Getting the flavor of...Lincoln’s life in Washington, D.C.

Lincoln’s life in Washington, D.C.

Ford’s Theatre has “opened the curtain on a compelling new drama,” said Michael O’Sullivan in The Washington Post. Its star? Abraham Lincoln. The building in which the 16th president was assassinated has been newly renovated to offer a clear picture of his tenure in Washington. Visitors enter through a period rail car, very much like the one Lincoln rode to his first inauguration, in 1861. The exhibit then traces the milestones of his presidency, from the Gettysburg Address to the Emancipation Proclamation, and finally ends with an “hour-by-hour countdown” of that fateful day in April 1865. Visitors will learn how Lincoln escaped an earlier assassination plot in Baltimore; tour a facsimile of Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse, where John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators met; and see the pint-size pistol that ended the life of the “man who transformed the office of the presidency, through peerless oratory and sheer force of will.”

Contact: Fords.org

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Utah’s pinnacle park

Bryce Canyon National Park will capture your imagination, said Vera Marie Badertscher in National Geographic Traveler. This park in southern Utah forms part of the Colorado Plateau, which includes such other natural masterpieces as the Grand Canyon. The sweeping canyon at the park’s center—known as the Bryce Amphitheater—is the pièce de résistance. “Clusters of limestone-and-siltstone spires” sit at its bottom, looking like “a crowd of people—tall, short, skinny, chubby.” Paiute Indians believed the pinkish-red formations, known as hoodoos, were actually people frozen by a “mischievous coyote.” The scenery at Bryce Canyon won’t be the “only thing that takes your breath away.” The altitude here varies from 6,000 to 9,000 feet, and as the terrain changes, it presents startling visions “at every viewpoint and every hour.” Gaze at the stars or catch sunrise at Inspiration Point, when the sun “glows through” the cliffs in the early hours.

Contact: Nps.gov/brca