen himself.

All told, since he opened the museum in 1987, Spear estimates he has spent more than 24,000 hours carving. His goals: To create representations of the species that make Vermont their home, and to raise awareness of these species along the way.

Carvings like this one – a replica of a Common Loon – are the main attraction at the Birds of Vermont Museum. Photo by Birds of Vermont Museum.

Visiting the museum offers an immersion in two subjects: birding and wood-carving.

All of the birds – representing 259 species in all – are life-size and biologically accurate, a fantastic way to study the species up close. And the ability to peer through a window and watch Spear carving in his workshop provides insight into modern and traditional carving techniques. There’s even a viewing window that looks out on a 100-acre bird sanctuary with bird feeders; sometimes live birds swing by to grab a snack or rest for a spell.

No wonder that in 2009, Yankee magazine named the place New England’s “Best Specialty Museum.”

Throughout the coming summer, Spear and his colleagues have scheduled slideshows, bird walks, carving demonstrations, festivals and other events to celebrate the museum’s anniversary. For more information about these events, click here.

The facility also offers picnic tables for families who wish to visit and share a meal outside.

Birds of Vermont Museum is open seven days a week through Oct. 31, and is open by appointment at all other times. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $3 for kids ages 3-17. For more about this unique facility, click here. For more about the state of Vermont, click here.

Speed freaks, listen up – a handful of new zipline facilities across America provide the perfect backdrop for pulse-pounding rushes of excitement this summer.

In particular, parks in Ohio, Florida and New Hampshire are serving up big fun.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the sport, ziplining uses gravity to propel participants as they “zip” along a cable with the help of a high-speed pulley. In most cases, zipline “tours” move from one tree-top platform to the next, transporting adventurers across a finite area of forest.

They’re exhilarating. They’re super-fast. And here, in no particular order, are the new attractions.

Ozone Zipline Adventures, Ohio
Ozone Zipline Adventures, which opened last year at YMCA Camp Kern, in southwest Ohio, is the largest zipline canopy tour in the Midwest. The new River Tour features two new zips that cross the Little Miami River at heights of more than 200 feet, connecting YMCA Camp Kern to Fort Ancient State Park. During the facility’s Night Zips – held once a month – thrill-seekers can zoom through the forest by the light of the full moon.

If you like going fast, you’ll love the experience at Ozone Zipline Adventures, in Ohio. Photo by Ozone Zipline Adventures.

Zipline Safari, Florida
Participants reach speeds of up to 30 miles per hour on the Zipline Safari, the latest offering from Florida EcoSafaris in central Florida. Zip across a network of cables designed to send thrill-seekers flying through pine flatwoods and over forested wetlands. The area is home to native Florida wildlife including alligators, black bears, white tail deer and the endangered Florida panther – hence the “safari” theme. From new viewing platforms high above the treetops, guests have commanding views of the entire 4,700-acre Forever Florida wildlife conservation area.

Treetop Canopy Tour, New Hampshire
This central New Hampshire course, the first of its kind in New England, is located inside White Mountain National Forest and includes six separate zips ranging from 150 to 1,000 feet long. It traverses three suspension bridges, including one 60 feet high. There’s even a new suspended log bridge – crossing this makes even the most seasoned heights-fiends wobbly-kneed. The zips and obstacles get progressively faster and longer, ending with the Zip Seven, a 40 mph optional free-fall. Put simply, ziplining doesn’t get much better than this.

May 2012 is lining up to be a big month for witnessing celestial events in remote locales.

First, this past weekend, star-gazers were able to marvel at the “Supermoon,” a phenomenon during which the full moon appears bigger and brighter than at any other time of year.

Later this month – May 20, to be exact – the moon will be part of another rare spectacle: a solar eclipse. During this year’s eclipse, the moon will cover a significant portion (more than 95 percent) of the sun. It’s the first solar eclipse in the U.S. in 18 years.

A solar eclipse certainly is a sight to behold; witness the next one May 20 from one of the West’s national parks. Photo by Thinkstock.

Due to the earth’s rotation, this particular eclipse won’t be visible everywhere. Full views will be best from a swath of the Western U.S., including California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and the western part of Texas. The best places in these states to watch: places with little to no light pollution, such as national parks.

With this in mind, national parks in those six states have put together a number of eclipse-oriented programs for the special night.

These programs differ widely. At Arches National Park in Utah, for instance, visitors can make their own solar-eclipse pinhole viewer. At Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, astronomers sponsored by the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association will share their solar telescopes with the public both during the eclipse and after dark for a one-night Star Party.

Interested tourists also can take a “planet hike,” provided they can find a long-enough trail on which to do it.

However you decide to commemorate this event, remember never to look directly at the sun. Recommended and approved solar-viewing devices include solar-filter glasses or welder’s goggles rated 13 or higher; solar telescopes or solar binoculars; telescopes, cameras and binoculars with approved solar filters; and pinhole projectors.

If you like country music as much as I do, you’ll love the Patsy Cline Historic House, a relatively new museum in rural Virginia that pays tribute to the iconic country singer and songwriter.

The home, located in a residential neighborhood in the tiny town of Winchester, was where Cline lived with her mother and siblings between 1948 and 1953. Technically, it opened as a museum in August 2011.

Taken at face value, the white house with a narrow porch is noteworthy for the way it has been furnished – it looks just as it did when Cline lived there. Seen for what it represents, however, the facility is much more important; the icon lived there longer than she lived at any other house in the Winchester and Nashville areas, and she returned to it intermittently until her singing career began in 1957.

The Patsy Cline Historic House, in Winchester, Virginia, is worth a trip – especially if you’re a country music buff. Photo by Celebrating Patsy Cline.

The home also has significance in many of Cline’s most famous songs; she lived there between the ages of 16 and 21, a period of her life that she references in tunes such as “Walkin’ After Midnight,” “Crazy” and others.

(Some context: In 1960, Cline became the first solo female singer to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry; in 1973, she became the first woman to be inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame.)

Considering how new the facility is, the experience of visiting is understated. Admission ($8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $4 for kids ages 11-18) includes a 45-minute guided tour, during which docents inform visitors about Cline’s childhood, her music career and her death in a plane crash at the age of 30.

In the future (i.e., when funding is available), organizers say the house will sport a pavilion and gardens out back. The gardens will be reminiscent of those that Cline and her mother planted during their tenure on-site.

For more about the house, click here or here. For more about Virginia in general, click here.

The winemaking region surrounding the Finger Lakes, in upstate New York, is known for light reds and dry whites. Wine lovers hail the area for another type of wine, too: ice wine, a sweet dessert wine (it actually originated during Roman times). Locals say the Finger Lakes is the birthplace of ice wine in the U.S.

Still, not all “native” ice wines are created equal. Here’s a rundown of some of my favorites, and what to expect from the tasting rooms that pour them.

Casa Larga Vineyards
Casa Larga’s ice wines have won dozens of awards over the past 10 years. For me, the Fiori Cabernet Franc Ice Wine ($75 a bottle) stands out for its ruby-red hue and extraordinary aromas of fresh picked strawberries. A visit to the winery affords you the opportunity to taste on a patio overlooking one of the vineyards. Plan to stay a while.

The views and wines at Casa Larga, in New York's Finger Lakes region, are second to none. Photo by Casa Larga.

Knapp Winery
The vibe is much more laid back at Knapp, where everyday tastings occur in the cellar, amid barrels of aging wine. This winery’s Vidal Blanc Ice Wine ($24.95) features rich flavors of honey, dried apricot and mandarin orange with a hint of caramel. The 2010 vintage, picked just before Christmas that year and released in November 2011, is the one you can buy today.

Sheldrake Point
Sheldrake Point Winery sits on 44 acres that overlook Cayuga Lake, and visitors can arrive by car, bicycle or boat (there are eight dock slips on the lake). Folks motor in from all over the place to try the Riesling Ice Wine ($50), which boasts sensuous aromas of mango and marmalade, as well as flavors of peach, lemon and orange peel.

Other wineries in the area that make and serve ice wine include Inspire Moore Winery, Heron Hill Winery, Billsboro Winery and King Ferry Winery. For more about the Finger Lakes region, click here or here. For more about New York, click here.

In spring, the countryside near Collinsville, Oklahoma, comes to life as a patchwork of farmland. One of the best ways to experience the scenery isfrom above, in a hot-air balloon.

Floating 50 to 100 feet above the ground, you’ll be able to look down on miles upon miles of fertile fields, barns, marshlands and a host of migrating birds that frequent the area at this time of year. On calm days, as your aircraft passes over small ponds and lakes, the water acts as a mirror, reflecting the image of the colorful balloon perfectly.

Starting around this time of year, hot-air balloons are a common sight in the sky above Collinsville, Oklahoma. Photo by Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department.

A handful of outfitters in the greater Tulsa area offer hot-air balloon trips that vary in length from about 45 to 90 minutes a pop. One of these outfitters – Skyway Balloons – offers flight instruction; owner Wil Lapointe is a certified flight instructor.

In late summer – early August, to be exact – the nearby town of Claremont welcomes dozens of balloons for the Gatesway International Balloon Festival and Oklahoma Hot-Air Balloon Championship. This year’s shindig will be the 17^th annual event.

Regardless of when you visit, after your time in the sky, head northeast toward Oologah Lake. The waterway is a manmade reservoir with ample fishing, hiking and hunting access. It also happens sit next to Dog Iron Ranch, the birthplace of actor Will Rogers, arguably the most famous Oklahoman in history. (The house is open to the public and boasts a modest museum.)

For more information about Oklahoma, click here.

My friends in Indiana consider Turkey Run State Park one of their home state’s best parks. Why? In a nutshell, diversity. The park, located about 65 miles west of Indianapolis, offers everything from hiking and horseback riding to kayaking and overnighting in a historic lodge. Here are three of my favorite ways to enjoy Turkey Run and the surrounding area.

Tromp through ravines
Sandstone gorges and lush ravines characterize the 14 miles of trails in Turkey Run State Park. My personal favorite, the 3-mile Big Tree Trail, ambles past a bunch of sycamores and several huge black walnut trees on its way to a covered bridge, which it spans. My friends also like the 1.7-mile Ladders Trail, which traverses wooden ladders as it winds between the steep walls of Rocky and Bear hollows.

Hikers stop to admire the view in Indiana’s Turkey Run State Park. Photo by Indiana Department of Natural Resources

‘Rough it’ in style
So what if most of the 79 rooms and cabins at the Turkey Run Inn are basic and plain? The property, which dates back to 1919, today blends history and modernity in a way that fosters the feeling of a true getaway. There’s an indoor pool. And a fireplace (in the all-wood lobby, no less). Even the on-site restaurant is pretty highly regarded.

Tubing Sugar Creek
Sugar Creek is one of the fastest (and rightfully popular) tubing destinations in Indiana, and a number of outfitters (located outside the park) rent tubes and other equipment for visitors to conquer the water. These outfitters get customers onto the creek from one of two public access points: the Brush Creek canoe ramp and the Cox Ford canoe ramp. Half- and full-day trips start at about $39 per person.

For more information about Turkey Run State Park, click here. For general information about Indiana, click here.