The Montgomery Zoo features 500 animals representing over 150 species - all in a barrier free, natural environment and divided into continents featuring Australian, Asian, African, and North American realms. Take a rail tour through each realm on McMounty 102, the Zoo's train, and stop by our Gift Shop to find that perfect souvenir.

Eastern Shore Art Center is a non-profit arts organization located in downtown Fairhope, Alabama. The Art Center houses four galleries with exhibits that change monthly, as well a gallery featuring member artists' work for sale. The Academy offers a wide variety of classes and workshops in five spacious studios. Classes are offered on a quarterly basis to both adults and children.

This is an Attachment Parenting oriented group of parents who gather together with their children in the Birmingham area weekly. Workshops are fun, casual, parent-child interactive, and currently designed for toddlers through preschoolers, with younger siblings welcomed and arrangements that can be made to help older siblings feel at home, too.

Located outside of Huntsville, Burritt on the Mountain is a living history museum, showcasing aspects of farm life from 1850 and 1900. Living history interpreters, dressed in period clothing, recreate the diversity of farm life allowing you to become involved through lively conversation, demonstration, and hands-on activities. Also features the Burritt Mansion and many nature trails.

The mission of the Paul W. Bryant Museum is to collect, preserve and exhibit items, and to disseminate information relating to the sports history of the University of Alabama.

Located in Birmingham, this three-story sports museum captures the athletic achievements of Alabama's greatest champions who have made their mark in American sports history. Featuring over 4,500 pieces of memorabilia . . . see Bo Jackson's Heisman Trophy, Olympic Gold Medals, Bear Bryant's Houndstooth hat, and more. Start your tour in the 75-seat theater and then test your sports trivia knowledge on the interactive touch-screens.

The Center is a multi-purpose facility that includes Imagination Place (a children's museum), three visual art galleries, a 72 foot model of 1948 Gadsden with working trains, an art studio, and two performance halls which are home to the Etowah Youth Orchestras and the Kings of Swing and the Gadsden Symphony. The Center also has a full service restaurant. Special programs include reservation accepted guided and narrated tours, field trips, planetarium shows, special children's activities, conc...

Baldwin County Heritage Museum takes a look at Baldwin County history from 1900 to 1950. Explore the importance of agriculture and ethnic diversity in its settlement. The museum features a large hall displaying farm machinery, vehicles, and tools and a smaller gallery for exhibits on everyday life in the county. Collections include documents, photographs, old buildings, farm machinery and vehicles, tools, utensils, household and mercantile furnishings, and clothing.

2702 Herren St. Dadeville, Alabama 36853 Phone: 256-825-6616 Many, many homeschooling items, including new and used books, curricula, unit studies, and more.

Located in Athens, the Alabama Veteran's Museum was established to preserve the memories of our veterans by creating a permanent resting place for artifacts and memorabilia. Artifacts from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, W.W.I , W.W.II, Korean, Viet Nam, Desert Storm and the present "Operation Enduring Freedom" are displayed. The library has close to 1000 books and 160 videos, with the majority available for loan.

The Dauphin Island Sea Lab, founded by the State Legislature in 1971, is Alabama's marine education and research center. Located on the eastern tip of a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, the Sea Lab offers educational programs, the Estuarium, a public aquarium, and more.

Support group for homeschoolers and potential homeschoolers in the Pinson, Trussville, Center Point and surrounding areas in Alabama. Offers area park days, field trips, book swaps, clubs, information, support, and more.

HS4RKids Social Group is a group for home schooling families who would like a place to post social activities for home schoolers that they have planned or others have planned for home schoolers in the North Alabama area. Offers play dates, field trips, fun days, and seasonal/holiday parties.

The new museum, completed in the spring of 2002, is now the largest art museum along the Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Tampa. It is located in Mobile's Langan Park, just two miles from Interstate 65. Offers a permanent collection of more than 6,000 works of art, with American art of the 1930s-40s, work by southern artists, art of the French Barbizon School, contemporary American crafts, late 19th century American art, and Asian, African and European works.

The Alabama Museum of Natural History, located in Smith Hall, the first building to be built on the University of Alabama campus in the twentieth century, is one of the finest excaples of Classical Revival architecture in the region. Experience the natural diversity of Alabama through exhibits from the Age of Dinosaurs, the Coal Age, and the Ice Age. View extensive collections of geology, zoology, mineralogy, paleontology, ethnology, history, and photography. Explore the Alabama Museum of Natura...

If a picture's worth 1,000 words, this book--with its hundreds of breathtaking photos of America's National Parks--is a well-stocked bookstore. Accompanied by the words of poet laureate Mark Strand, These Rare Lands is a perfect coffee-table book for anyone who has enjoyed the wonders of nature's wildest places. From a storm over Sequoia National Park in California to the otherworldly stalactites and stalagmites of New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns and an Atlantic sunset in Maine's Acadia, this is a book that draws you back again and again. Photographer Stan Jorstad's obvious love of nature comes through in the thoughtful approach he takes to his life's work, contained in the pages of These Rare Lands.

Educational Travel on a Shoestring shows parents how they can help their children learn–and have a blast–while traveling. From researching destinations to sharing activities that both teach and entertain, this priceless guide offers practical information for parents who want to have more fun with their kids, build closer family ties, and enjoy richer educational experiences–all without spending a fortune.

What makes a trip to a national park so wonderful? For starters, America's national park system is more diverse than any park system in the world. You can stroll the seashore at Olympic National Park in Washington or Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, climb craggy mountains in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, or go underground into the world's largest cave system at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. You can marvel at the largest canyon on Earth (Grand Canyon National Park), hike among the planet's largest collection or rock arches (Arches National Park), explore the lowest and hottest place in the Western Hemisphere (Death Valley National Park), or wander a realm of forests and misty mountains (Great Smoky Mountains National Park).

And these are just a few of your park options.

America's National Parks For Dummies gives you guidance to decide which park is for you, when to go, and what to see when you reach your destination. This guide will help you plan the best trip imaginable, whether you are

• An inexperienced traveler looking for guidance in determining whether to take a trip to a national park and how to plan for it
• An experienced traveler who has yet to explore the national park system and wants expert advice when you finally get a chance to enjoy one
• Any traveler who doesn't like big, thick travel guides that list every single hotel, restaurant, or attraction, but instead looks for a book that focuses on the places that will provide the best or most unique park experience

America's National Parks For Dummies is user-friendly and organized in a logical fashion. Each park is broken down in a chapter that delves into the nitty-gritty of trip planning and highlights, including tips for

• Planning your trip by touching on the diversity of the park system, explaining some of your vacation options, and telling you when parks are the most (and least) crowded
• Ironing out the details by describing how you get to the parks and how to find your way around after you arrive
• Exploring America's national parks by giving you the lowdown on 15 of the best parks, detailing things like each park's wild kingdom, the best spots for memorable photographs, and a few safety issues

The pages of this book resemble a great long-distance hike – you never know what's around the next bend in the trail. So throw on a backpack, take a swig of water, and get ready to explore the national parks!

Now in its fourth edition, the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America is the ultimate birder’s field guide. Sturdy, portable, and easy-to-use, it features the most complete information available on every bird species known to North America. This revised edition features 250 completely updated range maps, new plumage and species classification information, specially commissioned full-color illustrations, and a superb new index that allows birders in the field to quickly identify a species.

The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Fourth Edition will continue to be a bestseller among the fastest-growing sector in the U.S. travel market—the nearly 25 million people who travel each year specifically to observe wild birds.

Stand amid soaring Douglas fir in the great hall of Glacier Park Lodge or sit in the setting sun and gaze into the Grand Canyon at El Tovar. This beautiful gift book will transport you to the majestic lodges of our national parks to relive the glory of past vacations or plan adventures anew. This book and the PBS television series of the same title (to air in spring 2002) take armchair travelers into these architectural wonders and explore the surrounding natural beauty of our national parks. Lodges, wildlife, and stunning vistas are showcased in 175 full-color and black-and-white photographs, along with historical documents from the PBS series. In his introduction, Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, offers a call to preserve this national heritage, and a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book go toward the rehabilitation of these magnificent buildings.

Events include monthly living history programs (the French period and the early American period), monthly meetings of the Historic Blacksmiths, French and Indian War Encampment (held annually in April and re-enacts the time period of the war between the French and the British), Alabama Frontier Days (held annually in November and depicts life on the frontier from 1717 to 1820).

From stunning mountain ranges to arid expanses of desert, America has been blessed with an incredibly diverse land -- and the vision to protect it for our and future generations to enjoy. These lands are ours to view, wander, learn from, and revel in. America's National Parks captures all that is great about all fifty-six parks in the national park system. It also gives interesting, easy-to-understand background on the geological and ecological forces that continue to make each national park so worthy of protection.

Nature lovers will be captivated by gorgeous photos of landforms, flora, and fauna. Families will appreciate the information that is sure to enhance vacations at the parks. And visitors to any of the country's national parks will forever treasure this book as a memento of past visits and an inspiration for future ones.

Unlike any other book published on national parks, America's National Parks is a must-have for anyone who relishes America's natural wonders and wants to learn more about the powerful forces that created them.

The concept of the national park is an American contribution to world civilization, and it remains a defining characteristic of our country. From the rocky shore of Maine's Acadia to the barren crater and lush rain forest of Hawaii's Haleakala, America's national beauty is celebrated and preserved in its national parks. This book retells the history of each park, describes its most important features and wildlife, and reproduces its gorgeous scenery in full-color photographs that will enthrall armchair travelers and entice others to lace up their hiking boots and reach for their sporting gear. Organized by region of the country, it includes well-known parks like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Glacier as well as lesser-known destinations like Shenandoah, Biscayne, and Kenai Fjords.

For tourists, family campers, and serious lovers of the outdoors, here is a big, beautiful, color-illustrated book that describes more than 50 national parks, sites, and seashores that stretch from Cape Hatteras on the Atlantic coast to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Yosemite in California, Haleakala in Hawaii, and Glacier Bay in Alaska. More than 400 breathtaking photographs capture the beauty and atmosphere of each site, and 54 color maps show each park's location and major features. Visitor information panels give important details on access points, accommodations, and recreational activities such as hiking, rafting, birdwatching, and fishing. Here is a wonderful volume that will inspire plans for trips and evoke marvelous memories of past experiences in America's great outdoors.